The Conjugation Station

II had an interesting little conversation with a student yesterday:

A:       Est-ce que tu connais les conjugaisons ? (Do you know how to conjugate verbs ?)

Me :   Ouais. (Yup.)

A :     Même l’imparfait ? (Even the imperfect ?)

Me :   Ouais. (Yup.)

A :     Même le plus-que-parfait ? (Even the pluperfect ?)

Me :   Ouais. Même le subjonctif. (Yup. Even the subjunctive.)

A :     Même… le passé simple ? (Even… the past historic ?)

Me :   Plus ou moins. (More or less)

A :     (Gasp… pause…) Quelles sont des terminaisons de l’imparfait en anglais ? (What are the verb endings for the imperfect in English ?)

Me :   En fait, il n’y en a. L’anglais marche pas comme ça. (Actually, there aren’t any. English doesn’t work like that.)

A :     Quelle chance… (You’re so lucky…)

She seemed pretty impressed until I pointed out to her that I’ve been studying French for longer than she has been on this planet. But it highlighted to me how much you really do have to work at learning a language. When I moved here, I sort of assumed that I would just absorb all new vocab that came my way, but sadly that has not been the case. Even when you’re a young child, you have to work at the words that you don’t hear every day, you just don’t realise that you’re doing it. Unfortunately with a second language, if you’re not going to be totally immersed in a language for several years or more, it does take rather more active dedication. In my case, this comes down to noting down every single new word that comes my way and having daily vocab tests – not fun, but I can see how much I’m progressing!