☀️ Learn French in Montpellier
☀️ Learn French in Montpellier
Did you know that people living in Montpellier have free access to public transport? You can also be one of them is you have a permanent address here because you study or you work here.
Let’s dig more about this topic thanks to today’s radio report from RFI.
Listen to the audio below and answer the questions
Today, I give you 9 suggestions to kill two birds with one stone!
First enjoy a beautiful stay in Montpellier and second turn in into a list of real challenges to progress in French.
Pam & Tom (USA) ont eu la primeur (expression: “avoir la primeur” / meaning)! 😃
They are my first clients in Montpellier since I moved from Dijon and the first ones to discover my new office! It’s close to tram station Albert 1er – Cathédrale so very convenient for our weekly Start French Now sessions.
⚠️ I share this office with other self-employed people so make sure to contact me beforehand: my availability for appointments is only on Tuesdays for now.
How about you take this opportunity to schedule a free French session in Montpellier?
I can’t wait to know more about your goals regarding French language and of course practice!
📍 24 avenue Bouisson Bertrand 34090 MONTPELLIER – Sur RDV le mardi / By appointments on Tuesdays
It is not easy to get familiar with French grammar not to mention the vocabulary especially when you have to respect when it is masculine and when it is feminine!
Our school offers French courses to anyone interested to discover French language and culture. If you live in Montpellier, we can schedule one-to-one sessions or group sessions. If you don’t live in Montpellier, it is possible to take online sessions.
Anyway, feel free to contact us or even to book a free French talk with Samyra if you have any question before joining!
Indeed École Bonjour France is a small and friendly French school with easy access to Samyra, the founder and instructor.
No complicated steps nor hidden fees to join!
We are perfectly aware of your struggles with the French administration not to mention the fact that the average French doesn’t speak a second language fluently so be sure that you are certainly a role model for a lot of people here as far as the languages are concerned…
Since 2019, our small school has trained almost 30 Researchers from INRAE Bourgogne Franche-Comté!
𝗪𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗶𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗵:
❌ first of all, it’s hard to find your place in a new country, culture, language, etc.
❌ especially when you have to perform asap at work in English but in a French-speaking environment
❌ when you don’t have time to learn and go out to practice IRL
❌ when the French contents provided don’t fit or are far from your interests
❌ when you don’t feel well-regarded for example if you feel pressure to learn French but don’t get help from your colleagues (by the way, we could talk about those who can’t even speak English 👀)
etc.
🔥 𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙬𝙚 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙖𝙣’𝙩 𝙗𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙩? 🔥
Take a look at one of the biggest achievements of our school in 2022!
INRAE Dijon told us about three researchers, Yaoyun (China), Denise (Brasil) and Didac (Spain), very advanced in French and determined to progress even more. ✊
Since they work on legumes, we wanted to make them think about how to use French in order to be understood on the radio and at the same time, how to popularize your work as a researcher.
🔥 This issue gave us all an opportunity and a challenge during several months:
✅ create a unique and specific French course aiming at recording a real podcast
“Everyone should read Le Petit Prince when he learns French”
Ok, tell me who started all this? Who?
It is not that I have something against that beautiful book — it is not my favourite French classic and certainly not the best! — and if you absolutely want to read it, go on, give it a try.
(You can start off by listening to this playlist)
Here is the truth:
First, many French people didn’t read Le Petit Prince — or other classics by the way — even if they praise it and would fight tooth and nail for it! 
Most of the time, they just studied some extracts at school. Only two categories of people would read the entire books:
Second, you have to know that even natives may have difficulties to understand Le Petit Prince because it is complex since it is about imagination and poetry!
Thus it is absolutely normal if you face the same difficulties. One has to be really advanced in the language to understand the implicit, etc.
Also, thinking about it, French literature is not set in stone: there are so much treasures to discover and promote…
For example, did you know that Simone de Saint-Exupéry, Antoine’ sister, was also a writer? She was older than him and when he started to be famous, he didn’t want another writer in the family (!). Despite that, she was a dedicated sister since she protected her brother’s work until the end of her life in 1978.
