Two Left Feet

Two Left Feet

One requirement for my Peace Corps post in Benin is to learn French and at fifty-eight it isn't going very well. While there are some similarities between English and French, most notably the same alphabet and a number of true cognates, there are major differences: The word order of a French sentence, all nouns and most pronouns have gender, and the accent marks.

dense fog . . .
the GPS announces
a wrong turn

Not only does my tongue trip over the gymnastics that is expected of it, I cannot override my tendency to pronounce the French words that I see as if they were English. Also, remnants of my high school Spanish have slipped in, uno, deux, trois . . .

wallflower—
at every party
line dancing