# Learning French, again

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly), 2023-09-23

alliance-francaise, french-class, french-school, junction-house, mabels-bakery, paris, personal, toronto

---

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/f7c273974e0743c2fa3413821ab95fbf.jpg)

I grew up going to a French school. For a significant portion of my early education, I had every single class -- except English class -- in French. But to be honest, I never really loved it. I had started midway through elementary school and so I always felt like my French was never quite good enough.

I was behind relative to my classmates. I needed special tutoring to get caught up (while my classmates were off learning a third language). And so I used to constantly beg my mom to take me out of French school and put me in a, you know, regular English school. I know this was tough for my mom, but her response was always steadfast: "You'll thank me when you're older."

At the time, I couldn't possibly imagine her ever being correct with this statement. But it turns out, she was. Today, I'm grateful to be able to [travel to a place like Paris](https://brandondonnelly.com/2023/09/18/paris-in-august-🇫🇷/) and kind of speak the language. (I say kind of because, hey, it's been a long time since high school!)

And I'm grateful that when I go into [Mabel's Bakery](https://www.mabelsbakery.ca) across from [Junction House](https://house.junctionhouse.ca) that I can order a coffee and a croissant in French. (Most of the people there are from France. Try it for yourself. They're lovely humans.)

In fact, I enjoy it so much that I recently decided to enroll in a French class at [Alliance Française](https://www.alliance-francaise.ca/en/) here in Toronto. (Fresh $80 textbook pictured above.) Obviously the 9-year-old version of myself would be completely shocked with this absurd decision. But I guess this is just what happens when you've been indoctrinated from a young age.

Or maybe I just really want to build something in France one day.

---

*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly/learning-french%2C-again)*