Have you ever tasted a chouquette?

Dear French Story Listeners,

Last week I told you about Vladimir, and how we are building his spoken French one small step at a time with the progymnasmata.

We started with a simple fable and kept going from there.

Nothing rushed and nothing forced.

[read more…]

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Speak French more freely: start with a fable

Dear French Story Listeners,

This week I began a new adventure with Vladimir, whom I’m coaching to speak French with more ease and spontaneity. Maybe that sounds familiar? 😊

We started with an exercise that has shaped good speakers for over two thousand years: the Mythos,

[read more…]

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The French word that means both “suspicion” and “a pinch of salt”

Dear French Story Listeners,

Let’s begin with one small French word, un soupçon.

It means a suspicion, that little feeling that something isn’t quite what it seems.

It also means a tiny bit, as in un soupçon de sel (a pinch of salt).

[read more…]

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“Put It Away”: Freshened Wits for Your French Journey

Dear French Story Listeners,

Have you ever noticed that around the fifteen-minute mark of anything — a lesson, a podcast, a task you’re not thrilled about — your mind quietly starts to wander?

You’re not doing it wrong. Your brain is just doing what brains do.

[read more…]

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Why we start with the body, not the book

Dear French Story Listeners,

It’s la rentrée, that particular feeling in the air when September asks us, gently, what we’d like to begin again.

Maybe it’s French, for you. Maybe it’s been a while, or maybe you’ve never quite started at all.

[read more…]

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La rentrée is here 🍂 + join our new Friday Story Circle

To our circle of French Story Listeners,

September has quietly arrived, and with it, la rentrée, that gentle, collective exhale of settling back into rhythm after summer’s looser days.

There’s something lovely about this time of year: notebooks are new, the light is shifting,

[read more…]

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Small Steps, Big Heart: Your New Story Awaits

To our circle of French Story Listeners,

This week, seven brave beginners spent five days living in French together.

An intensive crash course, held daily over Zoom, small enough (just 7 learners!) that no one could hide, and gentle enough that everyone found their footing.

[read more…]

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