Learning in Québec

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I'm someone who began learning French when I was 53. I took a BA in French at 60 but wasn't happy with my level of comprehension (though I read very well). So, having really become comfortable with Spanish only by living on the Mexican border, I'm spending more time in Québec and near the border of Quebec, in Vermont, to see if I can do that here with French. I want to encourage others to do the same.

Friday 24 October 2014

Ici encore une fois en l'automne

I've been here a week and a day, coming up from Burlington through Montréal. Kept hoping to find a way to post photographs again, but so far haven't brought that together. Coming by bus from Burlington is a good way; I'd not done it before. For a Senior it costs about $75, including the fare from Burlington to Montréal and then another ticket from Montréal to Québec City.

I spend a lot of time in the two libraries nearest where I'm staying, Bibliothèque Gabrielle Roy and Bibliothèque St. Jean Baptiste. From one I've checked out a copy of Dans le Café de la Jeunesse Perdue by the new Nobel lauréate, Patrick Modiano. Beneath the covers in my hébergement -- one from La Vestiaire du Faubourg, I read this:

Pour moi, l'automne n'a jamais été une saison triste. Les feuilles mortes et les jours de plus en plus courts ne m'ont jamais évoqué la fin de quelque chose mais plutôt une attente de l'avenir. Il y a de l'électricité dans l'air, à Paris, les soirs d'octobre 'a l'heure où la nuit tombe. [p. 24, Gallimard, 2007]

My humble translation:
For me, autumn never was a sad season. The dead leaves and the shorter and shorter days never brought to mind the end of something but instead an alertness to the future. There's electricity in the air in Paris on October nights when darkness falls.

Et aussi à la Ville de Québec.

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