Many university students taking French, as well as frequent viewers of PBS, have probably seen an episode or two of French in Action. It’s a 52 part video series written by Pierre Capretz that covers two years of university level courses. The series was filmed in Paris in 1985 and thanks to fiafans.org, they are [...]
Full Story »About Jennie
Website: http://www.ielanguages.com
Jennie has written 661 articles so far, you can find them below.
The Shaping of Language on iTunes U from La Trobe University
La Trobe University in Australia is offering an interesting podcast on iTunes U that just became available this summer (or winter, depending on where you are). The Shaping of Language is about “the relationship between the structures of languages and their social, cultural, historical and natural environments.” Looks like they’ve been updating it every week [...]
Full Story »A Day in Geneva and Learning Swiss French
My sister and her husband came to visit last week, and we spent a day in Geneva, Switzerland. I had been there numerous times before, but usually it was only to go to the airport to fly somewhere else. This was the first time I was actually a tourist wandering around the old town and [...]
Full Story »Learning new words in French & English while traveling in France: Des Oiseaux / Birds
Yesterday David and I went to the Parc des Oiseaux in Villars-les-Dombes and then to the medieval city of Pérouges, both in the département of Ain. The only things I knew about Ain were its capital city (Bourg-en-Bresse) and its number (01). I had never been there before or heard much about it. Even though it’s [...]
Full Story »La Rentrée en France: Back to School… and Strikes
The official back to school shopping list for all French public school students is not only a lesson in vocabulary, but also in culture. Most people know that France is a very centralized country and that all roads (and railroads) lead to Paris. The academic calendar is set in stone for the three zones of [...]
Full Story »Free English as a Second Language (ESL) Lesson Plans and Activities
This weekend was the end of les grandes vacances in France because all public school students start the school year on Thursday. I actually love this time year of because it means that France is alive again. It’s not just back to school, but back to work since a lot of stores and businesses close [...]
Full Story »Free and/or Public Domain Materials for Listening to & Reading Languages Simultaneously
Previously I explained how reading subtitles while watching TV shows or movies helps enormously with foreign language comprehension. I wanted to expand on the Listening & Reading method – because it is what I use foremost when studying languages – and list some freely available resources where you can find text and audio in several languages. [...]
Full Story »Learning Italian through French, or a Third Language through a Second
I’ve mentioned before that I find learning a third language using my second language much easier than using my native language. Currently, I am improving my Italian by using resources written in French rather than English. Switching from French to Italian takes much less effort than switching from English to Italian, and the same is [...]
Full Story »Le Grand Robert & Collins French/English CD-ROM Dictionary
Since I’ve been doing more French-English translations lately, I decided to invest in a CD-ROM dictionary instead of a standard paper dictionary. Wordreference.com is of course a great online resource but I wanted something more. Le Grand Robert & Collins French/English CD-ROM Dictionary contains 425,000 entries, all with standard IPA pronunciation and plenty of sample phrases [...]
Full Story »Update on the Easyjet Drama: Refusal to Pay Compensation
Oh Easyjet, how I loathe you more and more everyday. Remember how they abandoned us overnight in Venice without providing food or hotels like they are legally supposed to? Even though I was reimbursed for the canceled flight, I never received the insultingly low 120€ for alternative travel costs (we paid nearly 1,000€ out of [...]
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