Everyday Fun French with CécileBB!

Voici le Fun French Clan! French for grown-ups who don't like to be bored! Whether you're new to 🇫🇷  French or here to breathe 🌬️ some fresh air into it, maintain it or to give your brain 🧠 a workout you'll be happy ici. C'est garanti!

These lessons are a far far cry from any you may have experienced before. The emphasis is on having fun 🕺 💃  & getting your message across in French not on being 💯 % correct, perfect with a cherry or two on top! 🍒 To be parfait (whatever that looks like) you'd need to spend 1000s of hours on immersing yourself in French which you may not have spare. 

You'll find loads of lessons guiding you through the tricky French with downright silliness so that you enjoy the learning rather than it feeling like a chore.

There are plenty of other resources; songs 🎶, culture, celebrations 🎄 💝  🎃 , poetry 📖  etc.🌹

You'll come out with some pretty cool French! 😎

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

Bonjour !

If I know what you want to achieve and why, how, when & which way, it will give me ideas of how I can really help you.

So I'd really, really, really and I mean really, love to hear all about you and your experience of learning French and where you want to be with it. That way, I gain some insights into how to make your life easier and take into account your struggles and desires when it comes to learning French. 

Have your say to learn your way! 👈

Imagine I'm the taxi driver - you get into my taxi 🚕  - I need to know where you want to go. Oui oui!

By answering a few questions I can help you reach your French destination! 

Merci!

CécileBB :-)

Bonjour !

So you're off to France or another French speaking country and you'd like to make the effort to actually speak to the locals in their own language. All be it comedy French. 🤣

This free course is where you can start cooking up 👩‍🍳 some basic French and make your next stay a jolly pleasant one for you, your travel companions and the people you interact with.

We'll be keeping it as simple and delicious as a French baguette. 🥖  You'll learn enough French to sustain you nicely, thank you very much (merci beaucoup).

If you're a beginner or creakingly rusty (in need of some oiling🛢️ ) and just want a smattering of the French lingo - get stuck in.

This is more rowing boat than speedboat French. 🚣‍♀️

Allons-y - Let's go... 🚣‍♀️  🚣‍♀️  🚣‍♀️  🚣‍♀️

CécileBB :-)

Are you fed up with sounding like Tarzan when you go to France – grunting, pointing using English words with a comedy French accent? 👈  👉 👇

This course is for you if you’re a 🔰 beginner or extremely 🛢️ rusty. You'll feel far more confident speaking French in everyday situations, like going to la boulangerie 🥐  & le café ☕ , asking directions➡️ , ordering food🍲 , travel 🚌  🚋  🚇, booking un hôtel 🏨  and some general chitchat to inject a bit of ‘oh la la’💫  into your French.

It's super practical French to help you get beyond 'Me Tarzan - you Jane' level.

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

Bonjour! 

Vous avez fini Tarzan 1 et vous êtes prêt(e) pour Tarzan 2! C'est super! Vous êtes une superstar! 🤩

⛱️  Nous allons continuer avec des scénarios en vacances; au 🍺  bar, présenter la 👪  famille, commander🍦  une glace, le temps ☀️ 🌧️ ☂️, au 🏕️  camping, au marché 🍌 🍆 , à la fromagerie 🧀, à l'hôpital 🤕 , à la pharmacie 💊  et  à Versailles 👑 .

Ça va être super!

Bon c'est parti! 🏎️  

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

Getting your French 🏗️  foundations rock solid 🗿is a very good idea even if you’ve done French before. 

You'll learn the fundamentals in a fun informal way to keep you engaged and coming back for more. 

🔤 You’ll spell out your 📛 name & email 📧  and be wrapping your lips around those core French sounds to improve your pronunciation. Perfect that French pout! 

You’ll get daft ways to remember the gender of nouns – feminine🍾  bottles♀️wearing dresses 👗 and masculine 🥃 drinking glasses ♂️sporting moustaches 👨🏾! 

👋  They'll be some handy meeting & greeting phrases and the all important French 🔢  numbers to infinity! Plus telling the 🕰 time, the days of the week, months of the year, dates 📅  & years. 

You’ll be building your confidence 💪 every step of the way! 👣

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

Forget dusty grammar books 📚 – you’re about to embark on a trip into history. Languages are beautiful historical🗽 peeps into the past. 🛸

Over half of English is French with a funny accent so if you’re new to French you’ll recognise a lot of it! 🇬🇧 🇫🇷

Here you’ll start super slow 🐢 into a past tense that will allow you to give your French friends your life history! 'I grew up in England and then ...' 👶

Mr Perfect (he likes to tick things off things of his list) will be efficiently helping you all the way. ✅ ✅ ✅

You'll be amazed at the French coming out of your mouth very quickly. 🙌

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

'Tis time brave French learner warrior to step into the rougher terrain of le French. ⚔️

Meet the Gangster 😎  Irregular Verbs 😎  that prefer to head into the tangle of the jungle. 🌴 

Though these French verbs think themselves menacing by not following 'da rules' they're actually common as muck and nothing to be scared of as they're the most commonly used verbs in the French language!  

