Studying for our French meetings (which is everything but the KM) takes quite a while, but it’s getting a little easier.
For our Wednesday night meeting (TMS), I read the Bible reading for the week in English, and then try to prepare at least 2 comments for the Bible Highlights in French. That takes anywhere from 15 – 30 minutes, just preparing the comments (not including the reading). I read both the RS and Insight book parts in English.
For the Draw Close book, I study the English and French at the same time. I read my English one, but mark up my French copy (which is electronic on my Notability app). I do it paragraph by paragraph. Then I look up EVERY scripture that is listed in the paragraph in my French Bible. I never know what scriptures the conductor is going to ask to have read, and if I look them all up, I can mark the ones I feel comfortable reading at a moment’s notice.
I try to have a comment ready for each paragraph. Some of them are just straight from the paragraph, and some of them are in my ‘own’ words (that I have written off to the side of course).
The Watchtower I do very similarly to the Draw Close book. I try to have a comment for every paragraph (we have between 25 – 35 people at our meetings, and not a lot of commenters). Again, some of them are straight from the paragraph, but I really am trying a lot harder to come up with them on my own. We study out of the simplified Watchtower.
So….here’s how I come up with my own comments and talks.
I use a combination of things. Google Translate is very helpful, but it’s also VERY wrong a lot of the time. Having taken 3 years of French in school I have enough of a background where I can kind of tell if something is not right.
My tips to ANYONE using Google translate are this:
Don’t do more than one sentence at a time, and even then try to break the sentence down into two or three parts. And if you already know the translation, don’t plug it into Google Translate. If you KNOW the phrase “we have to pray” (nous devons prier, or ‘we must pray’), then use it. Don’t plug something into Google translate that you already know (this is something that my ‘mentor’ told me…she said translate what you can on your own, then go in and fill in the blanks because you will learn so much faster that way).
My next resource is an app called 'Word Reference'. This has been a HUGE help in learning what phrases and figures of speech are just not used in the French language. For example, a few weeks ago my husband had highlights and he wanted to say 'Pharaoh was irritated.' Well, if you plug that into Google Translate, it comes out "pharaon était irritée'. Now, I knew the first two words were correct, and it would seem that 'irritée' would be the correct word to use in this sentence, but I had NEVER heard that word used before. So I looked it up in Word Reference, and 'irritated' in French (irritée) actually means 'feeling inflammation' (as in a skin rash or something). Which would explain why I've never heard it. Word Reference than gave some suggestions. The word that the French use for irritated (as in annoyed or infuriated) is 'furieux'. So we chose that one because my husband was not implying that Pharaoh had an inflamed skin rash (I suppose he could have, but that's not the reason he was irritated ha ha).
When I was helping my mother-in-law this past weekend with her French talk, we used a combination of Google Translate, Word Reference and a good old French Dictionary. I told her to make her talk as simple as possible in English. That helps greatly. In Google Translate, if you type in something like ‘what we can see from this….’, it will use the word for physically seeing something with your eyes (not learning, which is what we want to convey). So because Google Translate takes everything literally, you have to take that into consideration when using it. Instead of saying ‘what we can see from this…’, I had her simply use ‘What we learn...' Keep it simple and your translation will come across so much clearer. Plus, it will be much simpler for an audience that is learning French as well to understand.
Another thing that Google Translate does that drives me bonkers is when it comes to formal vs. informal words. It makes everything formal. Always. And as witnesses, we are very informal with each other. We are family! The formal word for 'you' is 'vous'. The informal for 'you' is 'tu'. I'm sure everyone knows the phrase 'Comment-allez vous?'. This is the way you would ask a complete stranger how they're doing. So at the meetings, we NEVER use this phrase. We say 'comment ça va' (how's it going?). Google Translate apparently assumes you know no one, so everything is formal. ‘Do you want to read’ comes across as ‘voulez-vous lire’. The ‘vous’ in this sentence being formal for ‘you’. The informal (and more common) way to say it is ‘veux-tu lire’. Tu is the ‘informal’ you. This is a new concept to English speakers, because we don’t have formal and informal words. And the ‘voulez’ and ‘veux’ are different conjugations of the same verb (‘vouloir’, which means ‘to want’). Google Translate will not let you change it to ‘informal’, so this is one of those things that you just have to know. Or you have to have this:
Ha ha. This book is awesome. It lists all of the conjugations for just about every verb out there.
I love it. Especially for irregular verbs, such as vouloir. If the verb ends in ‘er’, than the conjugations are pretty much the same. But the irregular verbs like ‘être’ (to be), or ‘vouloir’ (to want) are the ones that will get you all confused. Especially être. Geez. Être is just a mess. Ironically, that was the first verb I learned in the 7th grade and it was drilled into my head every day for the entire school year. Which is good, because I remember every conjugation of that word to this day (Je suis, tu es, il est, elle est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils ont = I am, you are, he is, she is, we are, you are). And it's one of the most commonly used verbs.
Anyways. I'm getting off track.
The things that I am trying to learn now is when to use certain words that are the same. Like the word for ‘when’. It’s either ‘quand’ or ‘lorsque’. ? And I’ve heard them used both equally. I’m trying to make a note of these types of things as they pop into my head to research later or ask Nicole (my most favorite French lady in the world….well, actually she’s Canadian, but she speaks French and I love her to pieces).
So....there you have it. A small glimpse into my French studies and why it takes me so long. Confused yet? Me too! Prayer helps ha ha.
