Last night I attended a lovely French dining experience with fellow classmates from our French School. Our teacher Nathalie had organised an end of term dinner at the nearby Providore Cafe on Hampton Road. Chef Guillaume laid out a fantastic charcuterie spread of French products like hams, terrines, butters, cornichons (pickles), cheeses and delicious confitures […]
Delectable Desserts
Every Tuesday afternoon, I have French classes. Our teacher serves us dessert at the end of the class and it’s fair to say I’ve had some delicious cakes in this class. Today, she pulls out a large box of hamburgers! My first thought was “this is different! No cake?” The mini hamburgers were actually the […]
Tasting Raclette
One of the things I love about my French school is that our teacher includes cultural experiences within the lesson. We speak in French and then we learn various cultural and traditional aspects of the country. Today was our last lesson for the semester before a three week break and she put on a “raclette”. […]
If You Can’t Travel to Paris, Go To Bendigo in Regional Victoria
It was a very long time since I had a school excursion so on Saturday, my French School organised a day trip out to regional Victoria, the old gold town of Bendigo to see the French Impressionism Art Exhibition of Life in Paris during 1880-1925. And shock horror, we were all going to go out […]
Learning Inclusive Language for French
We had an interesting lesson in French today where we talked about inclusive language in French. To be honest, I thought that anyone who doesn’t identify as male or female would have used “vous” which is the equivalent of “they” or a formal “you” in French but I was wrong. The pronoun iel is used […]
Learning a Language According to Me
I’ve been watching my husband using DuoLingo to learn German. It’s that little ding when he gets something correct, that I now hear every night. 🤣 However, when he gets something wrong, he becomes frustrated because he loses points. He has to repeat something and then he can’t move on to the next level. Welcome […]
Champagne & A Little Bit of Bûche de Noël
So it seems my little virtual jaunt through Rimes recently to explore the champagne houses, vineyards and underground caves stocked with champagne came in handy. While YouTube can only go so far in firing up my imagination, there comes a time when you simply need to “do it for real”. So it wasn’t exactly a […]
Virtual Tour Day 6: Grenoble
“Isn’t that a wine?” I mused. 🤔 I had heard of this town but to be honest, didn’t know where it was in France so I checked the map when I was in Annecy and saw that it’s quite near – only an hour and a half drive. However as this is a virtual tour, […]
Virtual Tour Day 4: Heading for the Hills at Chamonix
Strap on those skis and let’s get ready to hit the slopes…. Well, not exactly. It hadn’t started snowing but as I went further up into the mountains, the weather started to get cooler but I saw that around me was the grandeur of the mountains. I couldn’t wait to get up to Mont Blanc […]
Virtual Tour Day 3: Dijon…the City of Mustard and a Stop at the Beaune Wine Auction
So I’ve left the Champagne region and headed over to Dijon for my next stop. It’s the 19th November and my aim is to also try to get to the Beaune Wine Auction which is on this weekend. But first, Dijon. Imagine my delight to find out that there are owls all over the town. […]
Virtual Tour Day 2: Onwards to Rimes
I decided to head to Rimes today. There’s 6 direct trains every day at a cost of 27 Euros and the trip lasts for an hour and a half. Of course, as it’s a virtual tour, I’m going first class. Really, there’s no need for train travel on this virtual tour in all honesty, so […]
Heading Off To France…Ummm, Virtually
I haven’t been on an overseas trip since…well 2019, before COVID. Since that time, the only time I’ve been away from home has been a weekend away in country Victoria in 2022 and an overnight golf trip this year. I’m not saying that for pity, it’s what we have decided to do save money. It’s […]
My French Journey
It’s been interesting to be learning French these last few years. It’s now well and truly ingrained into my life. I cannot go a day without listening, watching, writing or talking French. When you learn a language, you pretty much should make a pact with yourself that it should be part of your life. And […]
Achievement Unlocked: I Speak French
In the last few months, I changed from one University of the Third Age French class to another. It was unfortunate that I left the first one even though I enjoyed the class however, it reached a point that I realised I needed MORE conversation than grammar classes. Don’t be under the illusion that you’re […]
Virtual Trip to Lyon
It’s unlikely we will be travelling anywhere overseas for at least another few years but thankfully, we have an abundance of wonderful videos, programmes and other resources to do virtual trips instead. Some time ago, during the pandemic lockdowns I created a Virtual Tour of France where I created an itinerary for 5 days that […]
La Bohème
Annoying my neighbours by playing this song in the house quite loud. I dare you not to shed a tear. (For the song, not me).
Hier Encore
La chanson nous allons étudier la semaine prochaine. Dis-moi. Aznavour a raison. Une chanson triste à commencer mon jour. Où est passée ma vingtaine?! 🤣
I Shouldn’t Complain About Work…At Least I Didn’t Make A Lot of Holes….Les Petits Trous
This is the song we studied in French class so now I can’t get it out of my head…. Puis, I started to think if I did a search en francais about songs that have been created by AI, je l’ai trouvé ça. (Heureusement, il n’y a pas de chansons de Gainsbourg. Phew).. I’m mixing […]
Become Fluent in French in 8 Hours a Day
I stumbled upon this video on YouTube and it was an eye opener. First of all, I thought to myself that I can easily do this now that there is time in my day. Devoting 8 hours a day to language learning is achievable especially if you don’t work, have no family commitments and want […]
Nothing Wrong With Starting with Grammar When Learning a New Language
I watched this interview with D’aria talking about how she learned French and it struck me that we both started the same way. Many people on YouTube and other articles online advise NEVER to start with grammar. However this is wrong. I started like her. I bought the Practice Makes Perfect books and methodically over […]