Learning French

A

Andromeda Fiorelli

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Andy walked into the library, she hadn't seen Alex since the end of last semester and seriously wanted those French lessons. She had been hopeless in France attempting to use a stupid phrase book. Her first day she had actually told Carlisle that she loved his mouse instead of saying she loved his house. Acutely embarressed by so many other mistakes she had made over her vacation she had sent word to Alex as soon as she had returned to school. She needed lessons and badly. Finding an empty table she took out her English/French dictionary, her French phrase book and a muggle notebook and pen.

Waiting patiently for him to show up she scribbled down some phrases she thought might be useful and more importantly the ones she had gotten abyssmally wrong during the summer.
 
Alex had gotten word but really couldn't be bothered with it at the moment. Thinking though, he reckoned he better go. Another fight with Ants was certaintly not wanted much and when she learnt how bad he actually was a french, she might chuck him on the deal without him having to do anything.
He stepped into the library, quickly scanning to see where the librarian was. Last time he was in here, she had chucked him out and banned him to speak to anyone whilst in here again. Alex laughed at the thought before clamping his hand to his mouth to shut up. He walked over to Ants and smiled under his hand.
'Oh, yeah'when he remembered his hand was over it. 'So, french is it?'he asked more to himself though. The dictionary was a pretty obvious answer. 'Hw are you?'he added, smiling.
 
Andy smiled as she looked up at him, then quickly looking at the dictionary attempted to answer him in French, with her shockingly terrible accent. Even after spending time in France, her accent and her French had not improved. Carlisle had insisted on talking in English to her all the time, no matter how often she begged him to speak French. How was she to learn otherwise?

"Tres bien" she grinned, "Was that right? I know I spoke it more like a Irish farmer but I got the words right at least didn't I?"
the accent and proper pronounciation would all come later she hoped, once she had the actual words down properly first.
"I'm good Alex, how are you? oh wait... ca va?"
 
Alex rolled his eyes at her unsurity on the answer. ''it was fine' he replied after she had finished. He smiled. 'Moi? C'est tres bien mais je suis assez bruyent.(?)'Alex answered, hoping that had been the right word. He hadn't used the language much since last summer. 'Tu as un petit-amis. Il s'appelle?'Alex asked her curious. He wondered if she could find that in the book. Probably not but it was a nice challenge.
 
Andy looked at him speechless and began flipping through her phrase book with an exhilarity that would have been envied on the quidditch pitch. Frantically she would look from his mouth to the book as if she could see speech bubbles forming. Eventually she closed the book and with a frown slapped the book on his arm.

"Show off, I haven't one clue what you just said. You could have been saying the rudest things to me and just because you said in French I'd be all googly eyes" she frowned crossing her arms on the table and letting her head rest on them.
"I'm going to be useless aren't I?"
 
Alex laughed as she continued looking fast before she slapped him with the book. 'Hey'he said rubbing the red mark on his arm. He smiled before chuckling at her comments.
'Well, that depends. If you stop thinking french is so lovely than you might just survive. Anyway, you probably laugh if you knew what i asked'Alex told her before chuckling again.
'Umm, the basics. yeah?'he asked her wondering if she even wanted to know that or not.
 
Andromeda sighed.
"You mean you don't think French is a beautiful language? I speak some Italian and that is amazing but there is just something about French. The language of romance isn't it?" she smiled at him as curiousty got the better of her.
"What did you just say to me anyhow? I got the me part and the very well I think, but the rest was lost on me. So before you teach me anything, tell me first".
 
Alex smiled. 'You're confused with the fact that the city of love is meant to be Paris and they just happen to speak French there. Italian is the romantic language'He replied, surprsing himself a little bit too. Since when did he think Italian was cool? He hadn't even heard it before.
'Anyway. Well, yuo asked me how I was so I said I was great.'Alex said getting off the topic of romance. 'C'est means it's. Tres means very and bien means good. So..' Alex smiled waiting for her to put the pieces together. he didn't like lecturing much. Conversations were way better.
 
Andy listened to what Alex said and smiled.
"Yeah I know Paris is the city of love, I guess when I speak Italian it never really sounded romantic to me. Maybe its because asking my Italian family for an extra pillow or if I could use the pool was never romantic" she smiled her amber eyes dancing, Andy attempted to say what Alex had putting the three words together.
"C'est très bien" she knew her pronounciation was off but that didn't really bother her, it would come with time.
"What did the rest mean? Tu as un petit-amis. Il s'appelle? you said that too, sorry about my pronounciation that time".
 
Alex laughed. 'Umm, tu is you. Un petit-amis is a boyfriend and il is used for a boy.' he told her waiting for a response. 'Oh, and appelle is called. Just to let you know' he added smiling.
 
Andy attempted to put together the words he had said but it made no sense and then the sickle dropped.
"You want to know what my boyfriend is called?" did she have it right? still not sure she turned fully in her chair to face him. Why was Alex asking her about her boyfriend?
 
