La Motivation d'apprendre la langue française

So I just wrote this blog and it deleted itself so...

Yes, I started my french course yesterday and it was GREAT. It's at a private language school at the end of my road which is called Amira. There are meant to be 8 people in a class, there are only 4 in ours, and only 2 of us were there yesterday which meant that it was pretty much like individual tuition!

I'm just feeling so motivated to learn, a big part of that is obviously because I'm living here and having to speak French everyday and so all of a sudden it's become really important to actually try to learn. Also since being here, I've found that my language skills are really not all they're cracked up to be lol... which is hard! French has always been my best subject at school, and I'm at a university where (I like to think) I'm getting kind of top end of the results, rather than the bottom. (If i'd gone to heriot-watt in edinburgh, it would've been the other way round). Um, so yes to get here and to suddenly just be bumbling away, talking with the language skills of maybe a 4 year old (if that)... it's quite humbling.... and also quite motivating!!

But I think what is motivating me more, is what I need the language FOR. I can't help but feel if I were just here as an erasmus student or language assistant, I would still not be so motivated to learn, because I'd only need the language to be able to get by, and to survive the year! (I'm not a very self-motivated sort of person), but the fact that I'm working with the GBU and IFES here, means that I need the language to be able to share the Gospel, and to be able to tell people about Jesus. As well as to be able to understand sermons, talks and bibile studies in French, AND to make friends with "real-life" Belgian students. lol!

So yes, I am feeling happy and motivated right now, I got home and did my homework straight away! We were doing the conditionnel passé tense which, I haven't really used that much. But is actually super useful. For example, instead of saying "Est-ce que vous avex vu mon chien?" - "Have you seen my dog?" You can make it bucketloads more polite by using the conditionnel passé and saying "Vous n'auriez pas vu mon chien, par hasard?" - "You haven't seen my dog by any chance?" :) You can't comprehend how happy this makes me! It has multiple other uses too...but I won't bore you any more...

WOOHOO for french! xx