Experience Language: Experience Life!
Newsletter - January 2009

Bonjour and welcome to our January newsletter. Bonne lecture!

• Experience French in New Destinations
• A Fruity French Lesson with a Few Vegetables
• Great Special Offers! Ne Tombez pas dans les Pommers
• How Colloquial is your French?

We are pleased to introduce two new alpine destinations this month, Annecy and Chambéry.

Annecy is a beautiful historic town, often referred to as 'Little Venice'. The school in Annecy offers a standard course, an intensive course and two French and Ski courses.

Social and Fun Courses in Annecy.

Chambéry is the historic capital of Savoy, rich in culture, with wide pedestrian streets and many shops. The school in Chambéry offers a standard course, an intensive course, two French and Ski courses and an A Level revision course.

Social and Fun Courses in Chambéry.

N'hésitez pas ! Quelques jours à la montagne et vous aurez une pêche d'enfer!

As you may remember from a past newsletter, 'mon chou', ('my cabbage'), is often used in French as a term of affection (see Jan 07 newsletter). Here are some other uses of fruits and vegetables:

• Avoir la pêche - to be in great form
• Etre rouge comme une tomate - to blush
• Raconter des salades - to talk nonsense
• Tomber dans les pommes - to faint
• Faire le poireau (poireauter) - to wait a long time at the same place
• Quel navet, ce film! - What a bad movie!

More fruity expressions.

Read about terms of affection in our Jan 07 newsletter

Aix en Provence

20% discount on the standard and intensive courses taken between Jan 5th and Feb 28th 2009 and not exceeding four weeks.

Bordeaux

10% discount on any group courses taken between Jan 5th and Feb 28th 2009.

Toulouse

10% discount on any group courses in Jan or Feb 2009.

Et je ne raconte pas des salades!

Learning French in France is definitely the best way to learn. Even so, you should watch out for the colloquial French you sometimes pick up outside lessons. You could use it with the wrong person and end up 'rouge comme une tomate'. In French (as in all languages I assume) there are three main registres de langue (registers of language):

Le registre courant - used on an everyday basis when talking to people at work, or at school, etc.

eg. "j'habite dans cette vieille maison."

Le registre familier - used with friends, family, people you know well.

eg. "J'crèche dans c'te baraque pourrie."

Le registre soutenu - mainly used in written work or by very educated people.

eg. "Je réside dans cette vétuste demeure."

More examples on our Blog.

The Experience Language Team

Experience Language is not responsible for the content of any external Internet links from this newsletter.