CHAPTER 2 Learning The Language

My first French lessons started when I was about eight years old at a preparatory school in the county of Sussex, England. The school was pretty strict and it was hard to enjoy learning, when failure could result in the application of a cane or some other instrument of punishment. I remember the canes best since they were nicknamed after volcanos. including Vesuvius, Stromboli and Etna. Etna was reputed to be the least painful, on account of that particular volcano having been dormant for some considerable time. Although I never personally experienced it, I was told by others who did, that the cane named Krakatoa was a force to be reckoned with.

Mr. Blunt the headmaster also doubled up as the French teacher. Most of the lessons consisted of learning to declare French verbs by rote, although Mr. Blunt did occasionally introduce a bit of fun, in the form of short stories to aid learning

The most effective of these for me, was the story of a young boy who was given a bicycle for his birthday, but was forbidden by his father to ride it over a nearby steep hill. Of course this hill became an obsession, so the boy defied his father’s instructions. He rode up the acute hill ( / ) but coming down the other side he had a grave ( \ ) accident. His unsympathetic father made him bend over ( /\ ) while he circumflexed his cane against his backside.

Due to the ill health of the headmaster, that particular school closed before my preparatory education was complete, but by this time I could reel off the Present, Perfect, Imperfect, Future, Conditional and Past Historic tenses of an impressive repertoire of French verbs. Unfortunately I could hardly string a single meaningful sentence of French together, which was particularly limiting when trying to hold a conversation with a French person.

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