Charades With Limited Success

Après quelques jours rempli de français, je veux beaucoup parler in English, already! I like the challenge of having to speak French all the time, but not being able to properly describe anything is really frustrating. I don't have the vocabulary, and as a result, I end up trying to mime actions and objects. It's like a perpetual game of charades.

Here, for example, is a rendition of me trying to explain the concept of landfillls, with the majority of grammatical errors intact.

Yaning takes a drink from a glass of water. She says "Oui, à Toronto on a des, um, des trucks, qui viennent chaque semaine pour ra-ramasser les poubelles. Pas les poubelles, les choses qui sont dans les poubelles--qu'est-ce qu'on appelle, ça?"

Nancy, her host, who has been nodding bemusedly the entire time, responds "Les déchets."

"Oui, les déchets. Alors, tout les déchets, ils va à une place comme, um, comme une landfill? Est-ce que tu sais qu'est-ce que c'est, un landfill?"

Nancy pauses to think about it a little. "Euh... non."

"Les trucks, ils prennent les déchets à la place, et il y a um..." says Yaning as she struggles to find the word in French for "hole." Or "dig," perhaps. "Um, c'est comme on, uh," she says, pausing to think of a suitable substitute for "dig," and when nothing comes to mind, begins to half-heartedly excavate an imaginary hole. 


Nancy looks even more confused. "Un bâtiment?" she offers. Yaning shakes her head. 


"Okay, c'est comme il y a une, uh... chose, une place où tout les déchets accumuler?"


"Ouäis, okay, je sais ce que tu veux dire."


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That is about as accurate as I can make it.

I was also putting off writing a post, because I was deciding which would be the best way to present all that's happened in the past week in one single post? However, the thread that will tie it all together seems to be out of my grasp, and so I have decided instead to present some issues instead, this one being the language barrier.

It's not all bad, though, if that's the impression you're getting. I've gotten a lot better at listening to what people are saying without being totally lost, and I'm actually trying some more complex verb conjugations. They're not a complete failure. I'd say I'm having some limited success.