oh those tricky adverbs!

tant (adv)= "much"

and then the prepositions get involved!

tant de= "so much", "as much", or, in certain contexts "not only"
tant que= "as long as", "while"
tant pis!= "too bad" ("pis" alone means "worse")

not to be confused with "tante" which means aunt. or in slang means homosexual/queen/or other crude words associated with insulting gays.

there's your lesson for the day. i'm going to try to be more regular with these. and it should be easier, now that i'll be speaking more french again at work and stretching and adding to my vocabulary.
tomorrow i'm planning to go and try to sign up for level 6 of 6 of Commission Scholaire de Montreal french courses. i'll have to take the evening courses (5:30-10pm) now since i'm at mcgill every morning now. my two mcgill anthropology courses, ecological anthropology and social change in sub-Saharan africa, promise to be interesting (as well as lots of work! over 1200 pages of course readings!)