My senior citizen French class was yesterday, and was as absurd as ever.

The class is continuing to discuss the subjunctive, a mood that is almost completely invisible in English and so we don’t notice it when it happens (in the sentence, “I demand you provide us with a proper explanation,” “provide” is in subjunctive. Same with “I prefer that he go to the doctor,” where it’s “go.”).

The French use the subjunctive a lot more than we do, and it’s slightly more noticeable.

Part of our homework was to do some exercises in the textbook, and the rest was to write five sentences in the subjunctive. I did my homework after taking my cat Louie to the veterinarian the day before, so I wrote my sentences about Louie and the vet. I was rather proud of the fact that I used the conditional in one of the other verbs. I learned the conditional from Duolingo French, which I completed in my ongoing effort to sort of learn the language.

The instructor asked us to volunteer to write our sentences on the board. I put mine up, and the instructor sat with his chair turned, staring at the whiteboard, moving his lips, his head raised, trying to find fault with what I had written. “Read them aloud,” he said, so I did. “I can’t find anything wrong with them,” he said eventually. “I don’t know if I’d say it like that, though.” He asked the class, “That verb there. What mood is it? Don’t tell them,” he said aside to me.

“Conditional,” I muttered.

No one could guess, so eventually he said triumphantly, “Conditional!”

Then, after a bit, he said, “Wait, they’re all about your cat?”

“Yes,” I said.

He moved on to the next set of sentences. That’s his pattern with me. I do it pretty much correctly, and he leaves me pretty much alone. I don’t think he knows my name.

It’s the second time I’ve taken this class, but I’m still a newcomer, an outsider. People comment on how good my accent is, in a kind of bewildered way, and though they are pleasant enough, I’m not quite part of the cozy community yet.

On the way home, I listened to a podcast in French. It was about French expats living in Iran and surrounding countries, who are trying to go back to France. I understood most of it. One of these days I’m going to take a real French class and actually learn how to speak the language, but not yet. My instructor is offering this class again in the summer. I’ll probably keep taking it until he’s too old to make it there, which is any time now.