I participated yesterday in a debate at the BBC5 broadcast nationally over the following subject: a former foreign minister Chris Bryant stated that we should all learn mandarin and French has become useless.
The debate was moderated by the radio presentator Tony Livesey
Of course I went to the studio full of arguments and I did not need long to think before I came across with the following points.
- French is the language of culture, diplomaty, history, gastronomy and romance, that grew over more than a thousand years
- So is it an economic fashion to learn now mandarin as China is effectively expanding and we do recognise the success .and results .. then will we be learning a decade afterwards the neighbourhing languages? and so on?
- French is a global language, spoken by 200 million people around the world and in > 50 countries and over 5 continents.
- French opens the door to more languages .... once you know the language you can easily get onto the other European languages such as Spanish, Italian or Portuguese ... so learning ONE language ... and you get THREE!
- Also if you are going to start onto a course be assured that the learning curve of French language is relatively fast, faster than most of the other languages
During the debate a few persons called in the station and shared their views. A school teacher observed that it was very challenging to introduce mandarin at school for small children. The main language remained French, Spanish and German.
Do comment with your experience and thoughts!
I look forward to hearing from you
Veronique
Thursday, 17 June 2010
Friday, 7 May 2010
Marseille, ville du Sud
J'étais à Marseille pendant quelques jours fin mars et je voudrais partager dans cet article quelques impressions sur cette ville. Ville surprenante, imbibée de parfums de et du soleil de la Provence, réserve des trésors culturels, gastronomiques et de chaleur humaine. Marseille est la deuxième ville de France, en terme de population. L’architecture est trés semblable à celle de Paris, Haussmanienne, somptueuse. Flâneries dans les larges avenues, les rues et les passages cachés sont à ne pas manquer pour apprécier pleinement son architecture
Voir photo ci-dessus
J’eus la bonne surprise d’arriver à Marseille le samedi 27 mars au soir, jour de gloire pour Marseille ….Massalia (nom antique de la ville) venait de remporter la ligue de la Coupe, le 1er titre de football depuis 17 ans …. Car Marseille est la ville emblématique du foot! Quand je suis arrivée à la Gare St Charles, ayant débarquée de la navette venant de l’aéroport, je fus choquée d’entendre tant de klaxons et de bruits autour de moi …. Je leur pardonnai vite quand j’appris la Victoire de Marseille!!
Le club de foot s’appelle l’Olympique de Marseille et je montre ici une photo des fans venus applaudir l’équipe victorieuse lors du défilé :
Friday, 26 February 2010
French Movie Afternoon - Mardi Gras
To celebrate Mardi Gras with a French flavour I organised a French movie afternoon and Crepe party on Sunday 21st of February at my place with a dozen French speaking friends and students.
The movie was "La Mome" - literally the kid / l'enfant - This is the story from the legendary French singer Edith Piaf. The movie is featuring the actress Marion Cotillard who was awarded a Cesar at the Oscar ceremony, let's note this is the first French movie ever to be awarded two Oscars
Was it a good choice for a light "crepe party" afternoon as the movie is Grand, Emotional, Sad and Captivating? I lightened the atmosphere with regular pauses, some of them were compulsory as we had a couple of technical issues with the DVD and some to pass around to the guests the tasy savoury and sweet crepes.
A bucket of crepes was perfumed (heavily :) with Rhum Charrette, from the Island of Reunion, a French Department in the Indian Ocean (Departement Outre Mer) next to Madagascar Island.
All in all it turned up a great social cultural event to practise French!
If you would like this type of events organised at your home, why not organise a French crepe party at your place for an evening or an afternoon with some built-in language lesson or French touch (music, movie), just outsource the whole to .... Veronique, contact me for information
Au revoir
Veronique
http://www.ouilafrance.com
The movie was "La Mome" - literally the kid / l'enfant - This is the story from the legendary French singer Edith Piaf. The movie is featuring the actress Marion Cotillard who was awarded a Cesar at the Oscar ceremony, let's note this is the first French movie ever to be awarded two Oscars
Was it a good choice for a light "crepe party" afternoon as the movie is Grand, Emotional, Sad and Captivating? I lightened the atmosphere with regular pauses, some of them were compulsory as we had a couple of technical issues with the DVD and some to pass around to the guests the tasy savoury and sweet crepes.
A bucket of crepes was perfumed (heavily :) with Rhum Charrette, from the Island of Reunion, a French Department in the Indian Ocean (Departement Outre Mer) next to Madagascar Island.
All in all it turned up a great social cultural event to practise French!
If you would like this type of events organised at your home, why not organise a French crepe party at your place for an evening or an afternoon with some built-in language lesson or French touch (music, movie), just outsource the whole to .... Veronique, contact me for information
Au revoir
Veronique
http://www.ouilafrance.com
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Tips and Tricks to lean languages faster
On Thursday 29th of January 2010 I was presenting at G Manchester Casino at the Business Independence Networking Event organised by Paulette Campbell http://www.wednesdayscoaching.com/%20some some tips and tricks to speed up languages.
