女性の英会話劇場Woman's Story

Scarlett: Guess what? Jacques played us a scene from Amelie in French
class today, and I was actually able to recognise quite a bit
of what they were saying!

Ben: Well, sounds like you’ve really made progress then!

Scarlett: Yeah, it was so cool! I couldn’t make out the long sentences
or anything like that, but I could pick out a quite a few of
the shorter phrases and lots of words that we’d studied before,
and then Jacques gave us a script that was all jumbled up and
we had to listen to the dialogue and put the lines in order,
and my partner Judy and I were the first pair to get it all
correct!

Ben: Good on you!

Scarlett: And that’s not all! Some of Jacques old university friends are
coming over from France to visit him next week so he’s invited
the class out for drinks next weekend to give us a chance to
practice our French on them.

Ben: Now that’s something you shouldn’t pass up. Talking with
native speakers is the best way to improve your language skills.
When I was learning Italian, my classmates and I would do
language exchanges with the Italian exchange students. One
week we’d all go out and speak English and the next we’d all
go out and speak Italian. We only did it for one year but we
all improved like you wouldn’t believe.

Scarlett: No kidding. But how did you communicate if none of you could
speak the other’s language fluently? I mean, there’s only so
much you can talk about with only a handful of words, right?

Ben: That’s all part of the fun. You find ways to say difficult
things using easy words and when words fail you, you use
gestures. We got really good at miming after a while, but in
the end, we all learned enough to be able to have an intelligent
conversation in both Italian and English.

Scarlett: Wow, I’d love to be able to do that in French.

Ben: You can. If you make the most of this opportunity next weekend,
you might be able to make yourself some French friends and
then you’ll have plenty of chances to practice!

To be continued.