"Franglish"

Feb 2, 2014

Today was pretty good.

I had signed up for an event called "franglish," which is a language exhange between native French and English speakers. They host the events in various bars and pubs throughout Paris a couple times a week and you have to sign up for a session in advance because otherwise you won't get a spot. It costs 8 euros for students and 1 free drink is included, so it's not too expensive. The organization matches English speakers with French ones and it's a little bit like speed-dating: you speak in French for 7 minutes and then switch to English for the other 7 and after that you change partners and repeat for 2 hours.

Today's session was from 6-8pm in a place called Chapi Chabo pub in Le Marais in the 5th arrondissement. I really liked it and I'm definitely going to sign up for more sessions and try to find other similar organizations cause it was great practice to speak to so many native speakers and it was also a lot of fun! I got complimented on my French by everyone I spoke with, so that made me feel pretty good haha. I also was pretty happy that my French was better than all of my partners' English skills.

I was expecting there to be a lot of French university students but everyone I spoke to had already graduated. They need to improve their English for jobs so that's why they were there.

After I left "franglish," I met my friend Gabriel, an exchange student from Brazil who also studies at Paris 7 Diderot, at the metro stop closest to my house and we went and watched Pokemon the First Movie in French haha. It was pretty easy to understand; I could understand almost all of the French except for some names of Pokemon and the names of the Pokemons' attacks.

So today was a pretty productive day for practicing French -- but it was also really enjoyable too.