Welcome to the show, everybody! I’m recording from the lovely town of Port Angeles which is a wee bit wet right now. OK, who am I kidding? It’s been raining all day! But it’s OK because I had Ivar’s Clam Chowder for lunch. That makes it all better. I hope that you had a wonderful General Conference weekend. I know that it was a weekend that I was really looking forward to and I hope that you were able to get a lot out of the counsel we received.
Do you speak a second language? Do you speak multiple languages?
I served a French-speaking mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I served for 2 years. 2 months of that time was at the missionary training center or MTC in Provo Utah. It was hard. There is no getting around it. The days were rigorous. Language classes and gospel learning classes.
I remember after the first two days we had surpassed the french that I had learned in three years at Middle School and High School. Not that I was that great at French. In fact, my french teacher, Monsieur Larson said that I shouldn’t take French my senior year because I would not be able to pass the class.
I did struggle in the MTC trying to learn the language. I remember it seemed like the rest of my district was improving faster than I was. I would lay in bed each night and count to 100 in my mind in french.
Quatre-vingt = 80 which translated says 4 twenty. So to count in French you also need to be good at math. 4 times 20 is 80. But that’s OK because 90 is quatre-vingt-dix which translates four twenty ten… can you see how a little confusing. Un peut. How about 97. Well that is quatre-vingt-dix-sept. Translated four twenty ten seven… Somehow I learned the numbers. Oh la la.
Tune in for the rest of the show!