Come and I'll clear a path for you in the tangle of the verb jungle... 🌴 🌴 🌴  Can you hear the drums 🥁 🥁 🥁 calling you in to discover a whole new world? 

Bon, c'est parti! Right, and we're off! Roar! 🦁

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

Your French is about to go up to a whole new level! 🚀 You've met the 🤓  nerdy verbs in Course 1 and the 😎  gangster verbs in course 2.

Now, you're going to meet the ✨  VIP verbs. They're a small cliquey group of verbs that think they're something special. So special they don't think they need poor old avoir - they've turned to être to come to their aid. 🆘

Just as in life there are a lot of wannabe VIPS ✨  - the pronominal verbs ↩️  (they use the reflexive pronouns me, te, se, nous, vous, se). They also use être as their auxiliary verb but they have to have a special invite. All will be revealed. 🎭

Without further ado about rien...

Merci,
CécileBB  :-)

Adjectives 'add' information to nouns. ➕  Brown shoe 👞 , old woman 👵🏻 , painted nail 💅🏾  etc.

French adjectives move about 🤹‍♂️ . Most go after the noun they describe but an important few go before the noun. Some can go either and will change their meaning! You put your left foot in, your left foot out, in out, in out, you shake it all about. 👣  

You won't have 2 left feet after this course. Not only will you learn some 🌺  beautiful adjectives which will 🌼  prettify your French, you'll also learn where to place them. Monsieur le Mime will help you - he's a master at describing things with gesturing 👌  and facial expressions. 😆  😲  🤫

Let's get this adjective dance started! Dansons! 🕺🏽  💃🏿

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

🥖🚰 The Essential Bread & Water Verbs are theeee most common French verbs and guess what...

They're super irregular 🤪. The good news however is that they're so common you'll soon get to know them if you don’t already. You bump into them around every corner. 

13 of the 14 the most common French verbs are these Essential Bread & Water verbs so they’re the ones that will help you 💓 survive your French. 

To stand any chance in the other tenses and moods knowing these verbs in the present 🎁 tense will smooth out your way. 🚜 When you have these verbs in your French repertoire 🗂️  you'll be laughing all the way to la lune! 🤣🌙

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

This Pot Pourri course is all about those little words that try their best to trip you up! 🤯

You can probably get by in French by now but after this course your sentences will flow a lot better and your understanding of French will shoot up. 🌱

🔗  Conjunctions - words that join up sentences, like: and, because, but, or, that etc.

💋  Prepositions - words that show the relationship between nouns & pronouns, like:
with (who/what), of (who/what), from (who/what), for (who/what) etc.

🐦  And the crazy world of cuckoo pronouns - words that replace nouns like: I, me, it, who, you, he, him, she, her, they, them etc.

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

Ommmmm - get present with the present! 🧘‍♂️  🧘

The 🎁 present tense is the gateway ⛩️ to all the other tenses - so don't be tense - relax and learn the patterns of the verbs in the present tense. 

You'll see patterns that repeat themselves - some are very repetitive 🤓 but there are a few more quirky 🤪 patterns that are a little more on the surreal side. Nothing as taxing as Gangster Verbs though. 

They're all 🦋 beautiful in their own way though. It won't be long before you start to get a feel for the patterns.

You'll learn plenty of 🌚 new verbs which means you'll be able to say and understand more in le French!

Allez, c'est parti!

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

↩️  Pronominal verbs are as common as muck 🌱 🌱 🌱 in French! You've met them before. They're the verbs that have the reflexive pronouns (which is why they're call pronominal verbs) me, te, se, nous, vous, se - myself, yourself, himself, herself, ourselves, yourself/yourselves, themselves.

They're also the ones that mean 'each other' or 'one another'. 👉  👈

Getting your shovel and digging up these common as muck pronominal verbs to take a good look at them will clean up your French no end. 🛁

Learning them in the 🎁  present tense will ease you into using them in the other moods and tenses to come. Vous allez vous amuser 🎡  - c'est promis! You're going to enjoy yourself - it's a promise!

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

It's imperative that 👉  you follow my orders! Let's get ready to boss people around in French. Oh oui! 👆

The imperative mood is all about giving orders, making suggestions and getting what you want without beating around the bush. 🌳

Do this, don’t do that! ☝️ Excuse me, look at that 👀 , pass me some pizza 🍕 please, vive la France! 🇫🇷

The imperative mood even helps you with the dreaded subjunctive mood 🏺 🌿 . Happy days! 👍🏿

After completing this course you'll be ready to rule French speaking people! Next step le monde! 🌎

Allons-y! 

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

I'm rubbing my hands together! The subjunctive! Soooooo exciting! 🤩

The moody mood that everyone avoids 🙈 like the person you don't want to speak to in the supermarket aisle. But once you get to know the subjunctive you'll see that it's not that baaad (just a little bit baaad). 😬 Plus, you've just done the imperative mood which has many similarities particularly when it comes to the gangster verbs. 😎

I'm not saying you're going to become besties but after this course you're hopefully going to make peace and at least make eye-contact, with a quick nod and smile. 👐

Give the subjunctive a chance. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. 

