Now that I am going through my final French class, I am starting to understand how toddlers feel as they develop their vocabulary.

Have you ever noticed, or more likely, gotten irritated because a child kept repeating phrases over and over again?

I have become that kid.

Certain French phrases get stuck in my head, and I find myself repeating them to myself.

Walking to the post office, picking out my clothes or cooking my dinner, I try the words out in my mind repeatedly until my head hurts.

"Coin coin," says the French duck in my head. The rooster says, "Cocorico!"

I have a barnyard serenading me. The sounds are so fun to make, though, how can I help myself?

'Coin coin' is actually pronounced like 'cwan cwan,' and the sound rolls off a person's tongue so easily.

The fascination of animals making different sounds in every language makes me feel like a little kid again.

I want to try out every word I can, and I want to repeat it until I get it just right.

Even if it means I drive people around me nuts and give myself a headache in the process.

You can call me mad, but I know plenty of people who get songs and lines from poems stuck in their heads.

So I see nothing wrong with repeating French animal sounds to myself.

It's not just animal noises, though.

Phrases like 'je ne sais pas' find a way of running around my mind all day.

'Je ne sais pas,' or 'I don't know,' is handy to know. If I ever visit France, or perhaps Belgium, and someone asks me, "Comment vous etes?"

I will be able to easily reply, "Je ne sais pas."

Perhaps for extra effect I can add, "Cocorico!"

'Je ne sais pas' is especially useful in French class, though. When my professor calls on me and I get intimidated I can always fall back on 'I don't know.'

Once again I feel like a toddler who only answers questions by saying, "I don't know."

The only difference is children say it with a whine in their voices, and I try to avoid that.

When adults ask children too many questions in a row, children start dragging the whine out. "I don't knooooow!" they say with a shrill in their voices.

I suppose, however, a little whining is inevitable sometimes.

If my French professor starts to single me out and ask too many questions, I, too, might find myself whimpering a high-pitched, "Je ne sais paaaas!"

Like a little kid, words escape me in French, and I often use them the wrong way, thus distorting what I mean to say.

But I will always have the invaluable animal noises and the popular phrase 'I don't know' to take with me in life.

No one who speaks French can mistake what I mean with those phrases.

I once heard a comedian say the only thing he retained from his French classes was, "Je suis, tu es, il est, nous sommes, vous etes, ils sont."

The only thing I may take with me may be 'coin coin' and 'je ne sais pas,' but as long as I can remember those I think I will be content.

Michelle Hudgens is a senior journalism major from Pineville and serves as associate managing editor for The Tech Talk.