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Allumer The Light – Forgetting A Useful Word In French Posted by John Bauer on Apr 25, 2018
It can be surprising how ordinary useful words take a long time to learn. Something as useful as un tournevis (a screwdriver) is often skipped over in textbooks, but when you need one, it’s an important word to know how to say! Whether it’s un nouveau lit (a new bed) or une nouvelle expression (a…
Staying In The Juice – Useful French Expressions Posted by John Bauer on Apr 18, 2018
Learning new expressions is a fun but difficult part of learning une langue (a language). It gets even harder when des expressions start building on top of each other by adding in les jeux de mots (puns). There is a very useful expression française (French expression) that is nice and short and doesn’t involve having…
His Or Her Cup? – Confusing Possessive Adjectives In French Posted by John Bauer on Apr 11, 2018
Continuing from la semaine dernière (last week), understanding how le genre d’un mot (the gender of a word) affects la grammaire française (French grammar) can be hard to grasp for non-native speakers. Any tips that can help with internalizing why les genres are so important and just how they work makes learning la langue (the…
Using Delicious Spaghetti To Remember The Gender Of French Words Posted by John Bauer on Apr 4, 2018
Remembering le genre d’un mot (the gender of a word) is one of the hardest parts of learning French. Getting a feel for how un chaise sounds wrong is very hard for non-native speakers. While there are countless examples les anglophones (English speakers) like myself making mistakes with French words, looking at words that les…
Using An Chair To Understand The Importance Of Les Genres In French Posted by John Bauer on Mar 28, 2018
Learning des nouveaux mots (new words) in French means remembering a word’s definition, pronunciation, and le genre du mot (the gender of the word). For many people including myself, remembering les genres des mots is the hardest part of learning the language! Malheureusement (unfortunately), as un anglophone (an English speaker) the idea of every word…
Amercian Stereotypes and Traditional Cuisine – Hamburger Vocabulary in French Posted by John Bauer on Mar 21, 2018
Living in France as un américain (an American) sometimes means hearing the same jokes over and over again. Most of the time it’s all meant in good fun so it never bothers me and sometimes I even learn about les stéréotypes américains (American stereotypes) that I never knew existed! The most common stéréotype américain that…
Running In Circles In Every Nook And Cranny – Two French Idioms Posted by John Bauer on Mar 14, 2018
Singing along to a song makes repeating the same few words over and over again much more fun and feels a lot less like les devoirs (homework). However, sometimes it can be hard to sing along, especially if the singer has a strong accent or there are a lot of expressions françaises! La semaine dernière…