I discovered the foreign language section of the town’s public library and took my time perusing the French shelf. It was like flipping through a time capsule of linguistic ambition, funded in irregular spurts by whatever budget allocation deemed call number 440, “Romance languages French,” worthy of attention. The oldest relic was a U.S. military-issued French drill book from the 1950s. I shuddered as I turned its yellowed pages, imagining the harsh, clipped tones of a drill sergeant barking out conjugations:
“To assassinate, indicative present! Je assassine! Tu assassines! Il assassine! Nous assassinons! Vous assassinez! Ils assassinent! To bomb, conditional present! Je bombarderais! Tu bombarderais! Il bombarderait!…”
In the 1960s and 1970s, the tone of the books shifted from repetitive brain-numbing drills to whimsical cartoons, with illustrated scenes of, say, families walking through the streets of Paris and querying the natives: “Où est la Tour Eiffel?” And once they reach the Eiffel Tower, they ask: “Où peut-on acheter des billets?” And once they get to the top, they say: “C’est magnifique!”
Then came the 1980s and 1990s—the era of the workbook. These books promised practice but left library-goers frustrated, with exercises that begged to be filled out but remained perpetually blank. Anyone serious about learning French had already amassed their own stack of workbooks at home, complete with half-hearted scribbles from one or two enthusiastic attempts.
The book with the most appeal turned out to be a beginner’s French textbook from 1997 called Discovering French Bleu (Première partie). I totally clicked with the cover:
I mean, look at the size of that sandwich! Mon dieu! I wonder if the English textbooks for French schoolchildren feature photos of English-speaking children with head-sized hamburgers.
The level is a little below me, but it never hurts to review the basics, like the meaning of zut:
And other basic things that every French student should learn:
And words that they will never, ever forget:
Let’s all develop a healthy fear of the French!
