One of the most obvious, but nonetheless complex, challenges of living in a new part of the world is of course learning a new language. Even in a highly diverse, cosmopolitan city such as Paris where it’s possible to live without speaking French, it’s really much easier if you do – not to mention all the incredibly rich culture that is unlocked with the language. My journey with French has been a long one with a few twists and turns, but at this point, I am pleased with where I am at in the language learning process, and I wanted to share in some detail how things worked out for me.
I initially wanted to learn French at the beginning of high school since, as I have mentioned previously, French is one of the most important languages in classical music. As you all know very well, it is unfortunately very difficult to learn a second language on Washington Island; since there was no French teacher available at the school, I studied French on Rosetta Stone for three years. Maybe some of you have used Rosetta Stone before but if not, it’s a computer program that tries to teach languages in the same way that one learns their first language – instead of giving definitions of words or translations, the program shows you a picture, and your job, as the student, is to learn vocabulary by associating the word with a picture.
