How to greet shopkeepers and waiters like a local in France

"People in Paris are rude!" is what many of my students told me... I'm not gonna get into a debate whether they are or not, but I'm going to tell you how to approach them ;) 

How do you greet people in stores, in bars, in restaurants and so on ?

I'm giving you all you need to know here.

To get the full transcription, go to my website: www.connect2languages.com

Today, I'm talking about an interview with Sonia López Pérez who's been living around Nantes for a few years now. The original interview was in French and last fr over 30 minutes, but I summarized the mains points in 15 minutes here.

Sonia who's originally from Mexico talks about the transition from the US to France for her two children who were 6 and 7 at the time.

We're going to talk about the experience of transitioning for the children and about the 4 main differences between the two school systems.

I love discovering new cultures, I love immersing myself in a country, I learn so much from it, I love being able to speak different languages, but today, I’m not going to talk about the benefits of living abroad, today I want to talk about the cost of living abroad.

Today, I want to talk about the people who choose to go live abroad because they simply want to, not for life threatening situations, not for a job opportunity, not for love, just because they feel like it.

To react to this episode and share your experience, find me on social media ;)

Today, we’re going to talk about the things to consider when learning a language. Whether you’re a beginner or you’ve got an intermediate level, there is more to consider than linguistics. So, in this episode, I will list the things to be considered when learning a language.

There are all of the linguistic aspects of the language of course like the grammar, the vocabulary, the syntax, but there's also some other aspects that a lot of my students don't consciously think of.

I'm going to share with you concrete activities I do with my students to help them approach their learning journey more efficiently.

What about you, what do you think should be considered when learning a language? 

Let me know, you can send me an email or reach out on social media: look for Connect 2 Languages ;)

Sean Hopwood is one of us, by that I mean, he’s passionate about languages and could not even consider his life (or himself for that matter) without being in constant contact with other cultures. He is a translator, which is a profession that I admire, because as a polyglot, I understand how difficult and sometimes impossible it is to translate from one language to another.

He is also the CEO of Day Translations (website is ,www.daytranslations.com ), It’s a translation and localization company operating in over 100+ languages worldwide. As a language expert and an entrepreneur, myself, I can only be very impressed because he built his company from scratch by going door to door asking people if they required translations, and today he has a fully remote team from all over the world & he is working and helping companies, but also individuals like me expand their operations abroad. He has worked with Fox News, TED, Bayer, Facebook, HBO, AT&T, and more.

But apart from all of that, what I appreciate about him is that he’s very down to earth and the conversation we had was genuine and really interesting. He said some of the things I thought so well, basically he worded my thoughts better that I can do myself, but he also sparked some new ideas that I’ll have to explore further and especially about chow important to consider the social rules of a culture when you learn the language, and not only when you travel. So, let’s start the interview now….

You can access the full transcription: here.

If you live in a foreign country, then I'm sure people ask you all the time where you are from. But, do people from your native country ask you this question as well? It’s possible, anyway, it is my case. The French often think that I am a foreigner and they ask me where I come from.

Let’s talk about that today, but before if you want to react to this episode and share your experience, find me on Instagram, go to my facebook page or send me an email.

When I worked at the University of Buenos Aires, my colleagues in the research team teased me every time I said the word “identity”. And yes, it is at the heart of my philosophy of language teaching, so today we are going to reflect on our identity. 

In this episode, I want to share an activity I did with my students to help them think in English (without having to translate from their native language)

Let's go !

But before we start, a quick note, if you like this podcast, you can leave a rating, stars or a comment on Spotify or i-Tunes. And if you want to react, find me on facebook in the Connect2Languages page or on Instagram Connect_2_Languages

And for the transcription and the complete translation in French: it is on my website www.connect2languages.com

If you want to learn more English vocabulary, check out my videos on Youtube where I teach some words I use during the episodes ;)

Welcome to the Connect 2 Languages podcast

Hi, this is Nolwenn, I have been a language teacher since 2010 and I created this podcast to help you create a positive connection with languages ​​and in particular with English. Learning a language is not only mastering linguistics, it is also about accepting to change your identity.

SHOW NOTES

It's episode 1 and I'm super happy to start this adventure with you. Today, we are going to talk about a rather particular and very unpleasant feeling, it is the feeling of feeling blocked when you want to speak in a foreign language and today I am going to take the example of foreigners who live in France and who feel blocked although they have a good level in French, by good level, I mean an intermediate level. They feel blocked, embarrassed, they are not able to express themselves as they would like. I have a lot of students like that. I myself used to feel that way with Spanish when I lived in Argentina.

Where does this feeling come from? Why does it prevent you from feeling comfortable in French? We'll talk about it in a minute.

Now, to get the full transcript of this episode, then head over to my website www.connect2languages.com

The idea is to be able to access the transcription and also the French translation for the ones who speak French. And that is because this episode also exists in French on my other podcast, which is all in French connect2french.com

And then, this week, for video tutorials, on vocabulary, go to my YouTube channel.

If you like this podcast and want to support it, there are plenty of things you can do like leaving a comment i-Tunes or on social media, talking about it around you, liking my Youtube channel or even taking lessons with me 😉

Hi, I’m Nolwenn. I’m your host.

Welcome to the Connect 2 Languages Podcast and community.

This podcast is in English and is about many topics related to language learning and to the adaptation to a foreign culture for the ones who live abroad, so for example if you’re a French living in the UK.

Before introducing the podcast in detail, I want to tell you about what makes it unique. Actually, there is an equivalent of this podcast in French. Every week, I publish an episode in English here, in Connect 2 Languages, and I publish the same episode in French in Connect 2 French. It's a bilingual project. You may have already read a bilingual book that has one page in English on one side and the translation in French on the other side. Well, it’s the same concept; you can have access to the episodes transcriptions and see both versions next to one another to be able to compare the two languages. I highlight the key expressions and the ones with which you tend to make mistakes. The transcription of this episode is on my website, you can go and get it.

On top of the transcriptions, I create tutorial videos for each episode that you can find on my website and on my Youtube channel. To find out more, just go to www.connect2languages.com