>I agree but last year I listened to Pimlseur Hebrew tapes and when I was in Israel later that year I was able to say things like "where is..", "thank you..", "I don't like to eat, drink..." etc.. The problem was that most israelis speak very good English so they would not let me show off all of my skills <g>. I have heard that french people are much less anglicized (is there such a word? <g>) so maybe when I go to France, I will need all the French I can learn.

My experience in France has been that almost everywhere, as soon as I got out one sentence in my college French, the other person switched to English. In Paris, that was universal. Outside of Paris, I had only a couple of times when that wasn't the case.

The most interesting story came when Marshal and I stopped in Drancy to see the transit camp through which I thought my grandparents had passed. (I learned later that they went through a different camp.) We went to the town hall to ask where it was, and the people there had about as much English as I had French, but we managed to communicate and they called the guy who runs the site and asked him to meet us.

He turned out to speak no English, only French, Hebrew and, I think, Yiddish. I had my little bit of French, and both Marshal and I have some Hebrew. Getting the tour of the site was an interesting experience, but all three of us managed to say and hear what was necessary. It was certainly an experience we won't forget anytime soon.

Tamar