My BFF Becky Bloomwood...and other ways of learning French

Last week I watched Confessions of a Shopaholic with Isla Fisher, and though it got pretty terrible reviews, I have to admit, I thought it was sorta cute. Sure there were a lot of hare-brained schemes that wouldn't pan out in real life (Pretending that you can speak Finnish? Knowing nothing about finance and becoming a popular finance writer? Getting out of massive amounts of debt through a garage sale?), but I have a soft spot for Rebecca Bloomwood.

See, me and the main character of this book series-turned-movie have a special bond - she helps me practice French.

Please don't laugh, but I've found the best way for me to practice French is to read French editions of cheesy chick lit novels, and L'accro de shopping dit oui (Shopaholic Ties the Knot) was the first full French novel I ever read. It happened to be the third book in the series, but in a series of books about a girl that shops too much, it doesn't really spoil the thrilling plot to work backwards. I was amazed when I understood it and finished all 300-some pages of it!

It makes sense - when you first began reading, you stuck to simplistic books with easy to understand plot lines. Even if you were unsure of the meaning of a word, you could guess through pictures and context clues, and gradually learn more and more vocabulary. My simplistic books just happen to be chick lit.

When I started L'accro de shopping dit oui, reading in French finally clicked. In college I took so many French Literature classes, and reading even excerpts of classic French novels made me want to rip my hair out. I couldn't understand the archaic language, I would get bored from working so hard to comprehend it, and I would fall asleep. Or I would attempt to skim and understand the story through my intuition and street smarts, only to fail miserably during the class discussions the next day.

Reading comprehension of a foreign language is one of the quickest things you pick up, and one the skills you tend to retain the longest - but if you hate what you're reading and the language isn't modern, it won't help you in day-to-day life if you ever visit that country. I learned so many commonly used phrases and new vocabulary from reading the French Shopaholic series. How to say 'blow dryer' in French? Learned it from Becky Bloomwood!!

We're so secluded over here in North America and I feel like foreign language and international travel are often pushed to the back burner. Our schools generally don't begin teaching foreign languages until high school, roughly two thirds of the population has never gotten a passport (about 200 million people - via nodebtworldtravel.com), and we don't have easy access (aka cheap puddle jumpers and trains) to as many foreign countries as Europeans do. So unfair.

While we can't change the location of our country, I do wish we could change our attitude about the importance of other languages and cultures. Even though French isn't the most useful foreign language to know (Arabic, Japanese, Mandarin anyone?), I realized when I first set foot in Charles de Gaulle Airport that there's a whole other world out there where those vocabulary and reading comprehension lessons suddenly mattered.

When it comes to language - the way we communicate just about everything in life, full of nuances, slang, dialects, changing vocabulary and difficult grammar (where there's an exception to every rule) - you need to practice daily. I've always had such a strong desire to "get it" when it came to the French language, but I realize now after all those classes and my 2 month immersion escape in '08 that gripping the ins and outs of French will always be a challenge and every little bit helps.

Entertainment is one of the easiest and most enjoyable ways to maintain language skills but I wish things like this were more accessible in the US. At FNAC shops in Paris (a French version of Barnes & Noble), you could buy English or French translations of most popular books. I stocked up on the Gossip Girl series in French, the Shopaholic series and some books by Marc Levy (a well-known French author that's supposed to be easier to read). Here it's a lot harder to find popular novels in foreign language editions (it's all mostly textbooks and classics - blahh). You can try ordering books through Amazon.fr (or whatever other country you're interested in), but navigating the site in another language and with foreign currency can be complicated. I also recently found this site, French Bookworld where I saw French editions of Harry Potter and other recognizable titles.

If you're not a huge reader, watching DVDs with the foreign subtitles is also interesting. Anchorman with French subtitles is pretty hilarious (as if it wasn't already). Actual foreign DVDs are even better, but you'll need to invest in a zone-free DVD player...yet another annoyance of trying to immerse yourself in a different country's culture without leaving the States. Due to copyrights and other things I'll never fully understand, there are certain coded DVD zones throughout the world and our DVD players and laptops will not play DVDs made in a different zone. Sighhh.

Until I can get myself back to France (and with the look of my current bank account, it's gonna be awhile!), I can always pretend through books and movies, and make sure I don't forget all the vocab I worked so hard to learn over the years.

PS - Happy Early Bastille Day! :)

Pittsburgh blowing up on the big screen!

First Zack & Miri Make a Porno, then My Bloody Valentine and now Adventureland.  I feel like my hometown is becoming famous!!

Now, I won't kid myself, I realize one of the main reasons movies have been filmed in Pittsburgh lately is probably because it's significantly cheaper than filming in New York, but still... there's no better city to deserve some on-screen action.

I just saw Adventureland today, and the more I think about it, the more I realize I liked it.  Set in 1987, the movie follows a nerdy post-grad kid that comes home to Pittsburgh for the summer and is stuck working at Adventureland, the local amusement park.  It reminded me of an 80's version of Almost Famous or Dazed & Confused.  The movie was funny, especially when Bill Hader and Kristen Wiigs' characters chimed in, but the movie flowed with mostly an understated humor.  Ultimately, it's a sweet coming-of-age story about a kid that grows up more in one summer at a dead-end job than he did all four years at his respectable college.

The whole movie basically took place in Kennywood, the real Adventureland in Pittsburgh.  I loved pointing out all the rides and seeing the park on the big screen.  Although, just an FYI, the movie makes the park look really run down, but in reality, it's not run down at all.  Kennywood has been around forever, but the film purposely doesn't show any of the new additions to the park or the modern roller coasters there.  Fun Fact: I read that they decided to shoot at Kennywood instead of a list of other theme parks around the country because Kennywood isn't commercialized and they didn't have to cover up a bunch of advertisements and corporate sponsors for filming.

Growing up, Kennywood was the place to be seen.  Every school district in Pittsburgh is given a "Kennywood Day," a weekday where there is no school and you're able to purchase discounted tickets to spend the day at the park.  It was of utmost importance to look cute on Kennywood Day.  Ohhh the shopping trips I would take and the hours I would spend perfecting my outfit to make sure I looked good in case I ran into any boys from school. All the girls basically looked like little hoochie-mamas on Kennywood Day.  No dress-code policy there! haha

The characters felt very authentic and the film kept true to Pittsburgh-- the homes they showed looked like homes near my neighborhood and there were plenty of landscape shots that reminded me of home.  The house parties and aimless driving over tons of yellow bridges brought back memories of high school as well.  I also liked the random glimpses of Pittsburgh pride, like the guy playing the shooting gallery game with the Lambert jersey on.  (Zack & Miri was really good with that, too.)  Fun Fact #2: The directors for both Adventureland and Zack & Miri have personal ties to Pittsburgh.  Kevin Smith (Zack & Miri) had a girlfriend from Pittsburgh and always loved the city and told himself he'd like to film there someday and Greg Mottola (Adventureland) got his undergraduate degree from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

My advice-- go see it.  

Pittsburgh being in the movies isn't new, though.  Throughout the years, lots of popular movies have been filmed in my hometown.  Here are a few to jog your memory of the Steel City on the Silver Screen:

- Wonder Boys

- Dogma

- Inspector Gadget

- Milk Money

- Groundhog Day

- The Silence of the Lambs

- Flashdance

- The Deer Hunter