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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 Nov 30, 2022
Wednesday Nov 30, 2022
Many famous paintings became famous because they were scandalous. This is the case of Le Radeau de la Méduse by Théodore Géricault. The young painter, aged 27 years old, painted about the wreck of the Medusa near the cost of today’s Mauritania. 147 persons were left on a big raft on which most of them died. Only 15 people survived the 13 days before their rescue.
The wreck happened in 1816 and it was scandalous because the French captain was incompetent.
Géricault gets passionate about the subject; He meets two survivors, study dead bodies in the hospital, study how to paint to sea, etc.
The painting was first shown at the Salon in 1819, only 3 years after the wreck of the Medusa. The Salon is the official art exhibition at that time. My friend Anne-Laure will tell you how the painting had been received at that time.
In the notes that come with the transcript, we will focus on the vocabulary and expressions that Anne-Laure uses to describe what people felt about the painting.
So to cultivate your French and boost your listening comprehension, subscribe to the transcript at cultivateyourfrench.com. The subscription costs 4 euros a month. When you subscribe you get the 10 latest transcripts for free.
Wednesday Nov 23, 2022
Wednesday Nov 23, 2022
This Monday, I had the chance to visit with a class the Assemblée nationale. The visit was absolutely thrilling. The official seat of the Assemblée nationale is the Palais Bourbon. This palais was build in front of the place de la Concorde, on the left bank of the Seine. It was built in the 18th century for one of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan’ daughter.
There are a lot of nice rooms and nice paintings to see but what we all enjoyed the most was the opportunity to watch the debates going on for 5 minutes. This was really an experience and this is what this episode is about.
In the notes that come with the transcript, I will highlight for you the expressions and sentences that you might use when you talk about a speech.
We will also study a specific sentence, the last one because it contains all the elements to understand the used of the passé composé and the imparfait.
Wednesday Nov 16, 2022
Wednesday Nov 16, 2022
A few weeks ago, my friend Anne-Laure and I spent a day in the 11th arrondissement, le quartier du faubourg Saint-Antoine. This neighbourhood in the East part of Paris has a special identity that comes from the Middle Ages. There was a major trading center related to wood and a lot of cabinet-makers had their worshop there. This is the reason why it is organised with courtyard sand passages : when you make furnitures you need space and air. Then, in the 19th century there were a lot of factories. The Seine was not far away, so it was easy to have that type of business there.
Before visiting two different passages, Anne-Laure and I had to find a place to have lunch. Let’s start with this !
In the notes that come with the transcript, we will focus on a specific sentence that uses the gérondif, a form that comes from Latin ! Yes, thrilling ! As usual, I will also highlight for you
Voilà, to cultivate your French and work on your listening comprehension you can subscribe to receive the transcript by email at www.cultivateyourfrench.com
The subscription cost 4 euros per month.
Wednesday Nov 09, 2022
Wednesday Nov 09, 2022
Last week, we had a good week, we spent a week in Jura. The girls were eager to go to the Jura sud equestrian centre, for them it’s the best place in the world. They would usually spend the whole week there, but as November the 1st was a bank holiday, it was planned that they would start going on Wednesday. We have a ritual to end those beautiful days, we go to the Crêperie in Pont-de-Poitte.
In this episode, I will tell you about the equestrian centre and the crêperie. And, in the transcript, I will highlight for you the sentences or expressions that are very natural in French and the you could use in your own conversations.
We will also focus on a short sentence of the text because it contains a verb at tense that could be surprising !
To cultivate your French and receive the transcript by email, please subscribe to the transcript at www.cultivateyourfrench.com the subscription costs 4 euros a month !
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
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
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
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.