Students Swap Txts and Homes for French Exchange

33 Reigate students took their French beyond the classroom as they received a crash course in French text messaging during a recent exchange trip with French school L’Institution Sainte Marie, situated near Lille. The exchange provided a unifying insight into modern living with both the English and French students involved swapping their top text message abbreviations.

Trading the English text short ‘Gr8’ for ‘great’, the French students offered ‘ ‘2ma’ for ‘demain’ (tomorrow), ‘A+’ for ‘a plus tard’ (see you soon) and a direct translation of the English ‘LOL’ for ‘laugh out loud’ given as ‘MDR’ or ‘mort de rire’ (die laughing).

Commented Mrs Jane Manfield, RGS Head of French: “It proved to be an entertaining challenge for each set of students to unravel the meaning of each other’s text abbreviations and certainly demonstrated that the adaptation of language to fit modern living is common between the countries. Of course, this is not all that they learnt and exchanged, with both sets of students attending lessons at each other’s schools and staying within each other’s families.”

She added: “The RGS students enjoyed a host of outings and spent an afternoon entertaining French primary school children and cooking crêpes which was great fun and another good test of their vocabulary. The trip was a great success with many good friends made and valuable improvements in language and confidence achieved. “

April 2008