Precerpt from My 20th Language: L4, French - Army French


 

Army French

I may never have taken another French class at Penn State, but it was not my last French instruction. In my early 20s, when my oldest daughter was still a toddler, I joined the US Army. How that happened is a bit of a long—and somewhat ironic—story, having to do with being recruited by SFC Robin Hood (seriously) while providing moral support for my husband, but it is an important one, since the Army and the Defense Language Institute played a significant role in my language-learning life.

Ultimately, I was sent to the Defense Language Institute for Russian language training. Since I had already studied Russian, I found the course unchallenging. Enjoyable, fun, but not demanding. During the final 2-3 months, a fellow student, Maurice, who was also not feeling challenged by the Russian course, took advantage of the opportunity to study French in the afternoon, while continuing with Russian in the morning. The French course was also not challenging, but it was refreshing—in the sense that it gave us a change of pace and it provided a chance to review vocabulary and vocabulary that had lain dormant for a few years.

At the end of the course(s), I was given the Defense Language Proficiency Test in Russian and in French. Very interestingly, I answered just about all the questions correctly on both tests, and the raw score on both was the same. However, my recorded scores were quite different. My Russian score was recorded as 3/3 (professional level in reading and listening, the only skills tested on the DLPT at that time). My French score was recorded as 4/4 (near-native proficiency). The difference between the two was a practice in place at the time in which a qualitative difference between the 3 and 4 was needed for records (and assignments) but there was no test to differentiate between them (there is now). The mechanism used back then was the source or venue of language learning. Because I had grown up in a bilingual environment, I qualified for the higher score in French.

Later on, when I was stationed at Fort Devens, my score popped up, and I was given an additional duty as the Francophone Liaison Officer. For the most part, that was not a pleasant duty. It involved traveling to the homes of the French-speaking families of the soldiers killed in Vietnam and help them understand their benefits. But it did give me another chance to refresh my French—my Acadian French, that is.

Army French

I may never have taken another French class at Penn State, but it was not my last French instruction. In my early 20s, when my oldest daughter was still a toddler, I joined the US Army. How that happened is a bit of a long—and somewhat ironic—story, having to do with being recruited by SFC Robin Hood (seriously) while providing moral support for my husband, but it is an important one, since the Army and the Defense Language Institute played a significant role in my language-learning life.

Ultimately, I was sent to the Defense Language Institute for Russian language training. Since I had already studied Russian, I found the course unchallenging. Enjoyable, fun, but not demanding. During the final 2-3 months, a fellow student, Maurice, who was also not feeling challenged by the Russian course, took advantage of the opportunity to study French in the afternoon, while continuing with Russian in the morning. The French course was also not challenging, but it was refreshing—in the sense that it gave us a change of pace and it provided a chance to review vocabulary and vocabulary that had lain dormant for a few years.

At the end of the course(s), I was given the Defense Language Proficiency Test in Russian and in French. Very interestingly, I answered just about all the questions correctly on both tests, and the raw score on both was the same. However, my recorded scores were quite different. My Russian score was recorded as 3/3 (professional level in reading and listening, the only skills tested on the DLPT at that time). My French score was recorded as 4/4 (near-native proficiency). The difference between the two was a practice in place at the time in which a qualitative difference between the 3 and 4 was needed for records (and assignments) but there was no test to differentiate between them (there is now). The mechanism used back then was the source or venue of language learning. Because I had grown up in a bilingual environment, I qualified for the higher score in French.

Later on, when I was stationed at Fort Devens, my score popped up, and I was given an additional duty as the Francophone Liaison Officer. For the most part, that was not a pleasant duty. It involved traveling to the homes of the French-speaking families of the soldiers killed in Vietnam and help them understand their benefits. But it did give me another chance to refresh my French—my Acadian French, that is.


For more precerpts from My 20th Language, click HERE.

For more posts about language learning, click HERE.


MSI Press, a veteran-owned publishing house based in California, United States
best known for turning new writers into award-winning authors,
has gained mass recognition for releasing highly acclaimed books of varying genres
that are distributed internationally. Check us out on Wikitia.


To purchase copies of any MSI Press book at 25% discount,

use code FF25 at MSI Press webstore;

for free shipping, use code ship4free.

(Codes cannot be used together; they are meant to provide a choice of discount.)



Want to read an MSI Press book and not have to pay for it?
(1) Ask your local library to purchase and shelve it.
(2) Ask us for a review copy; we love to have our books reviewed.


VISIT OUR WEBSITE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ALL OUR AUTHORS AND TITLES AND TO FOLLOW US ON OUR VARIOUS PLATFORMS.


CONTACT INFO@MSIPRESS.COM TO SBUMIT A BOOK PROPOSAL/MAMUSCRIPT OR TO CONTACT ONE OF OUR AUTHORS.



Sign up for the MSI Press LLC monthly newsletter: get inside information before others see it and access to additional book content
(recent releases, sales/discounts, awards, reviews, Amazon top 100 list, links to precerpts/excerpts, author advice, and more)

Check out recent issues.


 

   

MSI Press is ranked among the top publishers in California.
Check out our rankings -- and more -- HERE.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Guest Post from Dr. Dennis Ortman: Words Matter

Image
  WORDS MATTER “If I speak with human tongues and angelic as well, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong, a clanging symbol.” --I Corinthians 13: 1   My three brothers recently visited from afar. We spent a week together crammed into my small apartment. We exhausted ourselves talking about our lives and our favorite subjects--religion, psychology, and politics. I daily used up my quota of words. Many family and friends avoid talking about these subjects to avoid conflict. But we relish the give-and-take of debate. Coincidentally, the Republican National Convention was televised each night. We watched it diligently and exchanged views. Our convictions ranged across the political spectrum. So our conversations were animated, our disagreements passionate. However, at the end of the week, we learned something from each other and parted friends. Words matter. They have power. Our traditions attest to this fact. For example, God created the world with His word. He be...
Read more

Tuesday's Tip for Language Learning: Language Islands, A Shortcut to Language Fluency

Image
  If you've ever found yourself struggling mid-conversation in another language, desperately searching for words, translating in your head, and praying for a merciful topic change… you’re not alone. We've all been there. But today’s tip might just change the way you approach language learning — and save your dignity at the next international gathering. Let’s talk about language islands . What Are Language Islands? Back in the mid-1980s, Boris Shekhtman, a brilliant and wildly successful instructor at the Foreign Service Institute (and later the Specialized Language Training Center), coined the term “language islands.” His students — diplomats, international journalists, and world travelers — swore by his methods. And no wonder. A language island is a memorized chunk of speech — a little monologue, a practiced story, a polished opinion — that you know so well, you can say it without thinking. No mental translation. No stuttering. No panicked flailing for vocabulary. Just smooth...
Read more

A Publisher's Conversation with Authors: De-confusing Royalty Structure

Image
  Authors frequently confuse LIST and NET and, in this way, end up with contracts that pay lower royalties when they believe that they are getting a good deal. Often, they cannot negotiate in ways that benefit themselves because they do not understand this difference and its significance. Let's break this down. List refers to the retail price of the book. Payment on list means a percentage of the retail price of the book. If royalties are 8% of list (5-8% is typical), then on a $10 book, royalties would be 80 cents; if they are 10%, royalties are $1, on every book sold. Easy to calculate, easy to predict income, and always standardized, no surprises or overestimations. Net refers to what is leftover after expenses. Gross revenue gets adjusted by a number of expenses: printing costs, printer set-up fees, shipping costs, handling fees, distributor percentage of sales (typically, 40%-55% per book), distributors' initial and continuing catalogue listing costs (without which online ...
Read more