Vicki Archer

“Summertime in the french countryside is the smell of ripening fig trees and the taste of wild blackberries.”

“The french language is emotive. The verbs are strong and definite. The nouns are masculine or french. I could never understand why the farm would be feminine yet the farmhouse masculine; the pear and apple trees masculine yet the fruit feminine.”

“Learning a language happens in stages, and the first breakthrough is a limited understanding. Somehow the words began to make sense; I could not respond, yet I had a vague comprehension of what had been said.”