It never failed to interest me how quickly we picked up French in a top Chinese university, and how quickly we forgot that as well. The brightest minds of the country followed a textbook that was written in the 1980s, with still quite a lot of old red propaganda scarily noticeable. We managed to hire a teacher from southern France. He told me that people no longer use some of the phrases we're happily learning, such as 'il fait quel prix?' for 'how much is it?' You just simply say 'c'est combien...'
Fine. I still remember the day we had our speaking exam. Having acquired a number of tenses, I staggered from word to word looking for the right way to describe my friend, my interest, and where I live, trying to hide my embarrassment with just a smile. It was all so funny.
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