Their descendants, reporting they didn’t know why she didn’t do it herself, published her uncompleted but interesting childhood memories book, Cinq enfants dans un parc, to commemorate the centenary of the birth of her brother in 2000.
I really want to pay tribute here to unknown or lesser-known authors like Simone de Saint-Exupéry who was not just “Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s sister”, but a person, a woman and a writer in her own right.
People like her make me reflect a lot on what is — or not — considered as major books and authors “you have to know”…
Anyway, there are so much great books to read out there so make your own way!
This being said, you will find below some reading advice if it can help:
1) Read books in French that you have already read in your language
Since you know the story, it will help you (and you can find bilingual versions if you want to take it slowly).
2) Read French versions of “must-read” books from all over the world
For example, read again Anne Frank’s diary, Le Journal d’Ann Frank, in a French graphic version. You can also find French versions of short writing style books like Le manuel du Guerrier de la Lumière by Paulo Coehlo. If you feel ready for more, check the French versions of 1984 by George Orwell, La chambre solitaire by Shin Kyong-Suk (신경숙) or Les Délices de Tokyo by Durian Sukegawa.
3) Read books in French about topics you are interested in
If you like travel writing, go at Librairie Grangier downtown Dijon — it is the biggest bookshop around — and flick through the “récits de voyage” area! If you are more into crime novel, try Le Mystère de la Chambre jaune*, a classic by Gaston Leroux.
* Yes, it is a version for teenagers but who cares? You will find useful annotations
If you are a soccer fan, check out this book + CD: La fabuleuse aventure des Bleus (A2). It is about the French team who won the World Cup in 2018.
And for more suggestions depending on your level in French, check out this page!
4) Read classic (or not!) books in French
➨ Classics especially dedicated to learners of French (teenagers and adults): for example, Le Tour du monde en 80 jours + CD (A2) by Jules Verne
➨ Classics published in bilingual versions: check out this page
➨ Short texts: for exemple an engaged essay, Indignez-vous ! by Stéphane Hessel (30 pages), an outstanding French diplomat, resistant, writer and activist who addressed a beautiful message to the French people in 2010 (3 years before his death) about what they fought for in the past and shouldn’t forget. You also have La préférence nationale and other short stories, first book by Fatou Diome who shared her experience of immigration in France with a unique and brilliant style.
➨ Comics to relax (but also learn thanks to the images! ): you can find lots of classics adapted into comics and if you are a comics books fan, you have to know all about Franco-Belgian comics! Here is a selection that people from all ages love to read again and again: Le Petit Nicolas, by Sempé-Goscinny (also without images here), Cédric (Cauvin/Laudec/Dupuis), Boule et Bill (Roba Jean/Dupuis), Gaston Lagaffe (Franquin/Dupuis) ⇓, etc.
➨ For more, check out Sam’s Book Club
NEW:(update 20/08/13)
⚠ Starting mid-October, please note our price* changes: one-to-one class (1h30): [A1] 10 courses (15h): [A1] 20 courses (30h): If you book a course with École Bonjour Dijon before October 15 — and even if your classes are after! — you will pay* our present prices so feel free to contact us asap! PS: We remain really affordable compared to our competitors around and we stay focus on creating concrete and context-related contents ✌ *All prices are before tax25€ => 30€ 200€ => 250€300€ => 350€
Join our new intermediate french conversation group in Dijon and pay what you want!
Meet Sarah, co-author of a dark fantasy history book
French and English subtitles
PS: lots of relative subordinate clauses in this video!
All videos “Meet Them” are here: http://bit.ly/MeetThemDijon
Beginners, you are in Dijon, you have made it! 
But time flies and you feel like you are not progressing at all in french… The first A1 20 courses group session of 2019 will start on Monday 21, January! 
Ready to work?
Enrollment before January 7:
tel. +33 6 22 14 80 99 (also on WhatsApp) or email
