1.9M
Downloads
389
Episodes
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 Feb 03, 2021
Wednesday Feb 03, 2021
My second daughter Felicia is in 4e; it’s the third year of collège. She is now thirteen years old. The 4e is not an easy grade. She works a lot so I have the impression that we never see her. Sometimes she appears to take a slice of kougelhopf for goûter. She seems to enjoy it then she looks at the clock and says that it’s time for her to go back to work. In today’s episode, you are going to hear more of Felicia’s appearances and disappearances and how we get clues of what she is studying.
You are listening to Cultivate Your French podcast, ONE slow french episode every week.
My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I also run the podcast One Thing In A French Day since 2006
All the information about the transcripts, notes and photo is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com
Wednesday Jan 27, 2021
Wednesday Jan 27, 2021
My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I also run the podcast One Thing In A French Day since 2006
All the information about the transcripts, notes and photo is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com
In December, I could not find my Carte Vitale when I needed it. The Carte Vitale allows to directly send by Internet a note of the expense that you had at a doctor, a dentist, etc to the Social Security. Then you get, directly on your bank account, a partial reimbursement of the expense. I couldn’t find mine, but I remembered that I had given it to Pietro when he had gone to the dentist with Felicia. No, he told me, I don’t have it, I gave it back to you when I came back.
So, my card was somewhere at home. My bigger worry was to have thrown it away by mistake. I told Pietro that it was his fault, because he had given it back to me not at a proper moment. Yes, I admit this was unfair! I tried not to worry to much. But one night, something happened… this is what you are going to hear in today’s episode.
Wednesday Jan 20, 2021
Wednesday Jan 20, 2021
Dear listeners, I’m very happy to make this episode today.Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with the talented baker Thomas Paris at Boulangerie Montgolfière in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. He agreed to take time from his busy day to have a nice talk about the galette des rois, this wonderful cake that we eat in France to celebrate Epiphany. Thomas Paris explained me to me that to make a good a galette the first thing you need is a good puff pastry, une pâte feuilletée. To make one you need a good butter. Thomas Paris uses a butter from Charente Poitou its a butter with a flowery taste. The butter’s flavour is the common thread of the galette’s taste. He also uses a flour with no pesticides residues and that will allow the galette to keep its perfect circle shape. But there is another subtlety about his pâte feuilletée : it’s inverted puff pastry. Instead of putting the butter in the dough, it’s the dough that is put in the butter. Yes, very strange to imagine, but the butter used is a special one called « beurre manié », it contains flour.
Thomas Paris told me about the impression that you get when you take the first bite of galette des rois made with this type of dough. Then, I asked him how long it takes to make a galette… do you have any idea? This is what you are going to hear in today’s episode.
My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I also run the podcast One Thing In A French Day since 2006
All the information about the transcripts, notes and photo is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com
Wednesday Jan 13, 2021
Wednesday Jan 13, 2021
The neighbourhood where we live is called « Bécon-les-Bruyères », it is situated at the intersection of three towns : Courbevoie, Asnières-sur-Seine and Bois-Colombes.
The train station of Bécon-les-bruyères was opened to the public in 1891 and then buildings started to appear around the station, as it happened in all the Parisian suburbs at that time. Even though, they were mainly buildings with flats to let, each of them had it own style! They are often rather colourful because bricks were often used in this period. Architects used to play with the different colours or finish of enameled bricks to draw patterns on the façade.
During the second lockdown, my friend Anne-Laure and I met every thursday for a walk in our neighbourhood.I had pulled out from my library the excellent book by Historian Pierre Mignot about Paris façades. We often started our walk at the station. Buildings from the same period can be so different. We also noticed the houses. It was important at that time to be close to the railway, close to modernity. There are a lot of very big and very nice houses near the railways. Each walk offered us some nice discoveries, this is what you are going to hear in today’s episode.
You are listening to Cultivate Your French podcast, ONE slow french episode every week.
My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I also run the podcast One Thing In A French Day since 2006
All the information about the transcripts, notes and photo is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com
Wednesday Jan 06, 2021
Wednesday Jan 06, 2021
Dear listeners of Cultivate Your French, I wish you a belle et heureuse année 2021! I wish you health, a curious mind, a lot of happiness and of course a lot of French in your life!
I received as a Christmas present from my parents a kougelhopf baking tin. I really enjoy this enriched bread typical of the East of France (and other countries of Central Europe) because I ate some when I was a child. It had such a wonderful taste, the taste of kougelhopf.
During the holidays, I started to bake some and it has become Micaela and Felicia’s favourite breakfast. I baked two pieces at the same time and I kept them in a large metal tin.
