76/100 My French Exam
Adventures in Language Learning
French would be a longer problem to solve. With this language, I wouldn’t take any formal training or support until preparing for my exam in the spring and summer of 2021. I started learning this language in 2016, and I started with just apps and workbooks.
(I remember the exact epiphany of realizing that a workbook is literally a recommended approach to a target language with refined practice that I could buy online for $20.)
I was overambitious in attempting the B2 exam in French. I was banking on general badass-ness to carry me through since I was also taking the B2 Italian exam later on.
I failed. However, this would be the moment I encounter one of the most bizarre mysteries of my life: baby tables.
Like the Italian exam, it is broken up by specific skills: listening, writing, grammar, reading, and conversation. For the conversation, you are given two prompts of vague detail and are asked to pick one to give a monologue and then take questions from the proctor for a total of 20 minutes. The two prompts I was given were basically these:
- Society is so attached these days with technology. Is this a good thing?
- We are a modern society and have baby tables. Is this a good thing?
What the hell is a baby table? Originally, I thought it was the baby-changing table in restrooms. More fully, the prompt was all about how modern it was that there were in the men’s room now. But, they were also at the parks? That was the part that ruined my comprehension. Are these now tables that are sized for children also? Where are these tables activated in French society, and why was it a breakthrough?
I obviously went with the first. But from this point on, I would ask for clarity about these baby tables with people at meetups or events and I would get this look like, “oh, yeah. Yeah, no, we have those, but I know what you mean.” No one has been able to explain to me what has happened in French culture that the battle of the baby tables would be so deeply entrenched. It has never made sense once.
I would take this DELF B2 exam again in June of 2021. This time in New York City. (This was also when I learned that NYC is not for me. Unless you have money, there is nothing for you to do but to go to this pen in the middle of the city called Central Park. There, you can be without the added ‘cost of living’.)
I crushed the exam this time. I received my B2 certificate in French in July 2021.
More soon,
Trevor