A little Pronunciation Exercise

Au travail! Below are five French tongue twisters to practice your pronunciation with.

Remember 's' is usually pronounced like the English 's' in 'set'. However, when an 's' is in the middle of a word and between two vowels, it is pronounced 'z' like in 'désert', 'poison', 'maison', etc. Bonne chance!

1) Un chasseur sachant chasser sait chasser sans son chien de chasse.
A hunter knowing how to hunt can hunt without a hunting dog

2) Je suis ce que je suis et si je suis ce que je suis, qu'est-ce que je suis?
I am who I am and if I am who I am, who am I?

3) Les chaussettes de l'archiduchesse sont-elles sèches? Archi-sèches!
Are the socks of the archduchesse dry? Super dry!

4) Ces six saucissons-ci sont si secs qu'on ne sait si s'en sont.
These six sausages are so dry that we don't know if they are sausages

5) Poisson sans boisson, c'est poison!
Fish without drink, is poison

Mais Pourquoi On Dit Ça?

Do you ever say something in your own language and wonder where it comes from? Here are a few French phrases that are frequently used but have no clear origins:

1) Un petit chouia - comes from the arab language 'chouya' and it means 'a little'.

eg: 'Tu veux du gateau?' 'Oui, mais juste un petit chouia, s'il te plait.'

2) A pétaouchnok - invented in the 1940ies to imitate the name of a russian town far far away. It simply means 'far away' or 'in the middle of nowhere'

eg: 'Il habite à Pétaouchnok.'

3) A la Saint Glinglin - Glinglin is a fictional French saint but the exact origin is unknown. It means 'some day in the indefinite future or never'

eg: 'Je ferai un marathon à la Saint Glinglin.' (hmm, jamais!)

New Look for Experience Language

We are happy to announce the new Experience Language website is now live! Un nouveau design et une navigation plus facile!

Alors quoi de neuf?

Sections:

Our language courses are now streamed into four sections: 'Social and Fun', 'Professional', 'Junior and Family' and 'Student and Gap Year'.

Search Box:

Thanks to our new 'Search Language Courses' box, you can now search for courses by coursetype (eg. French and Ski) or by location (eg. Amboise, France).

Breadcrumb Trail:

A great tool to navigate between pages. If you are not sure what it is, it looks like this:

Learn French >> Social and Fun >> French for 50+ >> Montreux

We hope these added features will help you browse through the site more easily. If you get a chance, we would value any feedback you may have regarding the new website and/or programmes.

Original Family Holiday Abroad

On parle tous français en vacances! Are you looking for an original family holiday abroad? How about learning French as a family.

Family programmes are becoming more and more popular. It is a great opportunity for the whole family to experience learning a language and being immersed in the culture together.

Lessons take place in the mornings. Mum and/or dad have their lessons with the other adults, and children have their lessons with other children. Afternoons are free time and depending on the location, students can take sailing or tennis lessons.

We offer family programmes in the following locations:

Cannes from 3 years old.
Paris from 6 years old.
Montpellier from 11 years old.
Antibes from 12 years old.
Biarritz from 14 years old.