2 . While I was working at a French school, I was often preparing my work in the staff room. Sometimes I would hear the school secretary talking. At first I thought she was talking to me, as there was no one else in the room except me, so I tried to respond to her. However, I soon realized that in fact, she was talking to herself. I noticed a lot of people do this in France. In the UK, people might think you’re a bit strange if you talk to yourself at work, but there it seemed quite normal. It really did confuse me at times, because I was not sure whether people were talking to me or just talking to themselves.
Another area of confusion involved the French language. In French, there are two ways to say “you”: “tu” is the informal form while “vous” is the formal form. This is an aspect of French which, even now, I do not really understand. When I learnt French, I was taught to call everyone vous unless they were my family or friends. So I was surprised that virtually everyone in France used the informal tu all the time. School children used tu when they stayed with their teachers and all the staff called the head teacher tu. But I continued to use vous because I didn’t want people to think I was impolite.
As you might know, school children in the UK traditionally wear school uniforms but in France pupils do not wear a uniform. It was a culture shock for me to see children wear Spiderman T-shirts and baggy (宽松的) blue jeans in the classroom.
I found the differences puzzling at times, but I couldn’t deny what a great opportunity it was to live and work in another country. The UK and France are only separated by a small channel of the sea, but there are many differences between the two countries.
1. In the staff room, the school secretary ________.
| A．always chatted online |
| B．interrupted the writer |
| C．talked to herself often |
| D．always made speeches |
2. Why did the author always use “vous” when talking to others?
| A．She tried to be polite to others. |
| B．She couldn’t tell tu from vous at all. |
| C．She didn’t have close friends in France. |
| D．She couldn’t understand French very well. |
3. How did the author feel seeing French kids wear Spiderman T-shirts at school?
| A．Pleased. | B．Embarrassed. |
| C．Frightened. | D．Surprised. |
4. What made the author feel happy to live in France?
| A．Experiencing different cultures. |
| B．Communicating in an informal way. |
| C．Traveling along the channel of the sea. |
| D．Having a chance to work with French teachers. |
