Although I am still on mandatory vacation in Tulear, my brain has not atrophied yet. Indeed the opposite: I may not be learning anything about reforestation or solar properties, but I'm learning quite a bit of French.
I'm also learning that I much prefer speaking French with the Malagasy people than with the French ex-pats (or Parisians in Europe). With the Malagasy, French is also a second language, so we pull together simple sentences at more or less the same speed and using the same basic vocab. With the ex-pats, they ramble off flowery phrases so fast that I only catch 30% of the words they say.
Patrick, our French landlord, does exactly this. I find it intriguing, though, that 30% of his speech is usually enough for me to get the gist of what he's saying. Makes me wonder what extraneous words I'm using. If I made this blog post 70% shorter, would you still understand?
1 comment:
I couldn't have said it better myself although I've often tried: Yes, 30% is usually enough to get the gist--except when it's not.
No, don't make your postings 70% shorter They're so nearly perfect as they are--
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