Alex smiled and leant back in his chair. 'Yeah, you got it,'Alex teased, sticking his tongue out at her. 'Peux-tu me dire?Tu n'as pas à vous le savez. ' Alex replied, wondering if she would get that. He hoped she would. Or at least make some sense of it now. Dire she could find. Maybe she wouldn't get n'as pas. 'N'as pas means don't have to bye the way'he added. 'Tu dois repondre en francais ou autrement'
 
"Alex Cullen you are teaching me French which means I don't know it yet, so stop showing off" she stuck her own tongue out at him as she picked up her dictionary again, repeating the words he said over and over as she flicked through the pages. She wouldn't even know if she had the right spelling and could basically end up with the wrong thing entirely.

"Oh Merlins whiskers this is impossible" she kept flipping the pahes and running a long slender finger down through some words, "Nope I'm lost... hey wait the last thing you said you want ... me to respond in French? otherwise what? You so aren't helping. I hope your chosen profession isn't a professor coz so far you make a lousy one".

She put down the dictionary and folded her arms as she sat back in her chair.
"speak to me in English and teach me French. Altrimenti sarò arrabbiato tu" she smiled at him, having just said in Italian how she would otherwise get angy with him.
 
Alex smiled as she told him off. 'It's not impossible. I'll write it down for you then,' he offered before summoning a peice of parchment and quill.
French said:
Tu = You(sin)
Na ? Pas/ N'? Pas = Don't
Vous le savez = You know
Peux-te me dire? = Can you tell me?
Click to expand...
He handed it to her hoping she would at least get that.

(sorry, just got back from a 29 mile hike. v.tired :ph43r: -_- )
 
[Aw poor you! :console: ;) get plenty of rest ]

Andy looked at the piece of paper and thought she was going to kill the boy. If he wasn't confusing her with Bob and Fred, it was his grasp on the French language. She read it out word for word exactly what he had written down.
"You don't you know. Can you tell me?" cocking a perfect eyebrow Andy looked from the paper to Alex, "Now you're either very good at French or just simply shocking at English. My boyfriends name is Carlisle Moonlight, so yes I do know his name but if you want me to tell it to you in French then I haven't a glimmer and if you get any more cryptic I'll attempt a very bad transfiguration of you into a rubix cube".
 
Alex laughed. 'No. That's not what I said. They're just words that I felt like writing,'he told her, shrugging. 'Anyway, how about asking someone if they're hungry?' he asked her trying to think of random things she would ever say. 'Tu a faim?'he said, prounouncing it clearly for her.

(thamk you, though i'm away on a hiking course this week, so maybe some time next wekk. :oy: :p )
 
Andy listened carefully as her pronounced the next sentence which made sense thankfully. Repeating it in her head before saying it out loud as she learnt how to do with her spells, Andy finally said it aloud when she thought it sounded right.
"Tu a faim?" she smiled at him repeating it again, "Are you hungry? How about close the door or Open a window?"
They weren't exactly what she wanted to learn but they would do for now.
 
Alex smiled. Thank goodness she was asking him for things she wanted to know now. 'Right, close the door. Umm, Fermes la porte. Closed the door. Ferm la porte.' Alex told her, waiting till she got the pronunciation right before he told her the next one.
He thought again about what he was saying here. 'Open the window is Ouvrir la fenetre and opened the window is a ouvert la fenetre. Yeah?'
Alex smiled as she got it and waited for her to say anything else.
 
Andy repeated the words it felt like a dozen times until she felt she had actually said them nearly as good as Alex had. Learning a new language was frustrating and she knew she wasn't doing France or its people any justice by her pathetic attempts.

"Maybe I should just give up, speaking English, Irish and Italian should be good enough for one person shouldn't it?" she sighed resting her chin on her hands that were crossed neatly on the desk infront of her.
 
Alex sighed. 'C'mon Andy. You were doing great. You can't just give up.'he told her encouragingly. It was true. It had taken Alex a week till he got the initial hang of the language and even he wasn't perfect at it.
'Well, if that's the attitude your taken to it, you certaintly ain't worth any hufflepuff time of mine'he said starting to get up, hoping it would get a reaction from Ants or at least stop her thinking about giving up.
 
Andy looked up when he began to move away and reached out instinctively.
"Oi where do you think you're going? I said 'maybe' I didn't say I was giving up. I'm a bit more stubborn than that you know" she sighed sitting up straight but the enthusiasm for the language she once had was dwindling fast.
"You so better make this a fun experience or I'm going to have to seriously sort you out" she warned him jokingly.


[sheez so sorry :doh: can't believe I kept forgetting to post here ]
 
Alex smiled. 'Good. Bien.'he said, sitting back down. 'And define what fun is?'he asked curious.
 
"What is this? You're supposed to be the tutor not me. You define fun" she grinned as he sat back down again, "I learn better through practical means, theory stumps me. Even in classes and with classwork I have to spend hours what most could and would do in a much shorter time."

She sighed but looked at him with her amber eyes glowing.
"I appreciate you teaching me, I really do but can we try some unorthodox approach instead. You're the one with the whacky sense of humour, surely you can think of something?"
 
'Sure. And thanks for the great compliment'he said before getting up. 'Right, lets go' Alex had a plan if he went round the library picking out random things to start off with maybe that was more of a practical way of doing things. And if he ran out of things, they could go flying about pointing things out.
 
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