Cultivate your French : Slow French, at the right pace.

Mon voisin Jacques m'avait proposé de l'accompagner salle Gaveau. C'était en février 2013. La salle Gaveau est une salle de concert parisienne. Le spectacle que nous allions voir était une leçon de Jean-François Zygel. Ce pianiste est très connu en France pour ces leçons de musique dans lesquelles il donne des explication sur les œuvres qu'il interprète. 

C'est notre Jean-François numéro 2. 

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La série des Jean-François est une série culturelle à partir du prénom Jean-François. L'occasion pour vous de découvrir d'anciens épisodes du podcast dans lequel ce prénom apparaît. Vous verrez, c'est un type très sympa.

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Tania de Montaigne is a writer and journalist who lives in Montmartre, the Montmartre of today. La butte is her neighbourhood.

In this episode, she tells us about her favourite time of day: the morning, when she sits down to write. It's often between eight thirty and nine o'clock in the morning.

In the notes accompanying the transcript, there are some cutlural notes, and we'll be looking at three expressions used by Tania de Montaigne and other examples of their use in natural French.

So if you want to cultivate your French, in Montmartre or elsewhere, the slow way, I invite you to subscribe to the transcript at www.cultivateyourfrench.com

150 years ago, in 1875, work began on the Sacré-Cœur church on the Butte Montmartre. Today, this church is part of the Parisian landscape and is loved by Parisians and visitors alike, but this was not always the case. 

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Montmartre is a district of Paris where the adventure began for many artists, poets and songwriters whose names still resonate on this planet. Here are just a few of the names that make you dream: Suzanne Valadon, Van Gogh, Pissaro, Degas, Renoir, Picasso, Modigliani, Severini, Alphonse Allais, Emile Goudeau and the Hydropathes, Aristide Bruant, and so on. Places too: Le Chat Noir, Le Lapin Agile, Le Cirque Medrano, Le Bal du Moulin de la Galette.

In today's episode, we meet up with Anne-Laure, with whom I went to the Musée de Montmartre on a beautiful summer's morning.

So, to keep your Montmartre French up to date, the slow way, I invite you to subscribe to the podcast at www.cultivateyourfrench.com

In this episode, I dive deep into French literature with Aurélie, a high school French teacher, as we analyze "L'éphémère" by 19th-century poet Marceline Desbordes-Valmore. You'll discover how French students approach poetry analysis, learn advanced vocabulary for literary discussion, and explore themes of life, death, and motherhood through this beautiful poem. 

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Last Tuesday, I went with Micaela to an acrobatics class at a Chinese circus school in Montreuil. She was keen to try out the class with a view to improving her kung fu. Montreuil is a large, popular town to the east of Paris. Artists love it because you can still find unusual buildings to set up your studio. It's a very lively town, a ‘ Ville-monde ’ as Gilles Soufi would have said, even if it is in the process of becoming gentrified.

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Last week, I walked through the doors of the Sorbonne, the famous university, the oldest in France, which has been in existence since the 13th century. I was there to meet linguist Gilles Siouffi, who has just written a book on the linguistic history of Paris. His book is called ‘Paris Babel’. I loved this book, which reads like a novel and allows us to take a closer look at the history of French as it has never been told before.

The seventeenth century is a very important century in the history of French. People fight over who has the best French. That's what Gilles Siouffi will be explaining in today's episode. He'll also talk about pronunciation patterns.

In the notes that accompany the podcast, we'll look at three natural turns of phrase in French. We'll also develop a strategy for learning a verb quoted in the text, which is very useful in everyday French.

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I don't know about you, but I don't write letters any more, at least not handwritten ones, because you could say that some emails are letters. So I was delighted to discover the café Pli in Paris, a letter café. My friend Lorena and I went there a few days ago. The café is located in an area of Paris that I know well, not far from the Place de la République. 

The formula is simple: you order a drink and they give you an envelope, a card and some paper to write a letter that will be sent in one, five or twenty years' time. Once your letter is ready, you place it in the rack that corresponds to the date it will be sent. The wall of racks is impressive, full of letters. 

What was it like for Lorena and me? That's what we tell you in this episode, recorded as we left the Café Pli. 

In the notes that accompany the transcript, we'll be looking at the words ‘ambiance’ and ‘moment’ to see how we like to describe them in French. There will also, of course, be a conjugation strategy around a particularly useful verb, because just because a verb is useful doesn't mean it's useful to know all its tenses. You need a strategy. 

So if you want to cultivate your French in a letter or with a strategy, I invite you to subscribe to the transcript. 

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Last week we had lunch with Pauline at Coda. As we live in the same neighbourhood, she offered me a lift in her new car. And this car isn't just any car, it's the new favourite of the French: the electric R5. The R5 is an old model brought up to date, an iconic car from the 80s. We recorded our journey through Paris. Pauline really enjoys driving around town in her new R5. But what about the power? I become a motoring journalist in this episode.

In the notes that accompany the transcript, we're going to highlight the typical turns of speech in our conversation. We'll also look at the best strategy for learning the conjugation of two verbs used in this episode and very common in French. What is an optimal strategy? Well, the minimum amount of learning for the maximum amount of use in real life.

So, to cultivate your French in the optimum way, the slow way, I invite you to subscribe to transcpript at www.cultivateyourfrench.com

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