Thursday, February 12, 2009

Comme le temps passe vite


How time flies! Especially now because I have two calendars to keep track, or lose track.


En fait, ces calendriers ne servent pas à mesurer le temps. These two
calendars are to help me improve my French.

Deux calendriers ? Yes, this year I decided to compare the one for adults to the one for children. I
couldn't decide if one would be too hard, the other too easy. When in doubt, get both.

My calendars are from Bertelsmann and are French/German. The calendars basically have the
same look and philosophy. Mais, bien sûr ils sont différents.

The calendar for adult learners introduces a theme each week with each day introducing vocabulary through idioms, proverbs, cultural information, questions, puzzles and conversations- sometimes accompanied by photographs. The weekend is on one calendar page with a quiz about what I should have learned that week.


The calendar for children also works on a theme each week and the vocabulary is introduced through a sentence, a children's rhyme on Fridays and a simple quiz on the weekend (also one page)- always accompanied by a charming illustration. The calendar is designed so that the drawings can be cut out and used as flash cards: on one side the picture, on the other side word in French and German.


I've had calendars for learning vocabulary before. Even though the calendars for adults have an approximate reading time of only three minutes, I find that these three minutes are easy to forget by the end of February. By mid-March I usually have a pile of calendar pages that I've yet to read much less study. I invariably have days where the only minute I spend on the calendar is tearing off the sheets of days gone by too quickly.

So here I am with two calendars. The adult calendar is challenging in content and does present interesting facts. Did you know that the first Romanpolicier was set in Paris? Written in 1841 by Edgar Allan Poe! Intéressant! En fait, c'est intéressant, non? The children's calendar is chouette and the children's rhymes, too! At the moment I'm learning from both and still keeping up.

March is coming soon, though. And I wonder if I'll still be faithfully tearing off a page from each calendar every day. Will I still be reading all the words on the calendar page- especially the one for the adults? Will I still be diligently cutting out each illustration and writing the sample sentence on the back for a quick review every few days? Seul le temps nous le dira.


Learn French (and German) with your own calendar:
For adults from amazon.de
For children from amazon.de from amazon.com


En fait, ces calendriers ne servent pas à mesurer le temps. In fact, the calendars are not really for tracking time.

Mais, bien sûr ils sont différents. But, of course, they are different.


Romanpolicier detective story


Intéressant! En fait c'est intéressant, non?
(How) Interesting! In fact, it is interesting, no?


chouette cute


Seul le temps nous le dira. Only time will tell.



La photo: Up and Away over Taninges, France. Fevrier 2009.