Enjoy the Beauty of Christmas in France

With this lovely article on Christmas in France from France Today, I would like to share the love and warmth of this beautiful season with all of you. This time of year has so much significance to so many on so many levels. The Solstice which brings a promise of the light to come; the Christmas tree and the greens that we bring into the house to have the aliveness of the plants with us in the darkest time of the year; the lights, the gifts, the joy of children, the familiar music, all raise the vibration of mankind and remind us of a higher way of goodness and beauty. May that love be with us all and guide our thoughts and actions in the coming year and beyond. *Meilleurs voeux.
(*I know a lot of folks have trouble pronouncing this expression which means “best wishes”. I taught how to say it in the first of the series “Hard Words in French” which you can find on my You Tube channel. HERE

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE

#ChristmasinFrance

 

Hard Words in French #9

Hard Words #9 The capital city of the lovely province of Normandy has caused grief to many an English speaker! Rouen was named as one of the hardest words in French by expats in the online news magazine The Local.Fr. In this video I teach why it has only one syllable and how to put that troublesome French r on the front of it. For an opportunity to take your French to a whole new level, check my website under “Courses” for information on my excellent video program.

Hard Words in French #10

Hard Words #10 Once again we take a look at the combination of letters “ill” which doesn't sound like you would expect. But also we mention the vowel “eu” as in “deux” which is so vital to speaking French correctly and one of the foundations of my video course. Go to my website under “Courses” to learn more and enroll in this program which will have you sounding much more like a French native speaker.

Hard Words in French #8 "pneu"

 This new video series on Hard Words in French has been a lot of fun to teach. One of the interesting things I have noticed is that in most cases it is not that the word is particularly hard to pronounce but the spelling makes it look hard. I started the series around the time of Christmas, so the first of this series was “meilleurs voeux”. But from then on I have been focused on the “10 hardest words in French”, a list that appeared in an online news magazine called The Local. Fr. I am assuming that these were words expats in France submitted to the magazine and got the idea for the series. The word this week, “pneu” is not really all that hard but it has a couple of interesting features. One is the pronunciation of the eu spelling, which in this case we call the closed eu. Its phonetic symbol is /ø/ and it is one of the foundations of my course, Mastering French Pronunciation. What is so important about this vowel? It contains all the important characteristics of what I call “The French mouth”. Since I am an English speaker, I have had to learn how to sound French and that is the specialty of what I offer. These little video lessons give you a sample of the content of my teaching, but the course also gives the opportunity to practice what is taught by repeating exercises after me, and also by seeing a native French speaker say the words on video. If correcting your Anglo/American accent and sounding more authentically French interests you, I invite you to look into Mastering French Pronunciation.

A New Video Series for the New Year!

Bonjour! I'm Geri Metz and this is my latest series of mini video lessons "Hard Words in French" In this series I'll be taking up those particularly hard to pronounce words as chosen by expats living in France.

Hard Words in French w/ Geri Metz

 I am offering a new video series called “Hard Words in French”. These lessons will be similar to the Word of the Week series of 39 mini lessons (that you can find on You Tube) but will treat words that many people find challenging to say. I am hoping that many students, expats, teachers and travelers will have fun with these words. Some of them are really tricky like “serrurerie” where many of us non-native speakers are scared to go! Enjoy and start a conversation where you share your favorite “hard words” and please comment with your favorite hard words for future lessons. Merci!