That’s right. I’m a hat. I’ve been learning French, you see, and was asked about my retention. First I said, “It’s quite good, actually.” Then I said, “For example, ‘Je suis un chapeau.‘ I have a hat.” I was corrected amid laughter and snorting. There was definite snortage.
I’m trying two methods. First, I’m taking private classes with my friend Jessica through the Alliance Française de Pittsburgh. I’m also using Rosetta Stone. So far I’m really impressed with both programs.
Rosetta Stone is immersive. There’s no translation. You match speech, listening, reading, writing, and pictures. This is the same process we go through when learning our native language. It’s working very well for me. On the other hand there is the occasional faux pas because I’m not learning translation. I have to use intuition and context for sense making in Rosetta Stone.
That’s why I think the in-person classes are going to work well, too. I have to communicate with real people in real time. That requires some measure of translation and real understanding of the words spewing out of my mouth.
I’ll keep you posted on my progress. After Jessica made fun of me for being a sentient hat we discovered what all good language learners revel in: the insult. “Vous êtes un chapeau d’âne!”
I am not sure I would use “Vous êtes un chapeau d’âne!” actually. “Vous êtes un âne” is actually used. Un “bonnet d’âne” (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/banana2000/2265515624/) was a hat that bad students would have to wear (a _long_ time ago).
Good luck on your classes though, French is hard!
at 1:09 pm on February 4th, 2009Can I say “vous êtes un âne chapeau” then? Does that work better for “You’re an ass hat!”
at 7:01 pm on February 4th, 2009Nope, “bonnet d’âne” would be the closest, but you wouldn’t even use it as an insult directly. In fact it means “dunce cap”, as my wife reminded me, so it’s difficult to use to directly address people (actually I can’t find a way to use it properly…)
As far as I know, and there could be local variations, but you can’t really mix âne and chapeau. “vous êtes un âne bâté” (an ass with a pack saddle?) OTOH is a real insult, although an old one.
at 1:20 am on February 5th, 2009