gottahavacuppamocha

Over the past few months I’ve been following the Vendée Globe boat race. It’s a solo circumnavigation of the world in a sailboat, and the winner is due to arrive in the port of Les Sables d’Olonne in France. With a lead of a few days (more than 1200 nautical miles) over his nearest competitor, the only way Michel Desjoyeaux could lose now would be to sink. He will have gone around the world in 83 days, which is a solo sailing record.

I’ve been meaning to post stuff in French, but I’ve lacked easy topics. In previous classes, all or most homework was done in workbooks, but in this class (mais en cet classe) we will be doing more work in notebooks and on word processors.

The textbook for the class (first semester of second year French) is Controverses by Larbi Oukada, Didier Bertrand, and Janet Solberg. It’s probably not a coincidence that Oukada and Bertrand are faculty at the university. Anyway, the stuff below is an exercise from the textbook.

The chapter starts out with friends and friendship, including cultural differences in American and French views. They give a list of qualities that a person might look for in a friend, and we are supposed to select five or come up with our own. My list below is a mix of sorts.

Définissons

• Un ami est quelqu’un qui me comprends.
• Un ami est quelqu’un en qui je peux confier.
• Un ami est quelqu’un sur qui je peux compter.
• Un ami est quelqu’un en qui j’ai confiance.
• Un ami est quelqu’un avec qui je veux boire.

Since my French is still pretty shaky, what I meant to write is…

• A friend is someone who understands me.
• A friend is someone in whom I can confide.
• A friend is someone on whom I can count.
• A friend is someone in whom I have confidence.
• A friend is someone with whom I want to drink.

We’ll be going over this in class rather than turning it in. However, now I have to work on the stuff I do have to turn in.