les petites choses

Tonight, I had a long, in depth conversation about life in Paris versus life in the United States with my host sister.

You may have read over one of the words in that sentence too quickly so let me repeat it for you: CONVERSATION

So far my conversations have been like this:

IN FRENCH: "Lauren, blah blah blah blah blah blahhhhh (telling me a story about their days)"

Me: Ohhh ouiiiiii

IN FRENCH: "Lauren, blah blah blah blah. Do you understand?"

Me: Ouiiiiii. Je comprend. (I understand).

IN FRENCH: "Lauren, do you like dinner?"

Me: "Oui! Merci beaucoup."

Occasionally I would have to answer a question with a full sentence. Usually I practiced this full sentence on the Metro/walk home because it was likely to be the answer to "What did you do today?"

But tonight, I spoke many full sentences. And they were understood with very little eyebrow crinkling. I also learned a lot about French culture, especially regarding my generation. Tres interessant!

This may seem like a very small step to you. And, in the long run, hopefully it will be just one small step. But I've spent the past week and a half feeling like I had no way to express my personality through French. I had started to wonder if my host family had any hope left that I am not the most boring person in the whole world. And tonight, I think I finally convinced them that I could be fun as well as shy and confused (which I still am a little bit). Hooray!