{"id":665,"date":"2012-10-16T12:03:45","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T23:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=665"},"modified":"2012-10-16T12:07:27","modified_gmt":"2012-10-15T23:07:27","slug":"not-everything-that-you-learn-is-useful-immediately","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=665","title":{"rendered":"Not everything that you learn is useful immediately"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I think I was 13 when I started trying to learn French.<\/p>\n

My teacher was a former army captain who had spent several years in the south and west of France.\u00a0 Beneath his slightly old-fashioned formality and upright military bearing, Max was both a gentleman and a scholar.\u00a0 He was also an engaging raconteur.<\/p>\n

He must have realised within the first few weeks of the school year that at least 23 of the 25 members of the class had little real interest in becoming fluent French speakers.\u00a0 Our choice of French as our \u2018foreign language\u2019 option was influenced largely\u00a0by the fact that the only other language on offer was Japanese.\u00a0 And at least French used the Latin alphabet.<\/p>\n

A typical French lesson began with a few new words and a few simple phrases.\u00a0 The pen of my aunt and the hat of my uncle (both sur la table<\/em>) seemed to provide the model.\u00a0 And then, still with 30 minutes or so to go, Max would veer off into a fascinating account of some aspect of French culture.\u00a0 Regional foods and wines often featured.\u00a0 And so did scratchy recordings of French singers from the \u2018thirties, \u2018forties, and \u2018fifties.\u00a0 Then it was suddenly time to pack away our (unopened) textbooks and head to the next class.<\/p>\n

By the end of the first term most of us had acquired the beginnings of a French vocabulary based around food ingredients, culinary techniques, grape varieties, and the wine producers of the Bordeaux and Burgundy regions. \u00a0Unfortunately, these words were only of limited use when it came to the end-of-year exams.<\/p>\n

But then, many years later, I was invited to take part in a \u2018chateau crawl\u2019 through Medoc, St Estephe, Pauillac, and Margaux.\u00a0 It was only then that I discovered just how useful my rather specialised French vocabulary was.<\/p>\n

Merci.\u00a0 Merci beaucoup, monsieur Max<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think I was 13 when I started trying to learn French. My teacher was a former army captain who had spent several years in the south and west of France.\u00a0 Beneath his slightly old-fashioned formality and upright military bearing, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=665"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":667,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665\/revisions\/667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}