This post is a celebration of the quick-fix. Once again, instead of reverting to the tried and true methods of learning French (practising with Guillaume, attending a class or studying with a textbook), I’ve settled for the far more reliable method of searching youtube for funny videos.

And here’s one right now:


Do you also find yourself making faces back at the “teacher”? I certainly did!

I like this method. It’s simple, effective, and I think results are virtually guaranteed.

Here’s a quick anecdote, just to prove how well this film hits the mark about making noises for the sake of hearing your own noise. (By the way of a recap, I’m earning a subsistence living here in Paris by working with children.) The three-year-old, for whom I work, has recently taken it upon herself to pepper her French conversation with all this guttural, throaty utterances beginning, mid and end of sentences.* I’d describe it as somewhere between a French ‘rrr’, a German ‘ch’ and a Russian ‘kh’. All in all, it sounds like an adolescent Scottish lion clearing its throat. As far as I can tell, it’s for no rhyme nor reason, for no discernable purpose other than to say “Look, my Anglo-au pair, see what sounds I can make that you can’t.” She’s on her first little tentative mews of the roar of national identity. Next it will be the incessant ‘euh… euuuh… euhhh‘ as so eloquently described on the film clip, I can’t wait for the day!

* Needless to say, I’ve been making fun of her, dropping a few phlegm-reverberating hocks in my conversation too, or pretending that we are in a circus cage with predatory big cats.