One of the first things my boss proposed to me on my first day here was that we should switch between English and French on odd and even days (Alfredo can actually speak a different language for every day of the work week). Because I obviously need to work on my French, and the others need to work on their English. At the time I laughed, there was no way I could keep up in French, but when I came in the next day and was bombarded with francais, I started to take the idea very seriously.
Alfredo starts the day with either “bonjour” or “hello”. Even on “hello” days, I try to speak as much French as I can. But on “bonjour” days, the others are firm in that they speak French exclusively. They’ll rewind and slow phrases down for me, but it takes many minutes of my looking desperate for them to finally translate anything to English.
On the first “bonjour” day, I left work mentally exhausted but with lots of new words in my word book. And I have to say, I know I can hear French better than I ever could before. As long as they rewind and slow it down.
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