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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AdultLanguageLearners1 ApprendreLeFrançais8 bernardfriot4 charlottemason128 CMHomeschool2 CommonplaceBook1 comprehensibleinput297 FrenchChildrensBooks1 FrenchForBeginners14 FrenchInFiveStories1 FrenchLanguage9 FrenchOver501 frenchstories15 FrenchVocabulary2 histoirespressees2 homeschoolfrench44 HomeschoolLife3 learnfrench39 LearningAtAnyAge3 LearnThroughStories1 LifelongLearning13 narration124 NeverTooLateToLearn7 SeniorLearners2 storylistening193

“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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Your Memory Is Not Fading — It Is Filtering

Dear French Story Listeners,

Let me ask you something.

Have you ever walked into a room and completely forgotten why you went in? Set your glasses down and spent ten minutes looking for them?

These little moments can feel alarming, but they are in fact completely normal,

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You Don’t Need a Good Memory to Learn French

Dear French Story Listeners,

I’ve been a little quiet lately, and I’ve missed you.

After more than a month away from YouTube, My Dear Man (behind the stage) & I are  back!

Not with a story this time, but with something I felt called to share.

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The Secret Ingredient That Makes French Actually Stick

Dear French Story Listeners,

Here’s something I want you to sit with for a moment:

You don’t acquire a language by studying it.

Léandre et Héro – Jean-Joseph Taillasson (1745-1809) You acquire it by living inside it, even briefly,

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When a Story Stays With You

Dear French Story Listeners,

Have you ever read something — years ago, perhaps decades — and found that a line, an image, a character, has never quite left you?

That’s not an accident. That’s a living story at work.

Charlotte Mason,

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