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The long way round
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 11:33 amI seem, suddenly, to be picking up random followers on Google+. One is French, the other, German. My command of French is very poor and my German practically non-existent; I was not one of the linguistic successes of the British Education system despite ostensibly being taught both languages for a number of years.
Indeed at O-Level, my command of German was such that they declined to grade it, not wanting to sully the purity of my translations and conversation with anything as prosaic as an arbitrary mark.
My command of the French language is of an entirely different order. With German I have to resort to silly accents and stereotypical use of the few German words I know. With French, some of it stuck – at least to O-Level standard – though after thirty years or so, it’s wearing off, but I can still manage a passable Franglais. I am more qualified in French than many, or indeed most people I know. I say more qualified advisedly. I am far from being the most highly qualified; I just have a lot of French qualifications. More precisely, I have four French language O-Levels, a testament to the plateau of understanding I hit aged about fifteen.
By the time I was twelve, enough teachers were convinced that I had an aptitude for learning French that I was shoved onto a fast stream for that language and also into a German class. It all went horribly wrong in German, but as far as the French went, I was lulled along by consistently lax marking into thinking I knew what was going on. So I took my O=Level a year early and got a disappointing D. Never mind, it was a year early, after all, so I took it again when I was sixteen along with my other O-Levels (including the German that they were so impressed with that they stood back from awarding even a fail).
I got another D. This did not gel with the marks I was getting in class and I was down to do the subject at A-Level. So we agreed that I would re-sit the written part in November to try for a better grade to underpin my A-Level work. So I did. I got a C this time. Not marvellous, but at least equivalent to the old pass mark from the days when these were identified properly (ie grades 1-3 were passes, 4 and below increasingly impressive failures. Under the revised grading, a D was a sort of 3.5, or too good to fail, too poor to pass). That allowed me to persuade the school that I should continue with French at A-Level.
Unfortunately, RJ (Flapper) Anderson esq1, our Deputy Headmaster, took French at A-Level, and he was an unforgiving taskmaster. My attempts at French came back with industrial quantities of red ink on them and within a few months any residual confidence I had in my ability to learn French had imploded and I stalled. By the time I came to sit the A-Level, I was awarded another O-Level for my pains. In two years I had made no progress at all, but was in a position, provided no-one asked for details, legitimately to claim an additional three O-levels. It wasn’t my fault if people assumed that those additional O-Levels were in different subjects. They didn’t ask and I didn’t tell and since I went on to get a degree, it’s all a bit of a moot point anyway.
Anyway, I digress. I don’t make public posts on Google +, so the two chaps who added me aren’t going to be able to read anything and even if they could, it would be steadfastly in English. So why did they bother?
1Now sadly deceased, Flapper was a teacher of the old, nay, ancient school and even during what ought to have been my sullen and rebellious late teens, he was able to scare the bejasus out of me. We was entirely bald and had the biggest ears sticking out from the eggiest head I’ve ever seen and a dead shot with chalk or board cleaner. I met him once after I’d left school and he was a really nice chap.
Indeed at O-Level, my command of German was such that they declined to grade it, not wanting to sully the purity of my translations and conversation with anything as prosaic as an arbitrary mark.
My command of the French language is of an entirely different order. With German I have to resort to silly accents and stereotypical use of the few German words I know. With French, some of it stuck – at least to O-Level standard – though after thirty years or so, it’s wearing off, but I can still manage a passable Franglais. I am more qualified in French than many, or indeed most people I know. I say more qualified advisedly. I am far from being the most highly qualified; I just have a lot of French qualifications. More precisely, I have four French language O-Levels, a testament to the plateau of understanding I hit aged about fifteen.
By the time I was twelve, enough teachers were convinced that I had an aptitude for learning French that I was shoved onto a fast stream for that language and also into a German class. It all went horribly wrong in German, but as far as the French went, I was lulled along by consistently lax marking into thinking I knew what was going on. So I took my O=Level a year early and got a disappointing D. Never mind, it was a year early, after all, so I took it again when I was sixteen along with my other O-Levels (including the German that they were so impressed with that they stood back from awarding even a fail).
I got another D. This did not gel with the marks I was getting in class and I was down to do the subject at A-Level. So we agreed that I would re-sit the written part in November to try for a better grade to underpin my A-Level work. So I did. I got a C this time. Not marvellous, but at least equivalent to the old pass mark from the days when these were identified properly (ie grades 1-3 were passes, 4 and below increasingly impressive failures. Under the revised grading, a D was a sort of 3.5, or too good to fail, too poor to pass). That allowed me to persuade the school that I should continue with French at A-Level.
Unfortunately, RJ (Flapper) Anderson esq1, our Deputy Headmaster, took French at A-Level, and he was an unforgiving taskmaster. My attempts at French came back with industrial quantities of red ink on them and within a few months any residual confidence I had in my ability to learn French had imploded and I stalled. By the time I came to sit the A-Level, I was awarded another O-Level for my pains. In two years I had made no progress at all, but was in a position, provided no-one asked for details, legitimately to claim an additional three O-levels. It wasn’t my fault if people assumed that those additional O-Levels were in different subjects. They didn’t ask and I didn’t tell and since I went on to get a degree, it’s all a bit of a moot point anyway.
Anyway, I digress. I don’t make public posts on Google +, so the two chaps who added me aren’t going to be able to read anything and even if they could, it would be steadfastly in English. So why did they bother?
1Now sadly deceased, Flapper was a teacher of the old, nay, ancient school and even during what ought to have been my sullen and rebellious late teens, he was able to scare the bejasus out of me. We was entirely bald and had the biggest ears sticking out from the eggiest head I’ve ever seen and a dead shot with chalk or board cleaner. I met him once after I’d left school and he was a really nice chap.