I signed up for weekly French conversation classes with Nathalie who runs them at a nearby cafe close to home. A small group of us gather there every alternate week in person and also online through Zoom to chew the fat in French and get an informal lesson from her. I found the group through […]
Learning French Through Songs
Every Monday night for the next few months, I dedicate to doing a few hours of my own French study. In effect, creating my own personal learning plan that includes one hour of talking with my French friend then a couple of hours of reading, comprehension and grammar exercises. Today I thought I’ll include learning […]
Le Mot
Wow! Le situation est grave! Pourquoi? Regardez! Aujourd’hui, un surprise sur Twitter. Benjamin m’a envoyé un defi. Wordle est en français! La semaine dernière j’ai bloqué le mot “Wordle” sur Twitter parce qu’il avait trop de tweets. J’étais submergé par tous ce jeu! Mais maintenant, je change d’avis. Peût-etre Wordle en français m’aidera avec la […]
Quel galère!
What a hassle! (That’s a new term I’ve learned so putting it everywhere so I can learn it). Not that learning French is a hassle – not at all. Being flooded with Saturday’s heavy rain and seeing the room filled with water with some of our collectible DVD box sets destroyed – now THAT’s un […]
Le Renard
On Thursday I have my first gathering with my French class. Nathalie takes a French class every week at a nearby cafe. Our homework was to watch this short program about the animals of the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and share our own experience of these gorgeous creatures. Here is what I will say […]
Continuing with French
I thought I’d write about my plans for French studies for the next few months in 2022. I have written lots over the last couple of years of my journey into language learning and I’m chuffed to say that there is nothing more unbelievable than listening to someone speak in French and….YOU UNDERSTAND THEM! My […]
My French Learning Journey – What’s Next…continued
I’m still deliberating what to do next year in my French learning journey and come to the realisation that at an intermediate level now, I’m STILL not speaking enough of it. On the other hand, I’m listening to a lot more (and proud to say understanding most of it – when they’re not speaking slang) […]
A Way To Improve Vocabulary in Language Learning
Many years ago, a girlfriend gave me an old French picture dictionary and I’ve wondered how I could use it as all the definitions of the words are in French too. She had bought it thinking that it would help her learn the language but as she was a complete beginner, the definitions weren’t much […]
Learning a Language Through Coursera
About a few weeks ago, I found the Etudier en France course on Coursera that is at a B1-B2 level. I hadn’t completed a Coursera course for many years and when I saw this, I thought it was time to get back into it again. If you do a search on MOOCs (massive open online […]
Updating my YouTube Channel
For the last week or so, I’ve been trying to put some semblance of order on my YouTube channel and in frustration, I’ve realised it’s a MASSIVE job. There are over 400 videos on the site and as it’s a channel that is used as a record of work and learning, a portfolio if you […]
More French Resources Then Some
It’s fair to say that I have spent HOURS on learning this language over the last 18 months but I figure that I can’t stop now. It’s a skill that I need to work on consistently and continually. Use it or lose it. Utilisez ou perdez. As such, this last ten weeks, I deliberately didn’t […]
What Did You Miss in May?
Blog Posts Alone in My Car (on Digital Minimalism) Time to Get Serious About the Next Phase (of My Life) Loving the Crafty Side of My Network (on preferring to read about the lifelong learning pursuits of my personal network rather than anything to do with their actual work because it’s what they do outside […]
Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait cette semaine?
Learning to write French requires practice and lots of feedback. By doing writing a blog post in French and then seeking feedback from my French speaking network, I’m able to correct the written phrases. Here’s what I got up to this week. A BIG Merci to Rotana Ty (@rotanarotana) for this weeks corrections! Cette semaine […]
Stop 4: Un Ganais en Lyon
I bid farewell to Vèzelay and my next stop was going to be to Clermont-Ferrand, a city in the Auvergne Rhôbe-Alpes region so that I could climb its dormant volcano Puy de Dôme. It’s a city known as a “tectonic hotspot” but the recent earthquake scare in New Zealand and threat of tsunami, (after all, […]
Stop 3: Do You Know the Way to Vézelay?
I left Guèdelon with a tinge of sadness as I enjoyed my week learning medieval construction techniques and in particular, how to make traditional ceramic roof tiles. Part of me was disappointed that I learned a skill I would never use again. After all, when will I ever have an opportunity to tile a steep […]
Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait cette semaine?
Big thank you to my friend Céline Schillinger who helped me out with the French corrections this week in purple. Big thank you to Kevin Le Vaillant once again who has helped me out this week in the blue writing. Learning to write French requires practice and lots of feedback. By doing this, I’m learning […]
Day 2: Guèdelon Castle
I’m continuing my discovery of the Burgundy region in France, taking my time to explore the Top 50 places in France on a whim. (See more WHY I’m doing this and where I started the journey here at Virtual Tour of Les Hospices de Beaune) This morning, I checked out of the delightful accomodation and […]
Day 1: Virtual Tour of Les Hospices de Beaune
Last night my husband asks me, “how about a trip to Paris in November?” My reaction? I know that it’s highly unlikely we’ll be travelling anywhere internationally for the next two possibly up to five years, sadly. What he meant to ask me is that we buy a couple of tickets to go see the […]
Learning Languages Ruined My Life
Phoenix shares his story of how he found a book in a bookstore called, “The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent” (a book by Lionel Trilling) and how it made him think about how learning languages makes you intelligent BUT it comes at a cost. They are both painful. Painful in the sense that it gives […]
Qu’ai-je fait durant la semaine?
Je vais utiliser ce blog pour ècrire ce que j’ai fait durant la semaine. Je vais dire ces paragraphes durant ou lors de mon cours l’Alliance Française ce lundi. Chaque semaine, j’ajouterai une nouvelle histoire. Je ne sais pas si ces phrases sont correctes, mais il faut se lancer! S’il vous plaît, dites-moi si ces paragraphes sont bien ècrits. Merci beaucoup. This week, BIG thank […]