French study update

I've been doing my French study for about 3 weeks, and I'm just about ready for our trip.  Well, actually, I'm ready for our trip if the only things I need to use French for are the following:

• asking someone what time it is (my watch doesn't do metric time)
• asking someone how much I owe them (in Euros or dollars!)
• asking someone if they'd like to eat or drink something with me (I'd better make some friends there quick!)
• asking where something is (as long as they only tell me it's here or down there, I'm cool; any other response and I'm screwed)
• telling someone I don't understand (I foresee using this a lot)
• telling someone I speak a little French (technically true) or a lot of English
• telling someone I'm going to have dinner at their house tomorrow night (again, I will need to make some friends)

I've got a couple more months, so there's still hope, but I'd better get on my horse!

I better learn a bit of French!

With us going to France in 4 months, I suppose I ought to at least be able to speak and/or read a tiny bit of French.  I assume (probably a bad idea) that most people speak at least some English, but for signs, menus, TV, etc. it would probably be good if I had at least a bit of knowledge of the language under my belt.

I've therefore put on hold the first two parts of the Pimsleur language course for French.  Pimsleur is very good at helping you to learn how to speak a foreign language as it is all about listening to CDs and carrying on practice conversations. On the other hand, the reading portion of the course is a bit week.  For that I have downloaded an app on my iPhone (MindSnacks Learn French) that is more focused on word recognition and reading than it is on speaking.  Hopefully, between these two I will be able to pick up enough French that we'll be able to get around.