Marseille

Many, many years ago, when I was a very young boy my parents assigned me to a school in Budapest where French was taught. The plan was that first year we learn French and successive years more and mor subjects would be in French. Back then this was the main language in Europe and my parents' idea was that another language would not hurt. It was a good idea.

Unfortunately, Stalin had another idea and by the second year Russian relegated French to a few hours a week, and by the third year it totally disappeared from the curriculum. My parents did not want me to lose what I already learned and hired a private tutor who came to the house a couple of times a week to continue my education.

By the 1956 events I spoke French fairly well and that made me select Canada as my then first choice since they spoke French over there. Well, this didn't work out as planned. I came to the US and started to learn English with vigor. As English moved into my head, French started to move to the backrooms of my brain. Sad, but that is what happened.

Now, I can understand a little but have real problem finding words. We visited the French Caribbean St. Martin many times where they really don't want to speak English (true French style) and I was struggling to speak, so just turned to English. It does not upset me, but I would have liked to retain some of my knowledge since I worked for a long time for it.

Nowadays, I am watching a TV show on Netflix that is called Marseille. As you guess it is about Marseille and I find it very interesting. It is totally in French with English subtitles. Sadly, when I try to listen to the French, I do not understand any of it no matter how hard I try. Sad, isn't?