Discover some popular French expressions with body parts words. Can you guess what "having a hair on one’s tongue" mean? Or "not having one’s tongue in one’s pocket"? Find out now! Enrich your vocabulary and get a fun insight into French culture as well :-) Vocabulary and Spelling of the French Words mentioned in this episode L’année prochaine, je vais étudier le français en France. = Next year, I’m going to study French in France Pour ma retraite, je vais acheter une maison au bord de la mer. = For my retirement I’m going to buy a house by the beach. Nous débiterons 200 dollars de votre … Read More →
FYW 061 : Challenge – Can I Make You Love French Grammar?
Urging all grammar-phobic students to give me a chance to explain why you should love French grammar… and even grammar in general! Many new students start lessons with me by saying: “I want to learn French but I don’t want to learn French grammar”. I find this most interesting as it raises many questions; not just about the teaching/learning method, but above all about the reasons why so many students refuse to have anything to do with grammar... Vocabulary and Spelling of the French Words mentioned in this episode Check out my article – "Challenge: can I make you love French … Read More →
FYW 058 : How to Conjugate French Verbs in –IR Without Losing Your Mind
French verbs are often the nightmare of students of French! Listen to these simple tips on How to Conjugate French Verbs in –IR such as “partir”, “finir”, “dormir”. We’ll cover all you need to know about them, the present and past participle forms. I’m sure these tips will help make French conjugation much easier (and less daunting) for you! Vocabulary and Spelling of the French Words mentioned in this episode La FIN = the end FINIR (FIN + IR) is to become the end, to get to the end, therefore to finish. Gros, grosse = big GROSSIR = to become big, to put on … Read More →
Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)
As a movie version of world-famous fiction « Le Petit Prince » (« The Little Prince ») was released not so long ago, I wanted to take the opportunity to write a little bit about what is one of my favourite books. This article is a bit different from the articles I usually publish, as I chose to write in French and in English to give you the opportunity to practice your reading skills in French. After reading, please let me know if you liked this format/this activity: I could do it more regularly in the future! About "Le Petit Prince" - bilingual article Le Petit Prince d’Antoine de … Read More →
10 Tips on How to Take the Train in France
Are you travelling through France by train this summer? Lucky you! Taking the TGV (“Train à Grande Vitesse”, i.e fast train) in France is simple but here are my 10 tips on how to take the train in France to make your trip even easier. And I took the photos for you on my last trips to France ;-) 1. Unlike slow trains, TGVs have numbered seats so it is advisable to book your ticket before departure. This can be done on the SNCF (national French rail network) website – check www.voyages-sncf.fr , and practise your French reading! 2. To buy your ticket at the station or for any enquiry, … Read More →
How to Pronounce Plus in French
Philipp, a listener of French Your Way Podcast, recently emailed me with the following suggestion : « J'ai écouté l’épisode sur la question quand on prononce le « s » de tous. Peut-être que ce serait aussi intéressant quand on fait la même chose avec 'plus'. Merci ! (= I listened to the episode about when to pronounce the “s” at the end of tous. It may be interesting to do the same about “plus”. Thanks!”) I thought it would be interesting to clarify this notion – so here’s the article! I’ve also designed and included a free worksheet for you! In addition, I made a podcast episode with … Read More →
How to Type French Accents on Word
Many students who need to write French assignments have asked me how to type French accents on Word. I have already written an article about How to Type French accents on an Apple iPhone / iPad, which you can read here. I've asked my husband to write a post about it as he is the one who helps me out with all the tech parts! (For myself, I use a French keyboard.) Here's the easiest way to type French accents on Word With the following method, you won't need to memorise a heap of random numbers to use ALT key "shortcuts", and you won't need to change your keyboard to a French AZERTY … Read More →
How to Conjugate French Verbs in –IR Without Losing Your Mind
Ah, French verbs! They’re the nightmare of most students of French! By popular demand, here are some of my best tips if you’re feeling lost with how to conjugate French verbs in –IR. Learn how to Conjugate _IR Verbs Easily Good news: you only need to learn the indicative present tense and the past participle forms! All other tenses can easily be made from them ; refer to my article “The 7 Most Common French Tenses Made Easy” (it includes a downloadable worksheet with exercises). 1. Learn the verb endings for the indicative present tense Verbs in –IR have their endings as follows: _s, … Read More →
What is the difference between “deuxième” and “second” in French?
As I caught myself thinking about World War II this week (yes, I really have the most relaxing thoughts during my breaks sometimes…), a doubt suddenly crept in: do we more often call it “la deuxième guerre mondiale”, or “la seconde guerre mondiale”? The more I was thinking, the less I could remember! I knew that both forms were actually used, but which one was the most common? Or was there a BEST option? (Keep reading and you will see that there is, indeed.) I decided to survey my French friends on Facebook, asking them which expression came to their mind first. Before sharing the … Read More →
Practice Worksheets to Help You Build Correct Sentences in French
The following activity is to help you implement what you have learnt (or brushed up) in my article “Introduction to French Grammar: what type of word is it?”. The aim is to help you build correct sentences together by reflecting on how the words relate to each other and how a sentence is structured. The activity is done in 3 stages: Translate a text into French. Implement and identify: What type of word is it ? Identify all articles, nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives and prepositions. When I was in primary school, we would do a more in depth version of this … Read More →