The evening was celebrating Art and Culture. I partnered with Paul Brotherton, painter and art teacher who exhibited some of his paintings while I was sharing with the audience some Best Practices.
Get your drivers right!
You can set a specific medium to long term goal to learn or fresh up your language skills.
eg: move to the country within 2 years, visiting relatives in the country, interest in the culture, partner from the other country, expand your work opportunities
On the contrary the “next year January resolution” could quickly vanish
Build the learning into your daily routine
You can take every opportunity to use the idle time while in motion:
e.g. listen to a language tape course when drive, to language MP3s when you jog or perform routine mandatory tasks:
eg set your phone language settings to the foreign language, sign post various items and pieces of furniture using post-its, listen to the foreign country radio on the web
Use it!
Your skills will become rusty or you will get frustrated if you do not make the most of your new skill! There are multiple opportunities to leverage languages in a social, professional or fun environment.
Practically in Manchester and in many other cities in the UK (London, Birmingham, Newcastle, etc) there are informal language meetups (http://www.meetup.com) where you can practice the language in a social environment at your pace and when you are free.
In a work environment sell your skills on your resume and with your employer. This competency is an asset for a growing number of companies.
It is more fun and efficient to learn a language with a friend, partner, relative, this is a great way to increase practice opportunity and enjoy your learning.
You find the curriculum difficult?
We all have various abilities with languages. Assess your strengths (vocabulary? oral skill? grammar?) and development areas (grammar?, or?). Assess to the second level the strengths and development needs. Grammar difficulties are too generic, what type of grammar issues do you face: tense, sentences syntax, etc). Each of the difficulty has a root cause and approach to mitigate
Gain confidence with your strengths and build a plan for each of the level 1 and level 2 development need. The rest will come with perseverance!
Do you have any specific questions for your case or somebody else you know of? Just contact me and we can investigate the roadblocks and solutions for your language curriculum.
http://www.ouilafrance.com
The evening was celebrating Art and Culture. I partnered with Paul Brotherton, painter and art teacher who exhibited some of his paintings while I was sharing with the audience some Best Practices.
Get your drivers right!
You can set a specific medium to long term goal to learn or fresh up your language skills.
eg: move to the country within 2 years, visiting relatives in the country, interest in the culture, partner from the other country, expand your work opportunities
On the contrary the “next year January resolution” could quickly vanish
Build the learning into your daily routine
You can take every opportunity to use the idle time while in motion:
e.g. listen to a language tape course when drive, to language MP3s when you jog or perform routine mandatory tasks:
eg set your phone language settings to the foreign language, sign post various items and pieces of furniture using post-its, listen to the foreign country radio on the web
Use it!
Your skills will become rusty or you will get frustrated if you do not make the most of your new skill! There are multiple opportunities to leverage languages in a social, professional or fun environment.
Practically in Manchester and in many other cities in the UK (London, Birmingham, Newcastle, etc) there are informal language meetups (http://www.meetup.com) where you can practice the language in a social environment at your pace and when you are free.
In a work environment sell your skills on your resume and with your employer. This competency is an asset for a growing number of companies.
It is more fun and efficient to learn a language with a friend, partner, relative, this is a great way to increase practice opportunity and enjoy your learning.
You find the curriculum difficult?
We all have various abilities with languages. Assess your strengths (vocabulary? oral skill? grammar?) and development areas (grammar?, or?). Assess to the second level the strengths and development needs. Grammar difficulties are too generic, what type of grammar issues do you face: tense, sentences syntax, etc). Each of the difficulty has a root cause and approach to mitigate
Gain confidence with your strengths and build a plan for each of the level 1 and level 2 development need. The rest will come with perseverance!
Do you have any specific questions for your case or somebody else you know of? Just contact me and we can investigate the roadblocks and solutions for your language curriculum.
http://www.ouilafrance.com
Sunday, 12 April 2009
Joyeuses Paques 2009!
Bonjour a tous, Hello to all
I wish you a Happy Easter 2009 ... what is Easter Vocabulary in French ???
Paques marque la resurrection du Christ. Easter symbolises the Christ resurrection
La détermination de la date de Pâques combine le cycle de la semaine (ce doit être un dimanche), le cycle solaire (ce doit être dans le mois qui suit l'équinoxe de printemps, fixé au 21 mars) et le cycle lunaire (ce doit être après la première pleine lune de printemps).
Fixing Easter Date combines the week lifecycle (it must be a Sunday), the solar cycle (that must be the month following Spring equinox, fixed on 21st of March) and the moon cycle (it must be after the first moon of spring)
Joyeuses Paques = Happy Easter (a with ^ accent but the blog format does not enable accents!)
Les oeufs de Paques = Easter eggs
to look for eggs = chercher les oeufs
A bientot,
Veronique
I wish you a Happy Easter 2009 ... what is Easter Vocabulary in French ???
