Guess where I just spent mon dimanche après-midi? Not only à Paris but… au Louvre! And it was merveilleux! It seems to me that everything happened en même temps :
-la fin du confinement en France, youpi!
-la réouverture des frontières pour les personnes vaccinées, youpi! (only 2 SPOTS LEFT for my French Immersion Courses à Chartres)
-mes examens universitaires – chaque année in May but somehow this year I felt extra brave, ou folle, so I took some more il y a deux semaines – and I can write “youpi” again because they are all taken and passed!
-et la cerise sur le gâteau : no more mask outside, youpi!
A pretty explosive couple of months for someone, moi, settling dans ma nouvelle ville, la sublime Chartres, l’année dernière en octobre, only a few days before the loooonnng confinement which ended only le mois dernier! Donc je peux vous dire que ever since les examens sont out of the way, I’m in exploration mode!
Aujourd’hui was my first day back à Paris ever since I moved out de la capitale en août dernier!
Début de l’aventure ce matin : départ gare de Chartres d’où nous arrivons à Paris en 1 heure seulement! Mais zut, mauvaise surprise, our metro line # 4 is closed. Ce n’est pas la fin du monde as we can find a different way to get à notre restaurant Le Fumoir (dans le 1er arrondissement right next to le Louvre donc super pratique!) mais nous téléphonons à la réception nonetheless pour leur dire that we will be late. Ma première fois dans ce restaurant :
Vous connaissez? Absolument ravissant! Mais après un an away from Paris, j’ai presque oublié its crazy prices… un minuscule gâteau (délicieux certes, mais minuscule! Oh well. Moins de calories, n’est-ce pas?) au chocolat pour 11€, ha! Mais c’est pas grave, who cares!? Nous sommes à Paris, life is good (how many times did we say this today?), and we’re about to get lost dans le Louvre… en fait, ce n’est pas complètement vrai. We knew très bien what we wanted to see…
D’abord, mesdames et messieurs, la Grèce antique!
And rather than only taking photos of the statues, j’ai décidé de partager avec vous la décoration d’une des immenses pièces hosting the statues! On peut passer autant de temps à regarder les murs (not exactly your average wall, n’est-ce pas?) que les statues. Anyway, this is officiellement my new favorite wall. Of all the walls. In the world. Et pourquoi pas?
Ever heard of the child born from l’union du dieu Hermès et de la déesse Aphrodite? Alors regardez bien…
Que voyez-vous? What do you see?
Une très jolie jeune fille bien sûr!
Bien sûr? Vous êtes certains?
Mmmm think again and look at “her” from l’autre côté :
Et oui! L’enfant d’Hermès et d’Aphrodite est Hermaphrodite, mi femme, mi homme!
Puis direction La galerie d’Apollon… oh la la une vision surréelle! Une explosion d’or et de pierres précieuses! Not 1 centimètre, non non what do I say, not 1 millimètre left empty!
J’ai même trouvé un petit collier modeste et discret, that I can add to my next Christmas list :
Then we walked all the way to les appartement de Napoléon III, que je n’avais jamais vus avant, in fact I didn’t even know they were au Louvre, did you?
This was called “Les petits appartements” pour “les petites réceptions”.
Ha!
Of course, the 19th century lover in me couldn’t help imaginer ces fameuses petites réceptions, les invités, les merveilleux vêtements, le joyeux brouhaha, un petit concert peut-être, les domestiques passant de groupes en groupes proposant des coupes des meilleurs Champagne… aaaaaah!
I don’t really believe in past lives mais j’aime tant l’idée de vivre à La Belle Époque où tout était si chic, si élégant, et les hommes si bien habillés… regardez par exemple l’empereur Napoléon III :
19th century Virginie would have fallen amoureuse every 5 minutes, c’est certain!
Which reminds me, ma mère avait peint mon petit chien Bruno dans le style Napoléon III :
Et voilà. Après three and a half hours of swimming in beauty, nous avons dit au revoir au Louvre, puis nous avons couru dans le métro parisien (still that stupid line # 4 that was only supposedly closed le matin mais en fait non pas du tout elle était aussi fermée l’après-midi, merci la communication) pour finalement sauter dans notre train, huffing and puffing (and sweating) exactement une minute avant la fermeture des portes! Un vrai miracle that we made it woohoo!
