new classes

So the final part of my academic life in Paris has begun: we've started phonetics. It's a bit earlier than I'm used to but not terrible if I manage to get to bed at a decent time. And the class itself is really interesting, much different than anything else I've had. Language classes generally focus on the learning the words and translations, but in phonetics we really just work on pronunciation. We go over certain aspects of the sounds for the first half hour of class, and for the second half hour record ourselves phrases over a few times. The prof then listens to the tapes and I guess will give us individual corrections and comments. Every person in my class is a native English speaker, so part of it will probably focus on what common errors English speakers make in French pronunciation. The past 2 days we've gone over l'enchainment consonantique (er, I think) which is how the words run together in French, and tomorrow we're starting vowels. Very exciting (not sarcasm).

There's a girl from my program in the phonetics class, and we both have the pratique at 12pm after it. So we've gotten coffee and worked on our homework together between classes both days, but it's kind of awkward because we don't have that much in common. Yesterday we went to a chain coffee shop where she knew a couple people that worked there and one guy (a native French speaker) took his break to help us with our homework. It's useful to have a Frenchie around to correct my French grammar homework.

In other class news, a girl told me today she thought I looked like Sarah Brightman. Um. I guess this means my hair is getting too long. And possibly that I seem psychotic.

PS - if you Google image "Sarah Brightman" one of the things on the first page is captioned "Angie as Sarah Brightman" - that's not me I swear (I'm not that creepy).