The different a tense can make

One of the hardest things about communicating on a day-to-day basis in French is that people expect you know what you are actually saying. Not being in a classroom setting means that people aren’t prepared for the guessing game that is what is the word that you’re actually trying to say or the tense that you’re actually trying to use.

I came home one day from class to find my brother Loic outside helping his mom make dinner. Loic is 11, which normally means that we can communicate pretty well, and he also is good at explaining things multiple ways if I don’t know the words in French he used initially. I think he also enjoys that he knows more than a 22-year-old a lot of the time.

On this day, I casually asked Loic, “As-tu jouer au foot aujourd’hui?” Did you play soccer today? But what actually came out was “Vas-tu jouer au foot aujourd’hui?” Are you going to playing soccer today?

I played soccer with him in our back garden for the next hour.