Last week, I had the opportunity to work with Miguel, from Los Angeles.
He was motivated to work on conversation in French so we practiced 2 to 3 hours per day and we confirmed his level in French: definitely B2.
And because of his high level in French, I thought he was ready for 5 tips to progress even more:
1) Think in French
At some point, you absolutely need to think in French to be able to speak French! It means “let go of your reflex to translate from your language”. Obviously, it must be very tiring for you and also, in a natural interaction, while you are busy finding perfect equivalents from your language to French language (which often don’t even exist!), time is running and the person you were talking to might be left! The experience may make you feel no longer confident so here is the vicious circle!
2) Articulate
Trust me: if you keep your jaw in a position of a /é/, you will never be able to pronunce a French /e/ and no luck: showing clearly the difference between these two in French is veeeeery important. Otherwise, natives won’t feel comfortable listening to you so we go back to the same sad conclusion as explained in 1).
3) Practice outloud reading
Build your own routine where you are going to record yourself reading 5 sentences in French and you focus on articulation (if needed, cut the words before*!). Listen to yourself with a new perspective and redo the exercise. You can practice 5mn per week, it’s enough, the challenge here is to be consistent.
4) Learn to listen carefully
Active listening is obviously useful for anyone wether it’s for personal or professional reasons! As far as learning French is concerned, you are going to be able to build relevant answers / sentences thanks to the person you are talking to so let them do the job! Also, if something was not clear, you can definitely repeat and / or rephrase which helps rekindle the conversation which is a good thing, right?
5) Trust yourself
I will keep repeating like a parrot: trust yourself!
How many people did I have personally talked to who were B2 in French but they didn’t believe it even if I kept telling them haha?
See below a clarification inspired by Miguel during his stay in Montpellier:
You can do this activity by yourself, the access to the route is provided directly on your smartphone after payment, or contact Samyra for a guided tour
🌴 Feel free to contact me if you plan a sunny trip in Montpellier 😎🌴
They are my first clients in Montpellier since I moved from Dijon and the first ones to discover my new office! It’s close to tram station Albert 1er – Cathédrale so very convenient for our weekly Start French Now sessions.
⚠️ I share this office with other self-employed people so make sure to contact me beforehand: my availability for appointments is only on Tuesdays for now.
How about you take this opportunity to schedule a free French session in Montpellier? I can’t wait to know more about your goals regarding French language and of course practice!
📍 24 avenue Bouisson Bertrand 34090 MONTPELLIER – Sur RDV le mardi / By appointments on Tuesdays
Take a look at one of the biggest achievements of our school in 2022!
INRAE Dijon told us about three researchers, Yaoyun (China), Denise (Brasil) and Didac (Spain), very advanced in French and determined to progress even more. ✊
Since they work on legumes, we wanted to make them think about how to use French in order to be understood on the radio and at the same time, how to popularize your work as a researcher.
🔥 This issue gave us all an opportunity and a challenge during several months:
✅ create a unique and specific French course aiming at recording a real podcast
Very early in your learning process, you must have been told told that “s” at the end of French nouns shows plural.
It’s true but here is another fact.
In French, you also have lots of words with “s” and it’s not because of the plural:
adjectives* ➨ “anglais” (English), “gros” (fat)…
*In that case, even if adjectives should follow the plural on the noun, you don’t add another “s”: “le thé anglais ; les thés anglais” ; “le gros chat ; les gros chats”
In this article, I will focus on nouns and to cheer you up, I selected 70 of them frequently used by native French people and I decided to write a little – and hopefully funny! – story about a mouse, fan of Ratatouille.
I hope you will also enjoy the cartoon I designed (if so, feel free to share on social media) and by the way, if you want to learn more about made in Franche-Comté Cancoillotte cheese, you can click here.
Of course, Adam was already fluent in French but he was determined to do even better for example in situations when several Researchers interact and you have to process different things at the same time in order to provide appropriate AND convincing answers.
More than 100 pages of content
All through our sessions, I made him discover how people* build their speech. Some of them are easy to understand because their ideas are clear and when they talk, it’s well prepared. Some of them give you a headache and you have to deal with that.
Everyone still wants to make his point and builds a conscious (or unconscious) strategy to do so!
*Researchers and well-informed public (or not!) in science
French grammar, linguistics, rhetoric, argumentation: I created more than 100 pages of content from real situations and I challenged Adam with missions to accomplish. Of course, in an action-oriented evaluation of the language, I wanted this course to be useful for him as a Researcher and Research Director. 💪
Read below Adam’s feedback about this course and check link if you also want to join
Adam, merci de témoigner pour cet article ! Voici les questions :
Êtes-vous satisfait de cette formation et a-t-elle répondu à vos objectifs de départ ?
