French with Flo

Today we watched "Cliché !", a wonderful little animation film, created by Cedric Villain, that collects many of the stereotypes about the French. Enjoy! (Click on the "settings" icon at the bottom right of the screen to select the French or English subtitles.) The questions about the movie I handed out in class were created by Coralie Maurin at Oh mon FLE! As for the transcript , it comes from the Version FLE blog. Are the clichés mostly true? Mostly false? Where do they come from? What's a cliché, anyways? And why is the movie so funny? We'll continue the discussion next week...

Here is everything we've seen in connection with chapter 14 of French Made Simple .           1. The Numbers (part 3) Although our study of numbers technically ended with chapter 13 , we kept practicing with progressively larger numbers. Here is what we did in class. All the exercises come from the Podcast Français Facile website. A Few Dates : This is a listening exercise about well-known (and less known) dates in French history and culture. Click on the " Exercise " icon to access the handout. Numbers from 1,000 to 9,999 - List A : Another listening exercise, with slightly bigger numbers. Click on " Imprimer le document " to print the handout. Car Prices (numbers between 10,000 and 99,999) : The first audio link is an easy "listen and repeat" exercise that you can do at home. The Car Price exercise we did in class is the second audio link. There was no handout on the website, but I had fun creating this one . 😊       ...

Here is everything we studied in connection with Chapter 13 of French Made Simple . 1. Shopping for clothes Our study of numbers took us on a detour down the clothing aisle of our favorite department store. We started with the following exercise from Podcast Français Facile : Listen to the price  (numbers from 1 to 400): t his text describes a customer's shopping trip to a boutique. Listen to the audio file from the link above and fill in the prices in  the class handout . I adapted my handout from   this original pdf , which includes the answers.  Buying Clothes   (created by tkdana at ISLCollective ): w e took the shopping theme a little further with these two short dialogues between a customer and a clothing store attendant. In class, we used these as templates to improvise little dialogues.  [BEGINNER] Clothing vocabulary : t his is a useful vocabulary list, also created by Podcast Français Facile . You can hear an audio vers...

Music Day , la fête de la musique , is celebrated on June 21st, the longest day of the year and the first day of Summer. In this video by FrenchPod101.com , Ingrid tells us everything about this special Holiday: In class, we also studied the text " La fête de la musique " (with audio version) from Podcast Français Facile . I reformatted their pdf to create the class handout , which includes a fill-in-the-blanks exercise, vocabulary notes and comprehension questions. We also took this opportunity to study a song in class: "Parce qu'on vient de loin" ("Because we Come from Far Away") by singer-songwriter Corneille . Here is the official music clip: Here are the chords with guitar tabs I used for the class handout . You can also find here the French lyrics with English translation. In order to fully understand this song, it is necessary to know the singer's story. Corneille grew up in Rwanda. At 17, his whole family w...

Last week, we did two unrelated exercises. To begin, we practiced again our food, color and clothing vocabulary with this image description exercise : Un bon petit déjeuner (created by s ilvialefevre on ISLCollective ). We then studied how to say the date in French with this handout (adapted from a document by osfr on ISLCollective ). [BEGINNER] You can also visit this page on Podcast Français Facile for another overview of the date and seasons in French.

In chapter 12 of French Made Simple , we are continuing our study of numbers and we're having a look at two other verbs in the present tense.           1. Faire and croire Both verbs belong to the 3rd group, so they are irregular and their conjugations need to be memorized. Generally speaking, the verb faire corresponds to the English verbs to do or to make , but there are some idiomatic uses. For example: faire faire quelque chose : to have somebody do something, to have something done. ex.: Je fais réparer ma voiture = I'm having my car repaired faire de... (+ sport or leisure activity): to do / practice an activity, to play a sport... I handed out in class this exercise (created by Paugaliza on ISLCollective ) to practice using the verb faire with names of sports or activities. You can also practice conjugating the verb faire with the following exercises: http://www.didieraccord.com/exercices/index.php?ex=2.2.10 https://fog.ccsf.e...

Since last week's class fell on May 1st, I had of course to talk about the premier mai  Holiday in France. We studied the French Labor Day last year in this post (with a text and a video - check it out if you missed it last time), so this year I thought I'd focus on another May 1st custom : the sprigs of lily of the valley French people gift each-other to bring good luck. Here is my class handout  about the muguet du premier mai , adapted from the website momes.net . I slightly modified their text and quiz and I added a vocabulary list.

Tentez votre chance ! ( Try your luck! ) Today we are talking about the loto . When people in France talk about jouer au loto , they can mean two things : either the National Lottery , which is drawn every night or so on TV ( here's a random example ), or a more traditional game that resemble the American bingo. The latter is also called loto traditionnel , quine or loto bingo , depending on your region. (I'm from the South-East and I've always called it "loto".)  Organizing loto evenings is a great way for associations, towns and villages to raise money. They can take place year-round, but they are particularly frequent around Christmas. The prizes are usually donated by local businesses. Here is a TV news report about one of those events in the town of Saint-Sauveur, in the South-West of France: I handed out in class a transcript of the video , with accompanying vocabulary. Each one of the cards used to play loto is called un carton . Y...

I'm going to gather in this post everything we've studied in connection to  chapter 11 of the French Made Simple textbook.           1. Vouloir, pouvoir, etc. The grammar point in chapter 11 is the conjugation of the verbs  vouloir  and  pouvoir  in the present tense. To get a little more practice, I handed out  this exercise  (created by  silvialefevre  on ISLCollective), in order to review the verbs vouloir, pouvoir, as well as savoir et devoir. You may also be interested in  this online quiz  on the same topic.          2. The numbers (part 1) In chapter 11, we're also learning the numbers from 1 to 69. Here are some extra ressources, including the exercises done in class: Numbers from 1 to 20 on Podcast Français Facile. [BEGINNER] We did the first addition exercise in class. If you'd like extra practice, you can do the second one on your own! 😉 I also...

" Poisson d'avril ! " That's what you'll hear in France, on April 1st, after a friend tries to make you believe a tall tale or a little kid sticks a paper fish on your back. OK, that's April's Fool, but why a fish?? You'll find the explanations you need, in English,  on this webpage . You'll find on this other page , shown in class, another quick explanation, as well as the RATP's (that's the company that operates the Parisian subway) 2017 joke: they added big stickers around stations' names to form puns. The puns are explained in English. Scrolling down the page, you'll also find some useful vocabulary about April's Fool and joking in general, and a funny video at the bottom of the page. As for a selection of poissons d'avril for 2019, here it is ! The RATP strikes again this year by giving subway travelers an opportunity to send prank selfies to their friends and pretend that they took a plane to an exotic destinat...