French with Flo

Using properly the casual address "tu" or the formal address "vous" is very important when you speak French. Use "vous" at the wrong time and you'll sound strange and overly formal ; use "tu" wrongly and you might very well offend the person you're talking to... which is what happened to Boris, a young French learner, in the video above. Poor Boris, he learned the hard way! This text comes from the book "Je vis en France : vingt lectures faciles pour découvrir la civilisation française" by Marie Barthe and Bernadette Chovelon. Here is the class handout (slightly reformatted from the original.) There are many, many resources on the Internet about this topic. Here is one I like:

To my knowledge, our classroom textbook " French Made Simple " doesn't come with an audio version, which makes things difficult for beginners who try to study on their own. To help them, I intend to record the French examples, texts and (possibly) exercises as we progress in our study of the book. Tall order! Wish me luck... And now, let's start at the beginning. French Made Simple - Chapter 1 This is a general presentation of the French language, including many words that are very similar between French and English. Page 1: Words with same spelling, same meaning, different pronunciation 🔊 FMS 01-01.mp3 Page 1-2: Words with same meaning but slightly different spelling 🔊 FMS 01-02.mp3 Page 2: Words directly borrowed from French, with similar pronunciation 🔊 FMS 01-03.mp3 French Made Simple - Chapter 2, Part 1 : Pronunciation Pages 4-6 - Introductory section: some basic French vowel sounds 🔊 FMS 02-01.mp3 Pages 6-7: French Vowe...

As we've seen, feasting takes a prominent place in Christmas and end-of-year celebrations in France. So, after all these excesses, in early January, what do French people do? They eat cake! 😂 The "fête des Rois", or Épiphanie, is a popular holiday for French people, no matter their religion (or absence thereof.) The video shown in class, from FrenchPod101.com, gives a very good overview of the subject. Our first handout this week was a crossword puzzle with accompanying vocabulary (adapted from this webpage .) We also worked on a fill-in-the-blanks exercise . You can find here the audio document the exercise above is based on. Scroll up and click on the first video to hear the text. Just under the video is a multiple-choice exercise you may find entertaining, and a little below is the full transcript of the text. And, by the way, how do you make this famous galette des Rois? Well, apparently, it's child's play. Enjoy! 😋

As we end 2018, here are some handouts and links that, for some reason (such as me being absolutely terrible with anything having to do with the Internet) never made it to the blog after I taught the corresponding class. This is material we studied between June and September 2018. Hopefully, posting this, even late, will be useful for returning and new students alike.       Texts / Dialogues La fête des voisins: Neighbors Day      1. Text and exercises:  Voisins, voisines      2. Learn more about France's Neighbors Day  here Booking a Table      1. Dialogue:  Réserver une table au restaurant      2.  Dialogue in pictures  (both documents created by  carolebim  at  Tes )       Exercises Crosswords to Practice the Present Tense      1. Mots Croisés:  présent des vacances  (created by  dodeuil  at ISLC...

Another Old Chestnut... This song by Joe Dassin came out in in 1969 and has been popular ever since. Here are the lyrics .

For our last class of the year, here is a series of Christmas-related links and resources.  I hope you'll find them interesting and entertaining.  🎄 Joyeux Noël à tous, et à l'année prochaine ! 🎄 Here is the first video we watched in class, explaining how Noël is celebrated in France.  The video is in French, with both French and English subtitles. It is produced by FrenchPod101.com. The second video we watched comes from a language school in Germany. This one is only in French (with a little bit of German.) But don't worry, it's not difficult ! Clic Here  for the class handout that includes questions about the video, as well as a full transcript. I also recommend the following videos: Christmas in France: So. Much. Food! (video in English) Easy French: Noël in France (Interviewing French people about Christmas. A great way to hear the way regular people talk. In French with both French and English subtitles.) Easy Fren...

Today was our last class for a month. As a reminder, there is no class in October, as I'll be in France for a good part of the month. We'll meet again on November 7th for our Spelling Bee and pot luck . Or, as I'd rather call them, our Concours d'orthographe et buffet à partager . Bring something to share and don't get too nervous, it's just a game! I've compiled a list of 500 words and phrases we've seen in class. You can use this to study for the spelling bee if you want to compete (which is completely voluntary, of course.) The verbs are listed in the infinitive tense, but don't forget to also review the present tense conjugation . Here's the document in pdf format and in Excel format (which wasn't actually created on Excel but on a Mac software, so I hope it works.) I also have a few extra hard copies. We'll bring them to the Senior Center Office tomorrow, in case some students would like to pick one up instead of printi...

Are you in touch with your inner child? it can be really useful for learning a language! Here are a few videos in French, with French subtitles.  And first, let's start with the alphabet: Illustrated alphabet for English speakers:   https://youtu.be/E7MrFRKRtPg The Alphabet Song, adapted in French:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xuZxGirWQI Mozart's Alphabet, followed by another version of the Alphabet Song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp1IU2VGpBQ Then, I've found a whole series of "comptines" (nursery rhymes.) Here are a few examples, but you'll find much more on Youtube once you start watching them. Many of them are classics, going back several centuries, which may explain how weirdly inappropriate for kids they can sound nowadays! 😳 Trois jeunes tambours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuyOfi7lKUk Biquette:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmsxJ5MzrRY Frère Jacques: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0Y7D7xNQG8 Au clair de la lune: http...

On July 14th , the French celebrate the " Fête Nationale ," the French National Holiday. If you'd like to learn more about this Holiday and how we celebrate it in France, I recommend you check out  this page .  (In English, with French vocabulary and short texts.) One element of the celebrations is the French National Anthem, which is called " La Marseillaise ". So why, then,  is this blogpost's title " Les Marseillaises "? There is only one official " Marseillaise ," composed during the war that followed the French Revolution, but over the decades many people have complained about its violent, belligerent lyrics, and some have proposed alternative versions. In our class handout, you'll discover, on top of the official song, two of those alternative, more pacific (but unfortunately almost unknown)  Marseillaises . 1. La Marseillaise de Rouget de Lisle The first song in the handout is the first stanza and the choru...

The first part of our class about devinettes (guessing game) was a couple of beginner-level dialogues from Podcast Français Facile , introducing the vocabulary and sentence structure needed to describe an object. Here are the two dialogues (with the audio recordings), and the accompanying vocabulary . [BEGINNER] We then used a vocabulary in pictures about classroom items in order to practice the guessing game. (source: ISL Collective, originally created by mafaldita47 and updated by me.) [BEGINNER] And finally, here is the list of 10 devinettes we went over today. You all did a great job guessing the answers. Congratulations! 👏