Speaking French as a Foreign Language: 2024 Wrapped
You’ve probably seen the Spotify Wrapped feature before. The music-streaming platform puts together a year-end summary for all its users, so you can look back on your music tastes of the year.
Wrapped has produced a lot of parodies and copycats, both by individuals and brands. Some have real numbers, others make things up to be funny.
I decided to make my own year-end “Wrapped” series, for all the foreign-language learners out there. Specifically those of us trying to speak French as a second (or third, or fourth) language.
No matter how many years you’ve been studying French, or what your level is, there’s always something you’ll struggle with. I think “Speaking French as Foreign Language: 2024 Wrapped” sums that up nicely.
Note: This Wrapped is unequivocally a parody. The numbers aren’t real. Obviously. How could I have possibly tracked all of this?
As for how many verbs you unsuccessfully conjugated this year…well let’s just say it’s much higher than 10,434. But it’s important to focus on the wins!
Only 58 times? That’s pretty respectable. Considering how many calls you had to make to the mutuelle to get your reimbursements sorted out.
And no, it’s not telling people your nationality, where you’re from, and how long you’ve lived in Belgium (or another Francophone country). But those are definitely up there.
Bonus points if this is on your top-words list too: Spelling out your non-French-sounding last name. And first name, for that matter.
Multiply all those encounters by the three seconds you spend making eye contact with the person as you try to figure out if you should approach them or wait for them to approach you.
You were only caught doing so 1 out of every 10 times you did it. Smiling and nodding is universal.
“Se prendre une tarte” means to literally or figuratively slap someone. It can be a figurative “slap in the face” or you can say it when you’ve actually slapped someone. Idioms are so much more fun when they have both literal and figurative meanings, right?
28% of those 8,468 minutes were trying to remember and understand all those jokes you fake-laughed at.
Over 3k is impressive, but let’s not forget the 10,000+ times you were able to construct a legitimate sentence that simply avoided the subjunctive altogether.
You retained 24% of those words. Also, 38% of the words and phrases you looked up were words you already knew verbally but had absolutely no idea how to spell.
Honestly if you’re sitting at more than 50% you’ve basically beaten the odds, so good for you!
Thanks for going on this journey through French with me, and here’s to another (hopefully better) year of speaking French, or whatever foreign language you’re learning.
