Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Cultural shock...

Back in dear old Blighty, a great pleasures was listening to Radio 4 with its wonderful variety of programmes. So, image the delight when discovering an equivalent French station - France Culture. This has a similar mix of news and comment, plays, documentaries, humour, panel games, etc. - and with the added advantage of being good for one's French!

In the UK I often had Radio 4 playing for most of the day while working and and did not find it hard to concentrate on work, to the exclusion of the radio, or to allow the brain to tune in to an interesting bit without the work suffering too much.

However, as an expat there are always surprises - and it came as a shock to discover that trying to work here with the radio on in the background is not the same. Why? Well, perhaps it will eventually be a measure of accomplishment with the second language when I can comfortably work, writing in English all day, and simultaneously absorb a radio play in the background, in French - but so far that just is not working...

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