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,

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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,

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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.

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What Happens When French Shows Up in Real Life

To our circle of French Story Listeners,

This week, Karel, one of our dearest community members, shared something on Telegram that made me smile from the inside out.

Early one morning, he received an urgent call from a close friend. His friend’s son, an agronomy student on internship in France,

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