More French lessons with Coco

I met with Coco again for our 4th tutoring session. She had euro money (the real thing) so that I could see and feel the currency and practice giving money and receiving change. In a previous lesson with Numbers, I became slow when the numbers were over one hundred. But we both agreed that it will be unlikely that I pay cash for something that cost that much, and VISA will take care of the math for me.

We practiced making change. She would say a price in French and I had to give her the bills and coins. At first I gave exact change, and then we practiced giving larger bills and checking that the change back was correct. I would stare at the amounts, try to remember the "price" that she originally gave me, work the math, and then tell her if it was correct or not. As I stared at the money trying to gather my thoughts, I could hear my mom and aunt saying "What's wrong, can't you make change?" My end response is normally "Merci" (thank you) with a smile and a hope that perhaps the French storekeepers are better at euro/French math than I am. Heaven help us all if any one is in a hurry.

The currency is interesting. "Euro" is the amount similar to the dollar and Centime is the equivalent to the penny. Other countries call it a "cent" but it is centime in France (sent teem). Cent is 100 in French, so I will stick with the practice in using the correct word, centime.

The bills are all colored. I guess this is in case you don't notice the big number on both sides. The amount is also in the upper left hand corner and is printed partially on the front and partially on the back. If you hold the bill up to the light, you can see the whole amount. It's also interesting that the larger the amount, the larger the size of the paper. This probably helps those who don't notice the number, nor the color. Paper denominations appear to be the same as the US dollar. Coins are a little different. They have a 1 and 2 Euro coin. The centimes are in amounts of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50. Note that the coin is a 20 and not 25, like our quarter. Anyway, see these links if you want to see the currency: http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/Flteach-euro.html
http://www.atsnotes.com/catalog/euro/euro-1.JPG