Did my kougelhopf had that special taste? This is what you are going to hear in today’s episode.
My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I also run the podcast One Thing In A French Day since 2006
All the information about the transcripts, notes and photo is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com
Monday Dec 21, 2020
Monday Dec 21, 2020
Saturday afternoon, Micaela and Pietro came back from their Panettone search with two nice traditional panettones. They also took our artificial Christmas tree that had been expecting us since last January in the cellar.
Felicia and Lisa were so happy to, « enfin », decorate the Christmas tree. It’s a tradition in our family to decorate the Christmas tree after Felicia’s birthday.
Maybe, we waited a little too long this year. The week had been very busy.
The girls took the different parts of the the tree out of the box and Micaela started to assemble them.
But something was going wrong. The branches would not stand as they should, they kept going down. I suggested that maybe it had been assembled the wrong way, but it hadn’t been, so we asked Pietro for help.
This is the Petit Conte de Noël that you are going to hear in today’s episode.
Have wonderful « fêtes de fin d’année »! Cultivate Your French will be back on January the 6th.
All the information about the transcripts, notes and photo is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com
Wednesday Dec 16, 2020
Wednesday Dec 16, 2020
All the information about the transcripts, notes and photo is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com
Last Sunday, it was Felicia’s birthday. We had planned to see my parents and I had ordered a Paris-Brest at Stéphane Glacier’s pâtisserie. Stéphane Glacier is a MOF, Meilleur Ouvrier de France.
The Paris-Brest is a cake that was created at the end of the 19th century by a pâtissier from Normandy to celebrate the cycle race between Paris and Brest in Brittany. It is made of pâte à choux which takes the shape of a bicycle wheel and stuffed with praline crème mousseline.
It was the first time we had to organize ourselves with the strange circumstances. And there was something we hadn’t planned, this is what you are going to hear in today’s episode.
Tuesday Dec 08, 2020
Tuesday Dec 08, 2020
You are listening to Cultivate Your French podcast, ONE slow french episode every week.
My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I also run the podcast OTH since 2006
All the information about the transcripts, notes and photo is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com
A few days ago, on a cold and cloudy afternoon,I went to see my friend Pauline. She lives in a house at fifteen minutes walking from our home. We had planned to bake a chocolate soufflé together. This was the second time we met about making soufflés, but the first time it was at my home and we had cooked a cheese soufflé.
Pauline had chosen a recipe from Cyril Lignac. He is a famous chef in France, maybe the most famous, he owns a restaurant in Paris, and several pâtisseries. He’s often seen on TV, he takes part in TV shows about cooking or pâtisserie. Of course, he has written many cookbooks!
He’s a very smiling man and he has a sweet south of France accent.
In today’s episode, you are going to hear Pauline and I in the kitchen. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to smell the warm chocolate aromas.
Wednesday Dec 02, 2020
Wednesday Dec 02, 2020
You are listening to Cultivate Your French podcast, ONE slow french episode every week.
My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I also run the podcast OTH since 2006
All the information about the transcripts, notes and photo is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com
You know that France has been placed on lockdown for a month now. The ambiance is very different than the first lockdown : people can go working, our children go to school. From our windows, life is almost normal. I can see the trains going to Paris, there are buses and cars on the road, there are people in the streets.
Last week, Emmanuel Macron, our president, made a live TV appearance to speak about the easing of lowdown in France. he annoucened that lockdown would be until december 15 th and he also announced changes in restrictions.
In this episode, I tell you about our new life under lockdown and my new favourite sentence.
Wednesday Nov 25, 2020
Wednesday Nov 25, 2020
My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I also run the podcast OTH since 2006
All the information about the transcripts, notes and photo is available on www.cultivateyourfrench.com
There is a building site outside our windows. It’s a large one. Three different office buildings are being built at the same time. There are 5 cranes and a lot of workers.
The earth-moving part happened this summer. It was really noisy. There were so many trucks one after another. The mechanical shovels also make a lot of noise. You don’t really understand why they are moving this pile of earth from there to there and suddenly everything is neat, straight and ready.
We are not very happy with the idea of having buildings in front of us and no more landscape, but I must admit that I was very curious to follow the construction. I quickly realized that I was missing information. I didn’t know anything about this world of construction. I found a book written by a sociologist. To write his book, This man had worked as a worker on different building sites in Paris. I’m still reading it. It’s very instructive! This world is tough. In this episode, i’m going to tell you about an incident I was witness to. Oh, by the way, chantierman means worker of course. Lisa invented this word and I rather like it!