The French Revolution

I’ve always wanted to see France, but never had a chance to do so. Now this is about to change. And the timing isn’t too bad, either, as according to our curriculum we are about to deal with the French Revolution right after the summer break. So I can combine work with some personal fun. Some students of this class have already been on an exchange visit to Paris, and they were all thrilled by it.

I figured if I were to go to France, I’d better get some basic understanding of the French language. So I went to a bookstore and got myself a CD language course by Pons. I went home, took the textbook out and started reading and listing to the CD. After a while I gave up. There were far too few audio samples to answer any of the questions I got. They declined three stems of verbs in the textbook and never gave any hints on the pronunciation – neither transcription nor audio samples. How am I supposed to get it right, then? When I presented my learning progress to a French speaking friends all I earned was laughter. So I eventually gave up, put everything back in its box and returned it to the bookstore for a refund.

Instead I bought the Langenscheidt course “Französisch fertig los” which was actually three Euros cheaper and offered 4 CDs instead of just one. Did I enjoy any more success with this one? No, I did not. Even though there were some definite improvements such as transcriptions, still the audio samples were not all that helpful. I cannot help but wonder how anybody would manage to learn a language like that?

When it comes to CD language courses, am I living in a dream? Do language courses of the helpful kind really exist or am I a victim a of delusion? Well, they do exist. Years ago I bought a cheap Spanish language course – no publisher’s name on the box. Still, it was really helpful. There are 4 CDs in which four native speakers not only provide audio samples but also explain everything you need to know about this language and the Spanish culture. Do I speak Spanish now? Not really, but this time it was actually my fault, since I didn’t invest enough time. But if I had finished that language course, it would have gotten me somewhere – whereas the two French language courses by two very reputable publishers who dominate the foreign language market in Germany left me puzzled.

By the way, that beautiful photo of the Eiffel tower was taken by a lady called Camille and published in her photostream on Flickr.

Earth lost?

Some students and I have been playing a browser game called Earth Lost. It’s fun to build up some planets, dig for resources, and do some trading. But the possibility to attack other players of course seems to have its disadvantages. It takes rather long to build up your planets and your forces so that you could actually defend yourself against an attacker. So my guess is that many people will lose interest in this concept even after a short period of time. Once they lose resources or a planet the fun is over. Maybe the authors of the game ought to re-think their strategy. A game like this only makes sense if every participant has more or less the same possibilities to attack and defend themselves. Else newbies will always only get the short end of it.