alex vs. the french r

by Alex Posted on July 14, 2010

After four years of Spanish in high school and then three semesters in college — just one semester away from fulfilling my language requirement — I quit. I started all over again with Zulu.

Why?

Well, a lot of reasons, but let me tell you about one of them: that stupid rolled R. It was my nemesis. I could never get the hang of it, and as a result I sounded like a silly American no matter how much grammar and vocabulary I mastered (which wasn’t all that much anyway, but that’s another story).

Doesn’t Zulu have click sounds, you ask? Aren’t those worlds more difficult than a simple rolled R? Well, maybe for some people, but not for me. I can click just fine; I can’t for the life of me roll.

Fast forward almost a decade to today, two weeks in to my French training. For the most part, it’s going fine. I’m catching on to the grammar quite well. I’m remembering more and more vocabulary every day. I can say nasal vowels. I’ve gotten the hang of the fact that half of the word isn’t even pronounced. And most importantly, I know more than Andy. (Nothing like healthy competition to speed up the language learning, eh?)

There’s just one problem: the letter R.

Determined to conquer it once and for all, I first did some research. Turns out it’s quite different from my old nemesis the Spanish R, which is apparently spoken from the tip of your tongue. The French R comes from your throat.

Here’s the most useful advice I’ve found about saying it:

  1. Open your mouth.
  2. Close your throat as if you’re going to gargle or to avoid swallowing a mouthful of liquid, and say K carefully, several times.
  3. Pay attention to where in your throat the K sound is made. We’ll call this the K place.
  4. Begin slowly closing your throat, until you can almost feel the K place. Your throat should be only partially constricted.
  5. Tense the muscles around the K place.
  6. Gently push air through your partially constricted throat.
  7. Practice saying Ra-Ra-Ra (where R = steps 4-6) every day.

Truth be told, I’m not really sure how useful I can claim this advice to be, since after hours upon hours of practicing in the language lab, all I’ve achieved so far is a sore throat.

I’ll keep at it, but in the meantime I’m also dreaming up a plan B. Think it’s possible to learn a synonym for every word with the letter R? Hmm…

Au revoir! Er, never mind. I mean, à bientôt.

Posted in FSI | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

benin in the news

by Alex Posted on July 14, 2010

A while back I set up Google alerts to send me daily summaries of all new web content that match the search terms “Benin” or “Cotonou” — sort of cool, although honestly less useful than I hoped.

I’d say something like 49% of what comes through is actually about a place called Benin City in Nigeria. It’s a rubber industry hub. Lots of fascinating news about that. (Riiiight.)

Another, say, 49% of what pops up are blog entries by Peace Corp volunteers throughout Benin. These can indeed be interesting, but they don’t of course give me much historical or political content, which is what I really want.

It’s only every few days or so that a real news article comes through.

Here are some of the most recent:

NYT: “From West Africa, a Recipe for Spicy Trans-Atlantic Funk”

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, from Benin, belongs on the very short list of the world’s greatest funk bands. More than four decades into its career, most of them spent touring Benin and nearby West African countries, the 10-man orchestra made its blistering North American debut on Sunday night at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College as part of the Lincoln Center Festival… (Click here to read more.)

Bloomberg: “Benin Dismisses and Arrests Minister of Security for Fraud”

Benin dismissed and arrested Security Minister Armand Zinzindohoue for his involvement in a finance company that took deposits from people and hasn’t returned the funds, Work Minister Gerard Kuassi said. President Thomas Boni Yayi on July 8 fired Zinzindohoue, who was arrested yesterday after a commission of inquiry found he was involved in the company, known as ICC Services, Kuassi told reporters in Cotonou, the country’s commercial hub, today… (Click here to read more.)

Al Jazeera English: “Anger at France Bastille Day parade”

France has staged its traditional Bastille Day parade amid criticism from human rights groups at the invitation of some African leaders. Soldiers from 13 African nations marched through Paris on Wednesday to mark 50 years of independence from French colonial rule. … The parade saw fighter jets fly over the city, followed by African troops marching down the Champs Elysees avenue, headed by an all-female unit from Benin. (Click here to read more.)

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je parle un peu francais

by Andy Posted on July 10, 2010

I started French this week. Yep, there was room for me. Thank goodness! I was getting pretty tired of hanging out with Abbey.

