Rediscovering French: My Journey to Learning the Language

Mon Legionnaire | The classic French Foreign Legion in Wargaming ...

I have a love-hate relationship with French. Not the people of course, the language–la langue française. I’ve always enjoyed listening to French being spoken as well as hearing it in music and over my many years I’m tried to learn what I can of it. I remember when I was 17, listening (and repeating) phrases and vocabulary words from two cassette tapes that came with a small travel phrase book. This was on my new fancy Sony Walkman (remember those?). I was preparing then, in 1980, for my first trip to Europe. I wore those tapes out while at the same time studiously working my way through the Berlitz French Self-Teacher. Even to this day I remember much of what I learned and actually used in Paris, Lyon, Marseilles, and Nice. When I was in the Army in Germany from 1985-1988 I wanted to keep going with my self-taught French and borrowed a copy of the Defense Language Institute (DLI) French Basic Course. After a couple of months of those cassette tapes I then made a big mistake that haunted the rest of my time in the Army–I took the Defense Language Proficiency Test (DLPT) for French and somehow scored a L 0+/R 1. It was certainly not good enough to pass but it did go in my records and from thereafter the Army thought I was a French linguist. Several times I was selected for special assignments and temporary duty because of that stupid test. I usually was able to convince the bureaucracy to pick someone else for those jobs but in 1993 I was sent to Somalia to back fill an interpreter position. I kept at it (trying to learn French) for a while and my last time in Paris (1998) actually made me feel pretty good as my fumbling efforts were pretty successful in most situations and I was pleased with how many words and signs I understood.

Reconsidering French Studies

But honestly, who am I fooling? If you don’t keep at it you will forget it and I’m probably now no better now than I was when I was 17 working on the first lesson of that old Berlitz book. When I retired from the Army and started this blog almost 14 years ago I told myself that I would learn French in order to read about the Foreign Legion in it’s mother language. Well, that never happened either and I stopped trying and without Google Translator or Deepl I’d be lost on some of the French items I use on this blog.

Starting French Studies Anew

Fast forward to right now and I’m now reconsidering things and have decided to begin French studies all over again. I read a good book called “Flirting with French” by William Alexander that describes his attempts to learn the language at age 58. Although, in the end he was not as successful as he wanted to be, he did say that the language learning process itself significantly improved his scores on cognitive testing. It might just be good for my brain to start all over again and see what happens. Another thing I’m seeing is the vast amount of resources one has today that can make the learning experience so much easier than the rote “listen and repeat” repetitive approach I used in the past. There are several dozen online courses from the free and easy DuoLingo to the more structured courses like Rosetta Stone and Babble. There is of course “the Internet”, flash card apps and speaking apps for your phone, YouTube videos and full courses, Podcasts, e-Books and e-Magazines, live radio from France on the web, MP3 files and players, steaming content with TV shows, news and movies in French with English subtitles, and even AI is breaking ground as an easy way to practice conversations. So I think I’m going to have another go at French. I’ve opened a notebook and started to write down every French word and phrase that I already know and am very pleased to find I have at least a 1,000 word vocabulary so far to start with. So any tips and encouragement would be welcome.

The Classic French Foreign Legion in Wargaming

This Georges Surdez story appeared in the 01 August 1932 issue of Adventure. It’s a nice concise tale of what happens when a long-serving Legionnaire butts heads with a prideful officer of the Native Infantry (better known as the tirailleurs algériens or simply Turcos). Legion Adjutant Forbach comes up with a clever way to deal with newly arrived Lieutenant Lavoine who imposes his authority on a small garrison of Legionnaires as a way to exact a twisted sort of revenge on behalf of his Regimental Commander. Ultimately, his petty punishments and discipline levied on the Legion detachment prove fatal on the battlefield. Cold Steel is a pretty typical story from Georges Surdez with well developed characters and a realistic and logical setting in Morocco and the Foreign Legion. Unlike other writers of Foreign Legion pulp fiction like J. D. Newsom, Robert Carse and Bob DuSoe, Surdez doesn’t have his legionnaires make glorious last stands with only one or two survivors holding out until relief arrives. Instead, he often uses the action and chaos of battle to resolve the personal conflicts and issues that have arisen in the earlier parts of the story and Cold Steel follows that pattern. 9 of the Best Resources for Starting to Learn French Online by ... If you want to download the full issue of Adventure where this story appeared it is available on the Internet Archive here.