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Do you want to improve your listening skills and comprehension of the French as it is spoken in France? With Cultivate Your French podcast, things go smoothly. This is slow French podcast, but Slow French doesn’t just mean speaking slowly and it’s not about quick progress. It’s a nice learning approach.
Episodes
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
On a Saturday afternoon, last September, I took my bike and met with Emilie Renard. We had ten kilometres to ride together to go to Issy-les-Moulineaux where Emily runs something tipically French : un théâtre de marionnettes, a puppet show, in the parc behind the mairie.
On weekends, there are two performances. One at 4.30 pm and, the other one, one hour later. For the first one, I stood in the public to watch the show. It was a very funny story. Emilie has written all of the 12 stories that she performs (one each week). The main character of her stories is the famous Polichinelle, but in this story Polichinelle was only presenting the show. Then, I had the chance to watch the story from behind the scenes. It’s really a permformance to manipulate the puppies with the hands, to have them move in the small scene and to have to speak in the voice of the different characters : there were 6 different characters in this story.
In this episode, you will hear Emilie Renard talking about her work, about the story that I saw and where to go to watch her show. In the transcript, I will highlight for your some very natural French sentences or expressions that you could use in your own conversations. Because, this podcast is about improving your French comprehension, but also cultivating your French !
All the information about the transcript is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com
Next week, the podcast will be on holidays, but if you are a subscriber, you will receive a link to keep working on your French.
Le théâtre de Polichinelle, Issy-les-Moulineaux : https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100054410202970
Wednesday Oct 19, 2022
CYF 145 — La comédie française, l’endroit du jour — mercredi 19 octobre 2022
Wednesday Oct 19, 2022
Wednesday Oct 19, 2022
Last Saturday morning, I received a phone call from Claire, Lisa’s viola da gamba teacher. Se was offering to take Lisa and her son to the Comédie Française. The Comédie Française, France’s famous national theater, the house of Molière? Lisa was excited ! The play was La vie de Galilée (Galileo’s Life) by Bertold Brecht. She didn’t understand much, but really enjoyed the moment, and the macaron Claire offered her when they got out.
That same day, Micaela had an appointment with her best friend, Anna. Does it have a link with what I have just said? Yes, you are going to discover it in this episode.
In this episode, you may notice that there are many questions. For example : Quelle pièce allez-vous voir? This gave me the idea to write a list of questions, in the transcript that goes with this episode, that you could be asked about a play. I have also recorded those questions in an audio file, so you can play with me and answer my questions as if we were having a conversation.
Cultivate Your French at www.cultivateyourfrench.com
Wednesday Oct 12, 2022
CYF 144 — Lisa a lu Une amazone d’Alexandre Dumas — mercredi 12 octobre 2022
Wednesday Oct 12, 2022
Wednesday Oct 12, 2022
My daughter Lisa had to read a book for school. The French teacher gave her students the choice between different books; There was some rather modern books, classics and easy to read or more difficult ones. The test was due yesterday.
Lisa had chosen a book, but she forgot to take it at the library, then she was supposed to borrow one from a friend. Finally, one week before the test she hadn’t read any book. So, I took the list and we chose to buy Une Amazone from Alexandre Dumas. Yes, Alexandre Dumas who wrote Les trois mousquetaires !
In this short story, the story takes place in Paris, in the years 1850. Edouard fells in love with a young woman at a ball a the Opera. This young woman dictates to Edouard some rules : not to mention that he knows her to anyone (or she will kill him, she’s very talented at using an épée), to break up with is friend Marie and to use a board to meet each other. When Lisa told me about the board, I couldn’t understand. But, the courtyard where Edouard lives is just in frond of the young woman’s home. She asks him to put a board between the two windows and to cross from one place to another on this board below the emptiness.
In this episode, Lisa tells me about the outcome of this story.
In the notes that go with the transcript, we will have a close look at what tenses are used by Lisa and I to tell the story.
Wednesday Oct 05, 2022
CYF 143— Que faire après le bac ? — mercredi 5 octobre 2022
Wednesday Oct 05, 2022
Wednesday Oct 05, 2022
This is the last year of lycée for Micaela. Last June she took the French baccalaureate, which is the 1st part of the bac. This year, she is taking the bac for good. Two of the subjects are coefficient 16. For her, it’s mathematics and physics. But she also has to choose what she is going to study next year and where. This is what this episode is about.
In the notes, I will also talk about how to express a choice in French ! As usual, I will also highlight for you expressions that are natural in French and some words to remember.
Wednesday Sep 28, 2022
Wednesday Sep 28, 2022
200 years ago, in Septembre 1822, Jean-François Champollion writes a letter to his friend of L’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles, Monsieur Dacier. In his letter, he reveals that he has deciphered the Egyptian writing, the hieroglyphs.
