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I had all day kindergarten in '83. First half was in English, and the second half was in French. And no, this was not a private school. This was Cincinnati Publ

I had all day kindergarten in '83. First half was in English, and the second half was in French. And no, this was not a private school. This was Cincinnati Public.

ardit33 6y ago
I have a curious question, can you speak/do you know French now?
- redshirtrob 6y ago
  Sadly no. But that's because we moved from the school district the following summer. It's a bit of a sore point for me. I have no doubt if I'd stayed there (K-6), I would have been close to fluent. After lunch was a full immersion in French. My teacher was a native speaker from Belgium. I remember having mastered counting in French, which is quite interesting considering most kindergarteners probably have not mastered counting in English. As for an anecdote, I had one friend who stayed there through 4th grade. He still lists French as a language on LinkedIn. [Edit] By master counting I mean having mastered the language algorithm, so to speak. Once you can count to 100, it's pretty easy to get to 200, or all the way to 999 with the knowledge at hand. It's not until one thousand that you need a new word. And, IIRC, French has a _very_ mechanical counting mechanism whereby it was even simpler. Perhaps a native speaker can weigh in here?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - vtbassmatt 6y ago
    Small nitpick: Kindergarteners are expected to count to 100. At least, that's the case in my county (Wake) in a state not known for K-12 excellence (North Carolina).
    - redshirtrob 6y ago
      Ok, I edited my comment to clarify. I did not mean count to 100 as mastering counting. I meant count _almost_ arbitrarily high. And small world. My wife hails from Forsyth county.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    You must’ve been learning the Belgian version, because French numbers in France are kind of a mess. Like English there are special words for some of the “teens” numbers, which is the least of the troubles. Compare deux (two) and douze (twelve) to huit (eight) and dix-huit (ten-eight, or eighteen). Mildly annoying, but we have special cases for “eleven” and “twelve” in English too, no big deal. Then some of the tens are weird too. While quatre (four) and quarante (forty) are clear, six (six) and soixante (sixty) are a bit tricky, while deux (two) and vingt (twenty) don’t seem to be related. These are then combined in uneven ways, with twenty one being “vingt et un” (twenty and one), while other numbers using the hyphenated form of vingt-cinq (twenty-five). Again, annoying, but manageable. And then there are the extra special case numbers like seventy, which in France is apparently soixante-dix, or literally “sixty ten”. In some countries this is a much more reasonable “septante”, but not in France. The French actually count their seventies like “soixante-dix-sept”, which translates into “sixty seventeen”, or seventy seven in English. And then there’s eighty. Holy crap, the number eighty. In French eighty is apparently “quatre-vingts”, or “four twenties”. Whoever came up with that was a brilliant sadist. Requiring some basic multiplication just to count to eighty is downright evil stuff, especially for young kids. Ditto for whoever made ninety “quatre-vingts-dix” (four twenties ten). Note: I am not a native French speaker; I’m just learning.
    - dgut 6y ago
      The French use the vigesimal system (base-20). I learned this fact while learning Norwegian, which doesn't use a base-20 system anymore, expect almost everybody above 50y still use the Danish system (also base-20, like French), which was indeed very confusing. In Spanish it's more or less the same as French when it comes to naming numbers, except more predictable spelling and it's base-10: dos (two), doce (twelve), ocho (eight), dieciocho (eighteen), ochenta (eighty), noventa (nighty), cien (one hundred) and so on. In the case of e.g dos (two) and veinte (twenty), were there doesn't seem to be any relationship, the root of veinte is "dwi" (dos), but it lost a sound somewhere along the way. Two, dos, duo, dual, double, all share the same indo-european root.
      - dirtnugget 6y ago
k_sze 6y ago
French is actually a significant language in Cincinnati? I've never been there and it isn't exactly close to the Ontario or Quebec provinces of Canada.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  No, it is not. Occasionally bilingual lower educational programs become very popular, and French is a common choice, especially in places far away from the American Southwest. A lot of cities I’ve lived in have had a Lycée Français in them, although I’m not sure if they’re related (I don’t have kids, so I never checked).
  - neltnerb 6y ago
    I mean, it is literally across the river from Louisville. Kidding. No, and they pronounce the city of Versailles, IN ver-sales.
dghughes 6y ago
I'm pretty sure I went to kindergarten all day and that was in the early 1970s. I remember my mother saying how a neighbour forgot it was his turn to pick up me and my fellow neighbourhood classmates. It was at 4pm after he was off work and I'm pretty sure I would have started at 8am or 9am.
- pdonis 6y ago
  I would have gone to kindergarten in the early 1970s, but my mom put me in first grade instead. She told me years later, jokingly, that it was because kindergarten was only half a day but first grade was all day so she would have more free time. I'm pretty sure the half day vs. all day part was true even if it wasn't her real reason (her real reason was that she knew I'd be bored in kindergarten).
- Johnny555 6y ago
  You remember the end time pretty clearly but are you sure about the start time? My kindergarten had 2 groups - a morning group and an afternoon group, so a 4pm pickup time could have just meant you were in the afternoon group.

