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Is it ‘arrivent’ or arrivENT. When do you pronounce the last 3 letters -ENT in French? 

In our Conversation Café groups we now have pronunciation work every two weeks, then we integrate it into our spontaneous conversations.  

Why? Simply because when we articulate well in French, we find that ...

LUDIQUE 

Do you know this word?

It’s French for fun and effective learning. Yup, all that in one little word! 

Learning in a fun way is entertaining at least, and effective at best, especially when you can recall words on the spot in spontaneous conversations. 

Many of us struggle when it com...

Do you know when to pronounce that P and when not . . . and hesitate when speaking because there’s this 50/50 choice going on in your head and slowing you down? 

In this mini-lesson, you’ll discover:

• When you DO pronounce the P

• When you DON’T pronounce that P

• Other words with this P...

“Prononciation”

Can you actually pronounce this properly in both English AND French?  In fact, very many English words are similar in French and when we read them, we use our ‘English’ brain. 

In this mini-lesson, I have chosen 20 commonly used words and pronounced them in French for you and st...

As learners of French, we don’t often invite our French neighbours or friends around for fear of wondering what to say after all the greetings are done with . . . it starts getting a bit tricky!

So here’s a great game to play amongst your nibbles and drinks where you all expand your vocabulary t...

“Rentrer”   

A French word with the dreaded R sound! TWICE! 

Can you say it, or do you recoil in resigned acceptance that it’s just too hard?

I only learnt this relatively recently. Why? Because my teachers never told me, they even found it hard.

Then I decided to look and feel in SLOW MOTIO...

How can 2 little dots make such a difference to your speaking and spelling in French?

Are you messing up by putting them in the wrong place?

Here’s another really quick mini-lesson to help you enjoy being just a little bit more French today, as requested by many of my learners. 

Learn: 

• Wha...

Anglophones tend to have enough problems with tu and vous, and nobody tells us how to pronounce them well, either.  

Not only that, as soon as someone asks you to “ tuvoyer”, you’re lost! 

In this mini-lesson, you discover not only how to say these lovely words, but how to choose the right one,...

Oops - are you pronouncing your plurals wrongly? 

Un animal - Deux animaux

That’s how it goes! 

A really quick mini-lesson to help you enjoy being just a little bit more French today.

Make your quick discovery and learn: 

•  A group of common words where -AL goes to -AUX
•  How to pronounce t...

“Just to” see if you fancy squeezing in a nice new expression to your French head. . . 

I present you . . . “Histoire de . . .” 

“Just to” . . . 

This is a really quick mini-lesson to help you enjoy being just a little bit more French today, instead of saying “juste pour”.

Don’t make schoolda...

Learning should be fun, and this week, after working in a lesson with French people trying to sound English, we realised it works both ways.  With side-splitting fun we repositioned out mouth, our tongue and even the airflow in our throat. 

Through all the laughter we cracked it with two fun phr...

This single word really does have the key to your native-sounding pronunciation: 

Try saying this in your ENGLISH voice: Television, first in your head then out loud.  Then the same in French. Télévision.

In this mini-lesson we swiftly explore how to shift your internal and external pronunciati...