200 years later, the Collège de France, in which Jean-François Champollion gave a few lessons in 1831, organises a special event : the reading of his first lesson.
In the notes that go with the transcript, I will highlight for you the sentences or expressions that are interesting to understand and to remember. I will also show you a few words to learn because they are useful.
Wednesday Sep 21, 2022
Wednesday Sep 21, 2022
Flâner is typically a Parisian activity. You just let yourself drift from a place to another. You can wander while you visit the Grands magasins, for example. This is what we did my friend Marilyne and I at the Printemps and at the Galeries Lafayette. These two Grands magasins are close to the Opéra Garnier and to the Gare Saint-Lazare. They were both created in the XIXth century, the Printemps first, then a few years later the Galeries Lafayette. What is the difference between these two department shops? This what you are going to hear in today’s episode.
In the notes that go with the transcript, I will highlight for you some typical expressions and tell you in a few words how those stores were created.
Wednesday Sep 14, 2022
Wednesday Sep 14, 2022
How to bring a little bit of Paris in your suitcase? It’s not easy to find those little souvenirs that will make someone happy. For me it’s becoming a game to see them for you. Maybe because I met Lila this summer to whom I offered a key ring from Brittany years ago when she was around ten years old. More than ten years later, she was still using it and loved it.
Donc, in this episode here is a first harvest of a few objects that you might bring back with you.
As you listen to French you work on your listening comprehension. When you read and listen at the same time you boost your comprehension and you see the language, you see how it works. Soon, you will soon listen for what is being said rather than for the language !
In the notes that go with the trasncript, I highlight for you those expressions that are natural in French and that you could use in your own conversations.
You can subscribe to the transcript at cultivateyourfrench.com
Wednesday Sep 07, 2022
Wednesday Sep 07, 2022
After, the detour to Italy last week, this week we are going to end our Promenade de l’été.
Do you remember? We were in the quartier de l’Europe. We had met the painters from Le groupe des Batignolles, Manet, Monet, Caillebote to quote a few names. At Saint-Lazare, or right above the station, at Europe, you can take the metro line 3 to Pont de Levallois, Bécon.
There you can have a walk to the Seine and to the Ile de la Jatte, where Seurat painted Dimanche après-midi à l’Ile de la Grande Jatte. Maybe a peniche will pass by. La Défense is visbile from there. It’s another world there.
Well, now, it’s time to go to the rue du Parc and look for a small green shop. This is where Claire Heitzler has established her pâtisserie. No cakes in the window. No. This place is different. You can order on her Internet website cr discover the cakes at her boutique. They will be showed to you. Claire Heitzler is so famous among pâtissiers, she has an examplary career, won so many prizes. She has chosen to open a shop that is in harmony with what she values most : authenticity.
Let’s listen to her now.
In the notes, that go with the transcript Claire Heitzler will describe to you one of her cakes in a bonus audio file. I will also highlight for you some very natural expressions in French.
Wednesday Aug 31, 2022
CYF 138 — Vacances dans les Pouilles, en Italie — mercredi 31 août 2022
Wednesday Aug 31, 2022
Wednesday Aug 31, 2022
We are back from holidays ! We were in Italy, near Bari in the Puglia region where Pietro still has a lot of family.
We really enjoyed our stay, the region is beautiful and so different from France. Micaela arrived twelve days before us and stayed with Pietro’s aunt, Ada. So when we went to the beach, she had fun understunding what people where talking about on the beach. This is how this episode starts, but it will quickly takes you to another place, the town of Altamura and the town of Monopoli.
In the notes that go with the transcript, I will highlight for you those typical expressions that we use in everyday French. And, of course, with the notes, there are photos of the places that I go to.
Wednesday Aug 03, 2022
Wednesday Aug 03, 2022
This is the third episode of our summer serie, La promenade de l’été. It’s a walk in Paris that takes us, episode by episode, to the heart of the 17th arrondissement. Last week, my friend Anne-Laure and I were in the Quartier de l’Europe. This is where a group of young painters, including Monet, Pissaro, Bazille, Renoir, Degas and the writer Emile Zola, in the years 1875, gathered around Manet, the scandalous Manet painter of Le déjeuner sur l’herbe and L’Olympia.
Today, Anne-Laure and I located where some famous paintings were painted. It’s an adventure that gave me so much happiness !
The podcast will be on pause for the next 3 weeks because my family and I are on holidays abroad. But, if you subscrided to the transcript, you will receive 3 episodes to keep on working your French comprehension. There is a theme for those 3 episodes. Should I tell you? It’s ice-cream !
But, for now, this is Summer French ! in the notes that go with the transcript, I will highlight for you those typical expressions that we use in conversations. It’s a bit different that what I usually do in the notes. The idea behing Summer French is to notice how French is spoken in everyday conversations. And, of course, with the notes, there are photos of the places that I go to.
www.cultivateyourfrench.com