Voila Monsieur Thibault. Voila Madame Thibault. Monsieur Thibault (un ingénieur!) is taking up space in my brain that I’m sure could be better used elsewhere. I may die seventy years hence, I may not remember my son’s name or where I live, but I can tell you all about Monsieur fucking Thibault. (And give you some good “whan that aprill”, too.)
Jean Pierre and Marie Claude and all their double named friends, the most boring teenagers ever. No doubt invented in a misguided attempt to appeal to the kids.
Memorizing dialogues is a great method, but it needs to be fleshed out. You don’t just memorize dialogues, you learn about the grammar and social context at the same time. Then, you practice.
We had diabolical exercises when I took intensive Indonesian: we memorized dialogues, and then we did “latihan pola kalimat” (sentence pattern lessons) that started off with a sentence from the dialog, gave a substitute word we had to insert, and continued on for a dozen words or so. For example, if a sentence in the memorized dialog was “I think Titi’s house is pretty,” the exercise would go like this:
Recording: I think Titi’s house is pretty.
Student (in space left on the recording): I think Titi’s house is pretty.
Recording: Ugly
Student: I think Titi’s house is ugly.
Recording: sister
Student: I think Titi’s sister is ugly.
Recording: his
Student: I think his sister is ugly.
Recording: We
Student: We think his sister is ugly.
Recording:
Know
Student: We know his sister is ugly.
Etc, etc. Damn, I HATED doing those exercises. But they were very good for me. I did actually learn to speak passable Indonesian.