I had all day kindergarten in '83. First half was in English, and the second half was in French. And no, this was not a private school. This was Cincinnati Public.

ardit33 6y ago

I have a curious question, can you speak/do you know French now?

redshirtrob 6y ago
Sadly no. But that's because we moved from the school district the following summer. It's a bit of a sore point for me. I have no doubt if I'd stayed there (K-6), I would have been close to fluent. After lunch was a full immersion in French. My teacher was a native speaker from Belgium. I remember having mastered counting in French, which is quite interesting considering most kindergarteners probably have not mastered counting in English. As for an anecdote, I had one friend who stayed there through 4th grade. He still lists French as a language on LinkedIn. [Edit] By master counting I mean having mastered the language algorithm, so to speak. Once you can count to 100, it's pretty easy to get to 200, or all the way to 999 with the knowledge at hand. It's not until one thousand that you need a new word. And, IIRC, French has a _very_ mechanical counting mechanism whereby it was even simpler. Perhaps a native speaker can weigh in here?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- vtbassmatt 6y ago
  Small nitpick: Kindergarteners are expected to count to 100. At least, that's the case in my county (Wake) in a state not known for K-12 excellence (North Carolina).
  - redshirtrob 6y ago
    Ok, I edited my comment to clarify. I did not mean count to 100 as mastering counting. I meant count _almost_ arbitrarily high. And small world. My wife hails from Forsyth county.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  You must’ve been learning the Belgian version, because French numbers in France are kind of a mess. Like English there are special words for some of the “teens” numbers, which is the least of the troubles. Compare deux (two) and douze (twelve) to huit (eight) and dix-huit (ten-eight, or eighteen). Mildly annoying, but we have special cases for “eleven” and “twelve” in English too, no big deal. Then some of the tens are weird too. While quatre (four) and quarante (forty) are clear, six (six) and soixante (sixty) are a bit tricky, while deux (two) and vingt (twenty) don’t seem to be related. These are then combined in uneven ways, with twenty one being “vingt et un” (twenty and one), while other numbers using the hyphenated form of vingt-cinq (twenty-five). Again, annoying, but manageable. And then there are the extra special case numbers like seventy, which in France is apparently soixante-dix, or literally “sixty ten”. In some countries this is a much more reasonable “septante”, but not in France. The French actually count their seventies like “soixante-dix-sept”, which translates into “sixty seventeen”, or seventy seven in English. And then there’s eighty. Holy crap, the number eighty. In French eighty is apparently “quatre-vingts”, or “four twenties”. Whoever came up with that was a brilliant sadist. Requiring some basic multiplication just to count to eighty is downright evil stuff, especially for young kids. Ditto for whoever made ninety “quatre-vingts-dix” (four twenties ten). Note: I am not a native French speaker; I’m just learning.
  - dgut 6y ago
    The French use the vigesimal system (base-20). I learned this fact while learning Norwegian, which doesn't use a base-20 system anymore, expect almost everybody above 50y still use the Danish system (also base-20, like French), which was indeed very confusing. In Spanish it's more or less the same as French when it comes to naming numbers, except more predictable spelling and it's base-10: dos (two), doce (twelve), ocho (eight), dieciocho (eighteen), ochenta (eighty), noventa (nighty), cien (one hundred) and so on. In the case of e.g dos (two) and veinte (twenty), were there doesn't seem to be any relationship, the root of veinte is "dwi" (dos), but it lost a sound somewhere along the way. Two, dos, duo, dual, double, all share the same indo-european root.
    - dirtnugget 6y ago

k_sze 6y ago

French is actually a significant language in Cincinnati? I've never been there and it isn't exactly close to the Ontario or Quebec provinces of Canada.

ashtonkem 6y ago
No, it is not. Occasionally bilingual lower educational programs become very popular, and French is a common choice, especially in places far away from the American Southwest. A lot of cities I’ve lived in have had a Lycée Français in them, although I’m not sure if they’re related (I don’t have kids, so I never checked).
- neltnerb 6y ago
  I mean, it is literally across the river from Louisville. Kidding. No, and they pronounce the city of Versailles, IN ver-sales.

dghughes 6y ago

I'm pretty sure I went to kindergarten all day and that was in the early 1970s. I remember my mother saying how a neighbour forgot it was his turn to pick up me and my fellow neighbourhood classmates. It was at 4pm after he was off work and I'm pretty sure I would have started at 8am or 9am.

pdonis 6y ago
I would have gone to kindergarten in the early 1970s, but my mom put me in first grade instead. She told me years later, jokingly, that it was because kindergarten was only half a day but first grade was all day so she would have more free time. I'm pretty sure the half day vs. all day part was true even if it wasn't her real reason (her real reason was that she knew I'd be bored in kindergarten).
Johnny555 6y ago
You remember the end time pretty clearly but are you sure about the start time? My kindergarten had 2 groups - a morning group and an afternoon group, so a 4pm pickup time could have just meant you were in the afternoon group.