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

You've done the present tense, you've done one of the past tenses - now it's time for another past tense which, though is called the imperfect, doesn't mean it's not very valuable. It's just as precious 💎 to your French. Mademoiselle Zen is going to be helping you learn this handy past tense as well as the pluperfect - to express you 'had done' something. Exciting stuff!

Learning the imperfect tense will allow you to express:

• What you were doing when something else happened 🎬
• What you used to do when you were younger 👶🏾
• What you did in the past on a regular or habitual basis #️⃣

L'imparfait est très pratique! 👍🏿

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

Let's do the conditional mood with the lovely Connie Conditional - she will tell you all about what would, could, should happen. 🔮

The conditional mood is nice and straightforward coupled with the usual irregular gangsters 😎 . For the gangsters they'll be some daft associations to help them stick in your brain. 🧠

Then the exciting finale! - Would've, Could've, Should've. You'll do the conditional perfect - the 'would have, could have, should have' done something. 

Once you recognise and use the conditional and the conditional perfect you’ll be doing a highland jig all around town! 😊
Exciting! 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

💬  Fun French Online Conversation Sessions - Thursdays 💬 

Remaining dates for 2024 - 1-2pm or 7-8pm GMT (UK time)

Nov: 21st
Dec: 5th & 19th

These are for you whether your French is pretty good and you want to keep the momentum going or if your French is creakingly rusty and you're super keen to brush it up.

You'll be talking about anything you want to talk about or if you're stuck for ideas I'll throw you a few bones to chew the fat, have a natter, gas, gab, chinwag, chitter chatter about!

There'll be some tête-à-tête where you can go into pairs or small groups - I'll be there if you need guidance with la prononciation, le vocabulaire, la grammaire, les expressions et l'argot (slang).

Sometimes, you'll listen to me prattle on to practise your listening skills. A good conversationalist is, I've heard, a good listener👂 and good at asking questions. Not all moi, moi, moi!

Sometimes you'll hear a story, read a poem out loud, play some language games and do un peu de grammaire to increase your vocabulary and your level of French. 

Come and navigate your way towards French fluency - the idea is to give speaking a go however 'bad' or 'good' the French is that pops or falters out of your mouth. 🤭 Franglais is always welcome !

My role is to guide you, give you ideas, answer your questions and be your human dictionary but more than anything to be your cheerleader! ✋🏽

Your role is to turn up, have fun, make friends, ask questions, laugh at your mistakes, improve your French and boost your confidence. Roar! 🦁

Merci,

CécileBB :-)

P.S. I will email you with the Zoom links on the Thursday morning of the sessions.

Madame Claire Voyance will guide you to all that is to come in the future – l’avenir – le futur 🔮 . 

She will drive you crazy 🙉  with her verb endings 🎶  jingle -rai, ras, ra, rons, rez, ront! 

Just like all the other tenses the clue 🔍  is in the special endings of the French verbs. 

You'll get plenty of ⚙️ practice, lots of revision of verbs and you'll be introduced to some new ones. 

The good news about the future tense is that it's pretty straightforward to put together and the even better news is that the irregular 🌱 stems 🌱are exactly the same as for Connie Conditional - what a bonus! 🌟

Step into the tardis and let's see what's in store. 🔮

Merci,
CécileBB :-)

Looking for a live French course with a highly qualified teacher that will get you beyond grunting Tarzan level on your next trip to France? 

'Moi Tarzan, toi Jeanne!'

Come and learn French with me, CécileBB, on Zoom!

In this 15-week live online course via Zoom, you'll be learning essential French phrases and vocabulary that will have you talking to the locals in no time. 

You'll Zoomba your way to la French lingo. 

Cost: £225 - (British Pound) 

Time: Mondays 1-2pm - UK time (except school holidays)

Dates: 5th February - 17th June 2024 (inclusive)

• February: 5th, 19th, 26th
• March: 4th, 11th, 18th
  
• April: 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th
• May: 13th, 20th
• June: 3rd, 10th, 17th

Watch this👇🏽 video👇🏽 to find out about the Get Beyond Tarzan Level Fun Holiday French for Adults!

Take a look inside the module and there you'll find:

• Toptastic tips to help with any nerves
• Some warm up lessons if you're a complete beginner to see what's in store
• A quiz so you can tell me more about you, your experiences learning French and your goals.

Can't wait to meet you! 👋

Merci beaucoup!

CécileBB :-)

P.S. Click the big green button👇🏽 below to get your place on the waitlist. I will notify you when the start date is.

Voici the place to book your 1:1 French sessions.

Or perhaps you prefer small group lessons with your work colleagues, friends, neighbours or anyone you can convince to join you to improve your French! 

1:1 and smaller groups are great if you want to get more personal help with your:

• Pronunciation - improve your French accent so you'll actually be understood
• Fluency - become more familiar with French word order & create more beautiful strings of sentences
• Confidence - tips and tricks to help you speak French with much more je ne sais quoi & oh la la! 

I'll be there to help you, guide you, support you, hold you accountable and to make sure you're not stuck on a plateau unless it's a plateau de fruits de mer 🦀 🐚 🦐 or de fromage 🧀!

Keep on track with a friendly French teacher!

CécileBB :-)