Today I headed over to my parents where we had a family lunch with my brother, his wife and my young nephew. After lunch we all headed over to the park to get out of the house a bit. It was a stunningly beautiful day, 27 degrees and without a cloud in the sky. The […]
Enrolling Into French…Again
For the last few months, I focused on having conversations with two friends who are fluent in French. Every Monday, Thursday and Friday for an hour, we chat – 30 mins in English and 30 mins in French. I wanted to take a break from the Alliance Francaise courses because at times, I found them […]
Petit Nicolas
It’s a public holiday here in sunny Melbourne. Another beautiful cloudless sky and no breath of wind. It’s a day to laze around and relax before the onslaught of work begins again tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ve taken Tuesday & Wednesday off (I work three days a week), which means an extra long time to do the […]
In Love With Stranded Colour Work
I’ve always loved fair isle jumpers. They’re the ones with the stranded colour work around the shoulder, sometimes on the sleeves and around the bottom on the rib. Northern Europeans seem to love them. In Australia, if you’re seen wearing one, you’re likely to be mocked. “Did your mum buy you that jumper?” If you […]
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 […]
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 […]
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) […]
Writing French Stories
I am writing short stories using a French picture dictionary for inspiration. For exercise, I flip open the dictionary and look at the pictures and definitions (there’s no English) so then I concoct a story in French using those words. It’s a way to contextualise the vocabulary I’m learning and in my mind’s eye, I […]
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 […]
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 […]