Une heure plus tard, nous voilà de retour dans notre adorable petite Chartres. Not a bad dimanche.
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Learn French online with Virginie
Join French Truly’s online immersion course and online school, either by buying the French online course(s) of your choice or by becoming a monthly member. See more details about the membership at the bottom of this page.
Each French online course is packed with video & audio files along with written material, to make it as fun, easy, and user friendly as possible for you! Come and learn French online with me!
Come to France again!
Intermediate level students
2021 September 20 – 26 : SOLD OUT 2022 April 04 – 10 : SOLD OUT 2022 April 20 – 26 : 2 SPOTS LEFT
Beginner level students
2022 Summer JOIN THE WAITING LIST
If you’re unsure which level you are, contact me to schedule a free Skype call
Benefits
Improve your French conversational skills in a completely safe & friendly environment with me and my amazing French guests who I am selecting because they represent true Chartres landmarks : art historians, chefs, entrepreneurs, artisans, pâtissiers, etc. all passionate experts in their own fields.
Practice speaking & listening to French while learning about the French culture. This will ensure a rich discussion as well as expand your French vocabulary.
Learn French grammar & conjugation in a natural way thanks to a practical context.
Relax knowing that I’m here to manage our time together and make sure everyone gets a fair opportunity to participate.
Discover Chartres, my new gorgeous city, with me! I very recently moved to this little piece of heaven and I am beyond excited to explore and share all I can with you!
Bask in French traditions & history in medieval Chartres, an endless source of fascinating stories.So, if you’re feeling a strong “OUI” for this, just click on the appropriate sign up button right below!
French online book club
I will tell you more about this tomorrow so stay tuned!
Benefits
Improve your French comprehension skills in a completely safe & friendly environment avec moi.
Practice reading, speaking, and listening to French while bursting out laughing at every page. This will ensure a rich discussion as well as expand your French vocabulary and sentence structure.
Learn French grammar & conjugation in a natural way thanks to a practical context.
Relax knowing that I’m here to manage our time together and make sure everyone gets a fair opportunity to participate.
In this course, you will find 15 videos (+ 10 bonus ones) to help & accompany you every step of the way through the course + for each word, each sentence, each expression, each conjugated verb, I have created an audio file of my voice, slow and slightly faster speed. Your French language learning experience has never been so easy, fun, and fruitful. You can learn French online and benefit from the flexibility working at your own pace offers, while having me with you the whole time.
Did you know…
You can converse (speak + understand) in French with only 600 WORDS?
The average French person only uses between 300 & 3,000 WORDS?
This means that if you can master a relatively short list of words, you’ll be able to express yourself like the average French person! Plus you’re much more likely to understand the French when they talk back to you!
This course will teach you…
1- How to speak French
2- How to pronounce French
3- How to make French sentences
4- How to conjugate all the most common French verbs
5- How to polish your results
6- How to self evaluate your French
More info HERE
It should take you about 30 hours to complete this course, which is made up of 10 lessons
This course is designed for a beginner / intermediate level. If you are intermediate but feel like you could really reinforce your foundations, you will love it.
You can join whenever, either by buying the course or by becoming a monthly member giving you access to my French online courses from $10 / month. See more details about the membership at the bottom of this page
In this course you will find 11 videos + 150 audio files + 92 pages PDF format to help & accompany you every step of the way throughout the course. In some parts of the videos, my face will appear close up and profile so you can easily see how I make these sounds with my mouth. The 150 audio files are composed of the 100 most popular French words and the 50 most common French phrases. They are recordings of my voice, speaking slowly enough so you can easily grasp every syllable. Your French language learning experience has never been so easy, fun, and fruitful. You can learn French online and benefit from the flexibility working at your own pace offers, while having me with you the whole time.
NB: if you are the proud owner of my previous French online course 600 WORDS, don’t worry, this is not a repeat as we are now exploring 1 letter words and up, whereas in 600 WORDS we began at 4 letter words and up.
Combine knowledge with confidence…
For you to be able to have a pleasant and efficient conversation with a French person, one thing is key… can you guess what it is? Confidence! How well do you think you will communicate in French if you don’t feel confident about your accent? If you are scared that people won’t understand you? Or even worse if you think someone might make fun of you? Without a minimum of confidence there is no room for communication. Yet if you feel confident, you can afford to make a few mistakes here and there because people will still understand you. What prevents a conversation from happening isn’t just a lack of knowledge, it’s also a lack of confidence. You need to have both to make it work, not to mention, to make it fun!
