Looking at my map of the forest Little Red Riding Hood walks through, Nyah saw a fish in the lake and said “poisson”, the first French word she has emitted spontaneously other than oui. When I pointed that out, she said, “And you missed the historic moment. I asked what she meant and she pointed to the voice recorder that I hadn’t turned on. But shortly thereafter she said marcher also when objecting to promenade meaning ‘walk’, saying it is marcher.
She asked, “Where is the werewolf?” showing she is willing to bring other elements into the story.
With maillot de bain I threw in salle de bain and she asked if French has two words for bathroom, like restroom. Language curiosity.
She responded to my mention of ‘guache’ being an English word by asking in which century. She is skeptical about some of my vocabulary.
Discussion of greetings, comment allez-vous, led to how to say What’s up = ca va, salut, etc.
le loup est tres sauvage elicited the word wild, which we had had much earlier but more recently in talking about going to the local restaurant Wild Flower, la Fleur Sauvage. She had vigorously objected to translating a proper name but the word stuck, which is the whole point.
When she fails to recognize a word, she is clear on that. Part of the story was the wolf saying, “Tiens. Tiens.” Silence. I asked, ” you don’t remember? ” “No.” Other times she guesses, often based on resemblances to other French words like changer and chanter or to English words like marcher to march.
I also failed to record the next lesson but I’ve got all the rest, about 90. I’ll keep going back and transcribing them and adding them to the blog.