Computer Done

I changed my computer OS language to French. Oddly enough, some of my bookmarks are now coming to me in the François language. And now my spell check doesn't seem to be working. Hmmm...... Also Bookmarked Parsi Match (it's the only french newspaper/magazine I know anything about).
More later.

Getting Started Day One

Last night I made a preliminary calendar - 30 minutes to 1 hour a day studying French. I can handle that with my board studying right now. I figured out how to translate my Mac into French, how to change the keyboard to French, and I changed my Facebook account into française. GOOD GRIEF!!! It just took me an hour of calling Apple support, Apple Lenox Mall, countless internet searches, just to make the ç sign! Apparently, french keyboard doesn't always translate to Google blog. So, I went through all 4 lines of keyboard on my MacBook Air to try and determine what each key meant. Here are four 'paragraphs' of text consisting of 3 lines each. The first line is plain typing, the second line is Shift + that number/letter/character, the third line is option + letter/number/character.

< & é ” ’ ( § è ! ç à ) -

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ° _

 ë “ ‘ { ¶ « ¡ Ç ø } —

a z e r t y u i o p ^ $ `

A Z E R T Y U I O P ¨ * £

æ Â ê ® † Ú º î œ π ô € @

q s d f g h j k l m ù

Q S D F G H J K L M %

‡ Ò ∂ ƒ fi Ì Ï È ¬ µ Ù

w x c v b n , ; : =

W X C V B N M < > ?

‹ ≈ ç √ ∫ ˜ µ ≤ ≥ ÷

I also found a place that sells Macbook Air keyboard covers in French. Left them a message about getting one, hope they get back to me. Logistics always impede my actual learning. Actually, studying the keyboard, it looks as though the only letters to have changed are q a z w m (5 letters). And M is actually found in two places (capitol at least). Q and A have switched, M and ; have switched, W and Z have switched. Not too hard to remember once I put it in perspective. The only other thing is that on blogger I have to press 9 to get ç, rather than option+c.

Ok, that's enough for now. I'll cover the characters later.

Day one of the Language Hacking Technique.

Language Hacking Technique. Taken from Benny.

"When you go through your journey alone, it is much easier to lose track of the goal and even your motivation." Thus, this blog has been borne. It is part of an assignment.

What I am aiming for in learning French:

I haven't hashed out the calendar yet, because I need to read a bit more about the resources out there. Hopefully they will be in the hacking guide as I get farther along. I also wonder if the Hacking Guide should be a little more organized in the order of the worksheets.

So, here are my goals (worksheet two):

1. Read Le Petit Prince aloud by mid-September, spending a max of 3 minutes per page and only using the dictionary 2-3 times per page.

2. Watch Ne le dis a persone (Tell No One, one of my all time favorite movies) without the help of subtitles by mid-September, and be able to understand 90-95% of the complicated content by then.

3. Be able to converse with a French woman for at least 20 minutes fluently about the best vacation spots in France, what the French countryside is like, what her favorite food is, perhaps the French view of Americans, and the differences between American and French culture. I would also like to tell a joke and make her laugh.

4. I would like to join French Facebook - this might should be higher up, as this would be a good way to chat with and meet French people.

5. Create a blog entitled: Food of Atlanta, posting in English and French, then entirely in French. This will go on my CV for residency programs.

6. I would eventually like to converse medically in French - but I am not putting a timeline on this yet... I would like to accomplish this after

Au revoire.