This course will teach you…
1- How to pronounce every letter of the alphabet
2- How to pronounce every digraph & trigraph
3- How to make every French sentence flow
4- How to pronounce the 100 most popular French words
5- How to pronounce the 50 most popular French phrases
6- How to avoid the pronunciation mistakes everyone makes
More info HERE
It should take you about 20 to 2 hours to complete this course, which is made up of 11 lessons
This course is designed for a beginner level. If you are intermediate but lack confidence when it comes to talking and feel like you could really benefit from focusing on pronunciation, you will love it.
You can join whenever, either by buying the course or by becoming a monthly member giving you access to my French online courses from $10 / month. See more details about the membership below
In the FRENCH DICTÉES online course you will find 20 videos + 10 audio files to help & accompany you every step of the way throughout the course. Why 20 videos? Because there are 10 dictées in total, each focusing on one particular topic, and for each dictée I have prepared 2 videos. Let’s say the video focuses on both French past tenses called imparfait & passé composé. The first video will go though the grammar, the conjugation, and all the tips on these two past tenses to help you understand and remember how and when to use them. The second video will be the actual dictée, a short story written by me, describing everyday life situations conveniently packed with imparfait and passé composé verbs! Boom! Efficient! The dictée will also be read by me, slowly first and then a little faster, with a close up on my face so you can more easily recognize the words and copy the shapes I make to improve your own pronunciation.
Become a French language expert
How do you become an expert at anything? By focusing on one thing at a time.
I’ve made sure to categorize and isolate either a verb tense, a verb group, a grammar or vocabulary topic per dictée, so you can effectively focus and interiorize concepts separately, which makes it a lot easier to remember them.
Here’s what you’re going to learn
What grammar & conjugation points will each dictée focus on?
Dictée # 1: Present tense
Dictée # 2: Past tenses – imparfait & passé composé
Dictée # 3: Future tenses – futur proche & futur simple
Dictée # 4: Conditional, imparfait, asking questions
Dictée # 5: Imperative form
Dictée # 6: First group verbs all tenses
Dictée # 7: Second group verbs all tenses
Dictée # 8: Third group verbs all tenses
Dictée # 9: Numbers
Dictée # 10: Prepositions
Each dictée is a short story written by me about practical everyday life situations. This means that not only do you get to work on conjugation & grammar drills, but you also improve your conversational skills at the same time: a magic combination for your next trip to France!
Grow your confidence talking about practical everyday topics
The dictées will refer to common topics that you are very likely to hear or very likely to use to express yourself such as:
-Traveling to France
-Socializing
-Childhood memories
-Family dynamics
-Everyday life routines
-How to express your ideas, opinions, and dreams
Two videos per dictée
First video: key grammar and conjugation reminders explained very clearly so you feel prepared and confident entering each dictée.
Second video: the actual dictée. I’ve made sure to categorize and isolate either a verb tense, a verb group, a grammar or vocabulary topic, so you can effectively focus and interiorize concepts separately, which makes it a lot easier to remember them.
And for you challenge lovers over-achievers?
Yes I have prepared something just for you! I have also made 10 audio files, 1 per dictée, so that if you wish to, if you want it extra difficult, if you want to test yourself more deeply, you can solely rely on sound. Indeed there are many occasions in life where we hear a language but we don’t see it: speaking to someone on the phone or listening to the radio for instance.
20 videos? 10 audio files? What else?
This new FRENCH DICTÉES online course also comes with written files with both the French text along with the English translation, so that you can evaluate yourself when you’re done taking notes.
To summarize, you’ll be able to use video, audio, and written material.
Dictées worked for me, they’ll work for you!
Let me tell you, I LOVE dictées because THEY WORK. And clearly you realize this too and that is smart of you. So now let’s see how something as simple as a dictée can truly help you become a little bit French! Your French language learning experience has never been so easy, fun, and fruitful. You can learn French online and benefit from the flexibility working at your own pace offers, while having me with you the whole time.
Become a monthly member!
My goal is to transform your French language learning experience. This is why I’ve decided to offer you a new way to learn French online and gain access to the French Truly Online School! Actually, more than 1 new way, you’ll have 3 plans to choose from so come and learn French online with me!
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