In 2008, I could speak French reasonably well. When in Belgium that same year, I spoke with native French speakers and went on a French-language only tour of Leuven and came away with a good idea of the town’s history. I could easily find my way around and if lost, ask for help and understand the response. Not only that, but I also got an immense enjoyment out of speaking another language.

Since then however I’ve hardly spoken a word and now I can barely string a basic sentence together after several attempts. It’s shameful to say the least. How could I let such a useful and enjoyable quality of mine just fade away? Well no more. It’s time for un revolution!

Within the last week, I’ve dusted off my old books and I’m currently trying to relearn the basics. Once I’m somewhat familiar with these I’ll try immerse myself as much as possible in French media. I have a somewhat strange love of France24 already so I just need to switch away from the English version of the site to get my daily fix of non-Irish news en français.

Not only will this new, revived hobby of mine help me personally, it could also help me academically if I choose French as my Broad Curriculum option in the coming college year. I would feel much more confident pursuing this module if I had at least grasped the basics beforehand. I always dreamt of doing research in Paris for some reason. So who knows, this could be my first steps on a path to collaborative research with some team of French scientists in the future!

So with a bit of bonne chance, you can expect French tweets in the near future as I become slightly bilingual! I might even throw caution to the wind and write a French blog post! (With the help of Google Translate of course…)

Alan.