>>>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.
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>>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.
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>When I hear americans (native born) speak any foreigh language the accent is usually very strong. I am sure there are exceptions.

I think I'm one of them, to some extent. As I said in a different thread last week, I have a pretty good ear for the sound of a language. Hand me a book in a language I've studied, and I can do a pretty respectable job reading aloud.

I suspect in my case, it's more my timidity in using the language (Really, you can all stop laughing now. <s>), and perhaps a lack of fluidity.


>On a side note, since you mentioned the transit camp, if you have not, you might like the book "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay. I loved the book.

Just looked it up. Sounds up my alley.

FWIW, although my grandparents were transited through France, they were actually from Germany. My mother and I visited the town where she born a few years ago.

Tamar