Oui parce que je trouve que le programme est bien construit avec un mélange de grammaire, de compréhension orale, etc. J’ai apprécié l’interactivité grâce à l’utilisation de la vidéo qui stimulait les échanges et aussi que Samyra place le sujet dans le contexte de mon domaine de recherche. C’est plus facile à comprendre.
Qu’est-ce qui vous a été le plus utile dans cette formation ?
La grammaire (pronoms relatifs, etc.), les connecteurs logiques, etc. ont été des outils que je réutilisais après les séances dans mon travail.
Avez-vous constaté des changements pour votre travail ?
J’ai plus de confiance quand je parle avec mon équipe.
Est-ce que vous recommanderiez cette formation à un.e autre chercheur / chercheuse ?
Oui, cette formation a été construite de manière très précise pour les besoins individuels des chercheurs. Elle est très différente des formations dans d’autres instituts de langue.
Toponymy is really interesting: the word “sous” means “under” so basically, it implies that these towns are under this “Thil” thing!
In the old days, “Thil” would refer to a linden tree so it is actually quite poetic ❤
⇓ We can assume that lots of Linden trees of Sully still exist here (source)! Did you know that this tree was named after Sully, Secretary of King Henri IV (16th-17th)? Indeed, he wanted linden trees being planted everywhere in the villages, in front of the church or on main square.
A linden tree in Chaignay, 20km from Dijon, certified as a remarkable tree (source: “Côte-d’Or : le tilleul de Chaignay a reçu le label d’arbre remarquable” France 3 Bourgogne Franche-Comté – 03/09/2018)
There is also a famous local family with the name “Thil” starting with Miles de Thil, founder of the priory of Précy-sous-Thil in 1007. Nowadays, you still have many people out there named with “Thil” but with different assumptions about the origin (source: Geneanet.com).
Tille (= waterway)
River Tille (length: 82,7km) takes its source in the east of France and runs through 26 towns in Côte-d’Or: Salives, Barjon, Avot, Marey-sur-Tille, Villey-sur-Tille, Crécey-sur-Tille, Échevannes, Til-Châtel, Lux, Spoy, Beire-le-Chatel, Arceau, Arc-sur-Tille, Remilly-sur-Tille, Cessey-sur-Tille, Genlis, Pluvault, Champdôtre, Les Maillys.
Let’s notice that some are named with “Tille” and others not… Another mystery…
Anyway, 10 cities near Dijon are named after this river: Arc-sur-Tille, Bressey-sur-Tille, Cessey-sur-Tille, Crécey-sur-Tille, Is-sur-Tille, Magny-sur-Tille, Marcilly-sur-Tille, Marey-sur-Tille, Remilly-sur-Tille, Villey-sur-Tille.
Let’s notice here the word “sur” — meaning “on” — implying that these places are located alongside the river. The word “tille” itself used to refer to a waterway in local language and after that, only one of the waterways kept the common noun which became a proper noun!
So now you know something that even French people living here don’t!
As a conclusion, we can’t help but notice that the word “tille” looks like the french word for linden tree: “tilleul”. There is no coincidence here: in old french, tille or theille refers to a rope made of linden tree bark (source: Centre national de ressources textuelles et lexicales).
We end up realizing that « Thil » and « Tille » have a very close meaning and both help us dream about the countryside not that far from Dijon…
Are there such stories behind names of cities in your country? Share with us below!
Again: key to pronunciation is l-i-s-t-e-n-i-n-g so feel free to discover (and share!) Saïda talking about inspiration and motivation (french and english subtitles)…
The best way to practice spoken French is to s-p-e-a-k it so let’s meet for our 1st French Corner!
Some mistakes you might make: a character = un personnage / un caractère = a personality to be workoholic = être accroc au travail to like someone as a friend = aimer bien quelqu’un / to love = aimer (être amoureux)
Useful expression: “On se connaît sans plus” meaning we know each other and talk but I don’t feel like we’re friends
Do you remember when we talked about Sylvie, Travelling Record Dealer in Dijon and around? Now this time, let’s listen to Albin, Virtual Tour Maker.
Don’t be afraid because native French people speak fast – like you in your mother tongue! -! You will find complete French subtitles in this video, even the contractions between words like “je suis” = “j’suis” or “replier = r’plier”.
Videos “Meet Them” help you focus on your listening skills in authentic spoken French and of course on your pronunciation so feel free to subscribe and share below your feedback. 🙂
Read below Adam’s feedback about this course and check link if you also want to join 
