Learning French In David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day
David Sedaris wrote "Me Talk Pretty One Day", to express his experiences in learning French. Not only has he moved to France and enrolled in school there, but he is also older than most of the students in his class. He expresses his trepidation on the first day of class by referencing Pa Kettle backstage after a fashion show; saying "they were all young, attractive and well dressed." (Sedaris 1) He continues to go on throughout his essay expressing the difficulties of learning French, living in France and the obstacles he has to overcome to succeed.
Sedaris goal in writing Me Talk Pretty One day is that learning French and living in a foreign country as an older adult is both difficult and rewarding. Through hard work and extensive studying he eventually starts to understand what his teacher is telling him. “And it struck me that, for the first time since arriving in France, I could understand every word that someone was saying.” (Sedaris) I agree with Sedaris in his claim that learning something new can be difficult and rewarding. I myself am going back to school at the age of 35 with a family to care for. Things that I thought I knew are no longer true and I seem to have a learning curve that some of the younger students do not share.
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He states, "At the age of forty-one, I am returning to school and having to think of myself as what my French textbook calls "a true debutant."" He shares his discomfort on the first day of class comparing himself to Pa Kettle after a fashion show. He goes on to detail how at his age that all of his insecurities should be gone. Saying "isn 't that the great promise of adulthood?" He further states that he is more frightened now than as a child or around the age of twenty. I agree with Sedaris in that I think that as we get older we should adjust faster than when we were younger. However, I still get just as nervous as I did as a young
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516 Words | 3 PagesThe excerpt from “Me Talk Pretty One Day” was written by David Sedaris, and is focused on when the author moved to Paris in order to learn the French language. Upon his first day in French class, Sedaris is belittled by his French teacher and begins to lose his confidence. At the end of this excerpt, the reader sees Sedaris regain his pride. From the beginning of this essay, Sedaris is out of place. He is in a completely different country than he has grown up in, which takes away the comfortable familiarity of home.
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992 Words | 4 Pages“My only comfort was the knowledge that I was not alone. Huddled in the hallways and making the most of our pathetic French, my fellow students and I engaged in the sort of conversations commonly overheard in refugee camps.” (L. 105-107) To sum up, David Sedaris wrote the essay Me Talk Pretty One Day in 2005. He did this because he had chosen to learn French and came across a really mean teacher.
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