We had Monday off of course, and because this is the government we spent all day Tuesday doing administrative stuff. So I’ve really only had three days of French, but I can already see how it’s possible to go from nilch to proficiency in six months.

  • Sheer time — You spend four hours every day in class and four hours every day doing homework or in the language lab. (Yes, it’s as tiring as it sounds.)
  • Immersion — In addition to what we learn, we pick up stuff from our teacher who speaks to us mostly in French. I hear that soon she’ll drop the English completely so we’ll be forced to pick up even more.
  • Even more serious immersion — Word on the street is that at month four or five you have the opportunity to go on a several-week immersion trip to somewhere like Martinique or the south of France or Montreal. They haven’t mentioned this to us yet, and it seems in poor form to ask while I’m still working on saying that my name is Andy and I’m not a diplomat, but you better believe I’ll be taking advantage of this opportunity if rumors are true. (Don’t worry — it’s not on your dime. I’ll have to pay for it, and Alex will too, but she’ll still get her salary and not have to use vacation time while we’re away.)
  • Resources — The language lab has so many tools it’s unbelievable. Certainly no high school and probably no university language department has this much stuff at their disposal. And while you’re using the programs an instructor is listening to you and pipes in your headphone from time to time to help. Weird, but cool.
  • Technique — In high school and college I studied vocab lists and took written tests. I could read German alright, but speak it? Not so much. Here it’s different. We spent a ton of time on pronunciation and pay much more attention to speaking than writing and reading. We’re getting a good amount of speaking practice now when we’re in a a 15-person class, and after next week we’ll break down permanently into smaller classes of only 4-5, so we’ll be talking in French all the time.

Also worth noting is that Alex and I aren’t in the same class. There are a few other couples starting French too, and they’re all together. Curious. Alex promises she didn’t request that we be in different classes. Despite what she thinks, I didn’t either — I would have had no idea who to talk to. But I think it actually worked out for the best. We learn slightly different things and it’s great to compare notes when we get home. Plus, since she has the later class she has to walk the dog in the morning.

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benin is home to west africa’s largest…

by Alex Posted on July 8, 2010

A. Collection of antique voodoo dolls
B. Population of Peace Corps volunteers
C. Shrimp
D. Pristine stretch of beach
E. None of the above

While any of those things may very well be true, the answer I’m looking for is actually E, none of the above.

In fact, as of about a year ago, Benin is home to the region’s largest hypermarket (the European term for supermarket). Yes, little old Benin has a larger grocery store than even places like Ghana and Nigeria. Who would have guessed? Not me. But I’m certainly not complaining!

Not too shabby.

I have that much fun at the grocery store too! No, really, I actually do.
It looks bigger (and frankly, nicer) than the supermarkets we've gotten used to in NYC and DC.

So yes, the food will be fine. That’s one less excuse you can use to avoid visiting us.

Posted in Benin | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

the great car pursuit

by Andy Posted on July 5, 2010

Much to my chagrin I found myself spending most of Saturday hunting for a 4×4 that we will eventually take to Benin. Here are some things that happened:

1. We arrived via our Zipcar at the first dealership — the one with our #1 choice car — to find a sign on the door that said, “Happy Fourth! I’ll be back Tuesday.”

2. On the road again, I had the following conversation with my wife:

Her: Why is the flag at Bob Evans at half mast?
Me: I’m not sure.
Her: Oh, is it because Jimmy Dean died? Jimmy Dean was the Bob Evans guy, right?
Me: Um, no. Bob Evans was the Bob Evans guy.

It was then that I realized this was going to be a long day.

3. We found a seemingly great car with good mileage and a low price. It was still under the original warranty too. But we had a bad feeling about it; we couldn’t figure out why.

When we asked the dealer if we could take it around the corner to get it checked by a mechanic, he stammered and made excuses. It was his busiest day. (We were the only customers the entire 30 minutes we were there.) The mechanic was probably booked. (He wasn’t; we called.)

When he finally reluctantly agreed, we asked to see the carfax report first. He disappeared into the back for quite some time before emerging with the report. Reading carefully, we noticed that it listed the car as black when it was actually silver. He couldn’t explain why.

We had driven nearly an hour to get there, but we walked out.

