Moi assistant une réunion qui aurait été un e-mail...
This is me in that scenario and now after having spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME looking for a GIF for this post... that doesn't even fit the space properly on the desktop version 😭😭😭
Ah well, much ado about nothing, I suppose... anyway, I'M BAAAAAAAAAACK!!! So sorry for the unannounced hiatus... which wasn't really much of a hiatus, as I was still reblogging things BUT STILL. I ended up getting super sidetracked with teaching and dealing with the biggest headache on the planet known as the Spanish Beaurocracy™️🤦🏾♀️ Seriously y'all, those people DO NOT know how to do their jobs! If you want to hear about the fun time of trying to get my papers in order so I could remain a legal foreign resident, lemme know! Well, even if you don't I may create a post solely dedicated to that anyway; I could use the opportunity to let out some steam.
Now without further ado, onto my first original post of 2021!!!
As you may have guessed, this is about emails, particularly those written in French. I have 2 recent-ish emails I sent off to a college French professor asking for a recommendation letter for a fellowship. Wanting to keep up my French skills (and not disappoint my former professor), I used that opportunity to practice French by setting aside several lovely hours of my life for each email... yep, you read it right, HOURS. If I wrote those emails in Spanish it would've only taken me a hour tops for each email, but since this is French we're talking about here I had to spend the majority of my email-writing time looking up virtually every other word/phrase, cringe over each eventual sentence(s) I'd create with said word/phrase, and ultimately convince myself to move onto the next sentence to repeat that same process. . . all of this with taking a break after every 3rd sentence due to being lowkey dissuaded from continuing. . . fuuuuuuuun🙃🙃🙃
Anyway, not all language learning sessions are great. BUT, ya gotta push through those annoying/bad times to achieve greatness, amirite? Right, so with that being said, ALLONS-Y!!!
So I mentioned having spent the majority of my time looking up words and phrases for these 2 emails, meaning I now have a lovely list of vocabulary to get through! Check it out below:
La Nouveauté - innovation / novelty / originality / freshness [In the email I mistakenly used it to mean "news", when I really should have used "nouvelles"]
La folie - madness / lunacy / insanity / chaos
Supporter - To put up with / to tolerate / to bear
Pour l'instant - For the moment
Falloir (qqch)- To have to do (sth) / must do (sth) [In the email I mistakenly used it to mean "should", when I really should have used "devoir"]
Déménager - To move (house)
L'essai (m.) - Try / attempt
Remettre - To turn in / to hand over [there are many more meanings for this verb, but in the email it's used to mean this]
Le formulaire - (Application) Form
Le faute - Fault / mistake / error
La date limite - Deadline
Faire face à - To deal with / to face
Opérer - To operate / to work / to function
Quoi qu'il en soit - Anyway / either way / be that as it may
Ce que - What [As an antecedent, not a question word]
Se rendre compte de (qqch) - To realize / to become aware of (sth)
La bourse - Scholarship / fellowship / grant / stock market
Requérir - to require / to call for
Le solliciteur / la solliciteuse - Petitioner / solicitor [In the email I mistakenly used it to mean "applicant", when I really should have used "demandeur / demandeuse" according to WordReference]
Le motif - Reason / motive / pattern / motif
Si longtemps - So long [As in "such a long time"]
Le thème - Topic / subject / theme
La déclaration personnelle - Personal statement
La déclaration d'intention - Statement of purpose
Payer le luxe - To have the luxury (to do sth) / to afford (to do sth)
Urger - To be urgent [In the email I mistakenly used it to mean "to oblige", when I really should have used "obliger"]
Amitiés - Best Wishes / All the Best [Letter sign-off]
And for the sake of breaking up these two lists so you won't be too overwhelmed at all the vocab I need to study, here's a picture of the first email below:
Désolée de. . . - Sorry for. . .
Tel (m.) / telle (f.) - Such (a)
Lié (m.) / liée (f.) - Related / connected
L'affaire (f.) - Matter / issue / business
Le séjour - Stay / temporary residence / family room / living room
Donc - Therefore [Grammatical position is after the verb, after "pas" if negation is present]
Une fois encore - Once again
L'objet (m.) - (Email) Subject / object / purpose / target
La nouvelle normale - The New Normal [COVID-19 related]
Vécu - Lived [Past participle of the verb "vivre"]
Propre - (One's) Own / clean / tidy / neat
Lorsque - While / when / as soon as
S'étonner - To be surprised / to be astonished / to be amazed
Chacun de nous - Any one of us / each of us
Poursuivre - To continue / to pursue / to keep up
L'enseignement de l'anglais langue étrangère - Teaching English as a Foreign Language [abbrv. "TEFL"]
Instituteur (m.) / Institutrice (f.) - (Primary school) Teacher
Le déménagement - Move / moving
Devenu(e) - Became [Past participle of the verb "devenir"]
L'éducateur / l'éducatrice - Educator
Bien que - Although / even though
Écrasant (m.) / écrasante (f.) - Overwhelming / crushing / heavy
En réalité - Actually / in fact / in reality
La ronde des finalistes - Finalist round
Alors que - While / even though
Les études (f.) - Studies
La communauté - Community
À ce sujet - On that note / speaking of which
À l'avenir - In the future
Postuler à (qqch) - To apply for (sth)
Scolaire - Academic / scholastic
S'améliorer - To improve / to upgrade / to get better
La capacité - Ability / capability
Cela dit - That (being) said
Fou (m.) / folle (f.) - Crazy / insane / mad / wild
Être en bonne santé - To be healthy
Être en sécurité - To be safe
Jurer - To swear / to vow / to curse / to cuss
Le temps de réponse - Response time
Chaleureusement - With Warm Regards / Warmly [Letter sign-off]
And here is the second email itself:
As you can see, I blocked out the name of my professor because Consent Tings™️. Hopefully the email images help with putting the vocab into context! I plan to make quizlets for these vocab words soon and will post the link to it here for y'all if you're interested in studying them! Also, DISCLAIMER: if you didn't know this before, I am by no means an expert in the French language; I'm hardly at the B1 level. Cela dit (that being said. . . see that? heh heh😏), I'm sure there are a plethora of errors in both emails. If you're feeling extra critical when reading them, please please PLEASE point out those errors to me! I want to discuss them with you and learn from them so I can poursuivre m'améliorer (keep on improving. . . once again, hehee😂)!
Alrighty, that covers just about everything! Again, I am so sorry for not having created any original posts in such a long time; life carried me away🤷🏾♀️ Now that I finally have my first post of 2021, here's to more frequent content creating!
EDIT: Links to the quizlets below!
Le premier e-mail: https://quizlet.com/_9mktlv?x=1jqt&i=3dk8u9
Le deuxième e-mail: https://quizlet.com/_9ml1s4?x=1jqt&i=3dk8u9
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