Joella sat in her classroom very desperate to what just happened to her language teacher. Why did they have to have French this morning with her? She's a German and she wouldn't have made this mistakes in her native language. But because the school hadn't enough money they couldn't afford two language teachers...
When she thought further about the incident she recognized that the mistake with the article 'le' instead of 'la' originated from her teachers German background. And how the principle could have heard that her teacher forgot the accents while having a good pronunciation was a myth to her...
Oh she really wished that she would have had her German lessons this morning together with Mrs. Müller...
She when she finished this sentence she heard a strict voice saying:
"Joella, stop dreaming. You just looked as if someone would have turned into a French poodle"
- Sometimes the thing with the wishes can be quite confusing Joella thought to herself.
"Joella, könntest du bitte mal den ersten Satz auf Seite 65 deines Buches vorlesen?"
[Joella, could you please read the first sentence on page 65 of your book"]
- Yes and really similar she thought to herself. She opened the book and saw the sentence.
"Oh no. She thought to herself. Not this sentence again"
"Joella, bitte beeile dich ein wenig, wir haben nicht den ganzen Tag Zeit."
["Joella, please hurry a bit, we don't have a whole day"]
"In Ordnung, ... also ... Ich wünschte, dass ..."
["Ok, ... so ... Ich wish, that ..."]
"Joella why do you stop?"
"This 'dass' is written different from the one in the older book I saw"
The teacher turned to the blackboard and began writing 'dass' and 'daß' on it.
"OK this 'daß' was just a couple of years ago used in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, she explained. But than a new orthography was introduced which changed the 'daß' with this typical German 'ß' into a 'dass' with two s."
She paused some moments
"Good that you recognized this difference. Other people could have thought it's simply a printing mistake"
She made a plus in her grade book for Joella and than continued with the lesson"
"Aber genug, komm doch bitte auf den Satz zurück"
["But enough, please come back to the sentence"]
"OK, ... {She expected and 'Auf Deutsch bitte' but than she recalled that to say 'OK' was also absolutly correct in modern German} ... Ich wünschte, dass ich Königing von Frankreich wär"
"Gute Ausprache" the teacher said.
["Good pronunciation"]
"This way it's said in normal spoken German"
"What's an other possibility to express this, Joella?"
"Wow, the ring doesn't seem to work if you just read sentences out of books" she thought.
She closed her book. The teacher really knew how to encourage her. She thought for a moment and than said:
"Ich glaube ich hab es: Ich wünschte, ich wäre die französische Königin"
["I believe I have it: I wish, I would be the French queen"]
"Nice that you ccan also change 'Queen of France' into 'French queen'" She heard Mrs. Müller say.
But than the classroom vanished...
[Personal note from the author:
I apologize to any francophone people I could have insulted with my non-perfect written French in the former stories. French is just my second foreign language and therefore it might have been better not to use it here.
But still I sincerely hope that I woke up the interest of others here to learn a foreign language. At least if this foreign language is as beautiful as French.]