Paques marque la resurrection du Christ. Easter symbolises the Christ resurrection
La détermination de la date de Pâques combine le cycle de la semaine (ce doit être un dimanche), le cycle solaire (ce doit être dans le mois qui suit l'équinoxe de printemps, fixé au 21 mars) et le cycle lunaire (ce doit être après la première pleine lune de printemps).
Fixing Easter Date combines the week lifecycle (it must be a Sunday), the solar cycle (that must be the month following Spring equinox, fixed on 21st of March) and the moon cycle (it must be after the first moon of spring)
Joyeuses Paques = Happy Easter (a with ^ accent but the blog format does not enable accents!)
Les oeufs de Paques = Easter eggs
to look for eggs = chercher les oeufs
A bientot,
Veronique
Thursday, 29 May 2008
MAY 2008 Course for Travellers and BBC Radio Programme
Hello all, Bonjour!
THE SURVIVAL KIT IN FRANCE FOR THE 2008 SUMMER!!!
Going soon to France?? Then it is now the perfect opportunity to get ready and masterize the basics of greetings, directions, etc!
I am offering a 4 week course over conference call (local phone number in the United Kingdom) and webchat starting June, 8th over 4 weeks - 2 hours from 7-9PM BST time (British Summer Time)
These interactive classes will equip you with the basics to be able to communicate on your holiday in France this summer.
They will cover practical topics such as greetings and getting to know people; travel; shopping; asking for directions; and dealing with "problems" in Paris or elsewhere in France .
The focus of these classes is on communication and you will therefore not cover topics in great detail. These classes will give you a taste of French, which you may wish to deepen by signing up to a more in-depth language evening class with us in the autumn term.
For price and enrollment send me an email on vpollacs@yahoo.co.uk
LISTEN TO VERONIQUE ON BBC MANCHESTER - FRIDAY 23RD OF MAY
Veronique appeared with one of her French students on BBC Radio Manchester on Friday 23rd of May on the popular radio programme of Becky, "Becky Wants" to talk about French teaching, French learning (experience from the student) and say on the air a couple of funny French sentences from "Fools and Horses" ... Mange Tout! Mange Tout!
For those who would like to listen to the programme (after 7 minutes), link is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/networks/manchester/aod.shtml?manchester/becky_want_fri#
THE SURVIVAL KIT IN FRANCE FOR THE 2008 SUMMER!!!
Going soon to France?? Then it is now the perfect opportunity to get ready and masterize the basics of greetings, directions, etc!
I am offering a 4 week course over conference call (local phone number in the United Kingdom) and webchat starting June, 8th over 4 weeks - 2 hours from 7-9PM BST time (British Summer Time)
These interactive classes will equip you with the basics to be able to communicate on your holiday in France this summer.
They will cover practical topics such as greetings and getting to know people; travel; shopping; asking for directions; and dealing with "problems" in Paris or elsewhere in France .
The focus of these classes is on communication and you will therefore not cover topics in great detail. These classes will give you a taste of French, which you may wish to deepen by signing up to a more in-depth language evening class with us in the autumn term.
For price and enrollment send me an email on vpollacs@yahoo.co.uk
LISTEN TO VERONIQUE ON BBC MANCHESTER - FRIDAY 23RD OF MAY
Veronique appeared with one of her French students on BBC Radio Manchester on Friday 23rd of May on the popular radio programme of Becky, "Becky Wants" to talk about French teaching, French learning (experience from the student) and say on the air a couple of funny French sentences from "Fools and Horses" ... Mange Tout! Mange Tout!
For those who would like to listen to the programme (after 7 minutes), link is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/networks/manchester/aod.shtml?manchester/becky_want_fri#
Friday, 28 March 2008
APRIL 2008 Free French Teaching Conference Calls
Bonjour a tous!
I am introducing this April a unique concept: Free French learning/practice conference calls!
I am scheduling two one-hour Free French teaching session – Basic and Advanced
We will go through the introduction and the first lesson “short break in
To register to this conference call follow the steps
- I will send you an email that you need to send to 10 friends that you know may be be interested in learning French and put me in cc.
- I will send you the link to the conference call + phone number, pin and website that includes a meeting chat window
- Before the conference call go through the BBC lesson “short break in
- Date and time of the conference call:
Friday 11th of April from
Conference call dial in (USA): +1 218 936 6581 and input the pin: 0423
To use the web interface as well – chat go to this link when the conference start (you need to register to facebook)
http://apps.facebook.com/freeconference/conf/show/28300
2) advanced level
Sunday 13th of April from
We will go through the introduction and discussion around this article about French gastronomy!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/news/lifestyle/products_n_ireland.shtml
To use the web interface as well – chat go to this link when the conference start (you need to register to facebook)
http://apps.facebook.com/freeconference/freeconference/conf/show/28302
TO REGISTER, SEND ME AN EMAIL OR POST A COMMENT WITH YOUR FIRST, LAST NAME
A bientôt!
Véronique
vpollacs@yahoo.co.uk
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