4. A few cars and a few hours later, we went back to look at the first car we saw that day and negotiated (diplomatically, of course) a deal. $2,400 down from the ask price — not to shabby, if I do say so myself.  However, when we were signing the paperwork I realized that instead of bringing our checkbook, I brought a book of deposit slips. Oops. Fortunately we were able to combine debit cards from our new and old bank accounts to take care of the bill. At least we’ll get rewards points for our trouble.

5. We got home in time to use our newfound mobility to take Abbey to a dog park with a creek (thanks David!) next to it. Abbey was less enthusiastic about it than we were. I’m sure she’ll have a blog post about it later.

6. Alex spent today using the car to run a variety of errands that she claims would have been nearly impossible on the bus. I’m not so sure Loehmann’s and Marshalls are exactly necessities, and I grimace thinking about all the miles she’ll be racking up “running errands” these next nine months. However, I plan to drive it to the running trail daily. Those miles don’t count.

Posted in FS Life, Life in DC, Personal, Transportation | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

muffled messages

by Alex Posted on July 2, 2010

I just finished a one-week class called “the Fundamentals of Supervision,” and I’d like to share one piece of information gleaned from it:

  • When you speak, your words actually only convey 70% of your intended message.
  • The person listening to your message only processes 50% of it.
  • So if you express 70% and your listener captures 50%…
  • That’s right: only 35% of what you want to get across actually gets across.

I must admit that I’m always somewhat skeptical of models that generalize the behavior of all mankind. I mean, I have to believe that you and I communicate more effectively than, say, Miss Teen South Carolina.

Andy also took some issue with the model when I explained it to him, but for a different reason. He offered another version: “When you tell me what you want me to do, you express 25% of what you think you do. I in turn interpret 125% of what you say.  Pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. But this unfortunately still results in only 30% of your message coming through, despite my best efforts.”

Whatever the specific percentages, the main point is a good one: none of us are getting across nearly as much as we think we are. And imagine how much less we get across when communicating across languages and cultures.

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grr redux (or, bid list lust)

by Alex Posted on July 1, 2010

A new A-100 class. A new bid list.

(Actually the bid list is a week or two old, but I’m just now getting around to writing about it. So sue me.)

You would think we’d have learned from last time and just not look at it, but alas, we’re not that wise. Again we looked, and again we coveted, and again we stewed. (Cyprus and Fiji inspired the most envy.)

Let me repeat Andy’s earlier sentiment: Grr.

The good news, though, is that when those emotions passed, we realized something very important about foreign service life: bid list lust is okay.

Here’s how I see it: no matter how happy you are with your current or impending post, you simply can’t look at a list of other places in the world you could be without feeling at least a twinge of jealousy. Nope. Not possible. I dare you to try. There are just so many cool places out there, and our desire to explore them is a big part of what led us to this strange but very cool career.

Bid list lust is a sign that you’re in the right business.

It’s also good research. I’m definitely keeping mental track of the posts that inspire the most envy, because I’ll be bidding again before I know it. And I have plenty of posts waiting in my Foreign Service future. If I stay until the mandatory retirement age of 65, I’ll get to live in at least 11 or 12 more cool places in addition to Benin. And even if I decide to retire at the earliest possible age of 50, I still have at least 6 or 7 posts ahead of me. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Although listen up members of the 154th: whoever gets Fiji, I hate you.

Posted in A-100, FS Life | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

beagle summit

by Abbey Posted on June 30, 2010
I'm not in this picture -- not that you can probably tell.

Beagles came from near and far for a very important gathering at an Arlington dog park. The top agenda item: how to get rid of those pesky things called cats once and for all.

After a meet-and-greet session of howling, digging and sniffing, we got down to business. Discussions started off well. In fact, all 15 of us were close to a consensus — until a squirrel ran through the park. Needless to say, the remainder of our agenda was tabled.

Our talks will resume in a few weeks on a boat cruising along the Potomac River, where there will be no squirrels to distract us. Yes, there’s such thing as a canine cruise. It happens every Thursday all summer. (Why didn’t someone tell me about this sooner?)

Posted in Abbey Q. Howley, Life in DC | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

officially official

by Andy Posted on June 29, 2010

Step forward if your passport says “DIPLOMATIC” on the cover. Whoa there. Not so fast almost everyone but me.

My name's inside one of these.

Alex tells me that a diplomatic passport doesn’t mean automatic diplomatic immunity, but I’m planning to double park everywhere all the time anyway.

Posted in FS Life | Tagged , | 4 Comments