Did you ever read a book that changed your life? Qui a vraiment changé votre vie? Moi oui. Et ce livre s’appelle À la recherche du temps perdu. Pourquoi je vous parle de ça? Parce que l’auteur de ce livre died exactly 100 years ago : le 18 novembre 1922. Et oui, il s’agit de Marcel Proust, né le 10 juillet 1871 et mort il y a 100 ans.

 

Je ne sais pas si la traduction en Anglais is any good or if your level of Français est suffisant pour une telle lecture, but, if you haven’t read it yet, I cannot recommend this merveille enough. C’est certainement un des plus grands et un des plus beaux livres sur la psychologie humaine mais pas seulement! You will dive into this French time period called La Belle Époque (1871-1914 : stuck between two wars, hence the adjective “belle”!) and learn all about l’histoire, la sociologie, la beauté de Paris, les traditions des campagnes françaises, l’art, l’architecture, les voyages, l’amour, la jalousie, la sexualité, la nature humaine à tous les niveaux : les riches, les pauvres, les puissants, les faibles, les bourgeois, les nobles, les hommes, les femmes…

 

 

People can be intimidated by the size of the book (7 volumes environ 3000 pages au total) but it’s one of the best parts! Don’t you hate finishing un livre que vous adorez? C’est si triste! It’s like saying farewell to new amazing friends! Let’s say un livre en général contient 300 pages… the pleasure is not much of a long lasting one… Alors 3000 pages, c’est beaucoup mieux!

 

May I add, peu de gens savent ça mais À la recherche du temps perdu est un livre comique! Je ne peux pas vous dire combien de fois j’ai éclaté de rire (in private or in public) while reading it. People think it’s tedious et difficile et impossible à comprendre… trust me, ce n’est pas vrai! Some sentences can be long, true. C’est un style particulier (divin, if you ask me), true. It’s a little hard to get into the groove at first, true. You have no idea what is going on for the first 20 pages or so, true. Mais il faut insister! Ça en vaut la peine!

 

En quoi ce livre a changé ma vie?

 

 

J’ai commencé de le lire à la fin de l’été 2015. I had just moved into my new Seattle home on Lake Washington Boulevard and felt a bit overwhelmed with the change. Je faisais partie des gens who had always wanted to read Proust but never dared somehow. Je n’étais pas intimidée puisque j’aime et je vis avec la littérature depuis mon enfance, but I guess my intuition knew that such work of art was sacred ground. I had the paper version as well as the audio version, which meant I never had to stop. Je pouvais lire le livre dans ma chambre, dans mes cafés préférés, dans les sublimes parcs de Seattle (ma maison était juste à côté de l’Arboretum et près de la plage) and I could also listen to it on my super long walks with my dog Sophie (mon autre chien Bruno n’aime pas les longues promenades) mais aussi en cuisinant, en mangeant, en faisant la vaisselle, en me brossant les dents, en allant à la gym… non stop! Une vraie obsession! And slowly but surely I began feeling an incredible connection to Marcel Proust. He was with me tout le temps, tous les jours, les matins, les après-midis, les soirs, et même les nuits when I couldn’t sleep… Eventually, I sensed un besoin viscéral de me trouver dans les mêmes lieux que lui, to witness landscapes he had described, d’être proche de lui même si je savais bien que c’était impossible since we were a century apart. Mais qui sait? Dans une autre dimension peut-être? And so yes, I started thinking about moving to France, le pays de Monsieur Proust, le dieu de la littérature.

 

 

En 2016, j’ai recommencé mes études à distance à l’université de Reims en France. A distance because I still lived in Seattle but studied at a French university because… c’est gratuit, ha! I could do all my studies online from my Seattle home mais il fallait tout de même aller à Reims (la capitale du Champagne!) une fois par an pour aller passer les examens au mois de mai. I therefore had to travel to Reims in May 2017. Mais je ne voulais pas y aller directement. D’abord, je décidais d’arriver une semaine avant mes examens since there is a 9 hour difference between la côte ouest des États-Unis et la France. I could not afford to be tired to take a whole week worth of exams! Ensuite, je réservais un Airbnb dans un very famous village, very famous grâce à Marcel Proust. The original name of that village was Illiers. Yet Proust changed its name to Combray in his master piece. And so, in 1971, to celebrate les 100 ans de sa naissance (remember he was born in 1871), Illiers became : Illiers-Combray! Quand la fiction devient réalité! The perfect place to spend my extra week before les examens!

 

À la fin de la semaine, my mother and I drove from Illiers-Combray to Reims through Chartres… see map below :

 

 

And the rest is history : coup de foudre = love at first sight! Je suis tombée amoureuse de Chartres and I just knew I had to live there (here) one day! Long story short, environ three years later, I was buying my current Chartres home! Et tout ça, grâce à mon Amour pour Marcel!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you think Chartres is utterly charming, you’re right.

If you want to visit it, you can. By joining my next French Immersion Courses in Chartres! Click HERE for more info.

 

Monsieur Marcel Proust voulait-il que j’habite à Chartres? La vie est pleine de mystères incompréhensibles pour nous humains.

 

 

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Learn French online with Virginie

Join French Truly’s online immersion course and online school, either by buying the French online course(s) of your choice or by becoming a monthly member. See more details about the membership at the bottom of this page.

Each French online course is packed with video & audio files along with written material, to make it as fun, easy, and user friendly as possible for you! Come and learn French online with me!

 

French online immersion à Chartres

Come to France!

2023 September 4 – 10 : Intermediate 6 SPOTS LEFT
2023 September 25 – October 1 : Beginner 4 SPOTS LEFT

Click HERE for more info + sign up

If you’re unsure about your level, contact me to schedule a free Skype call

Benefits

• Improve your French conversational skills in a completely safe & friendly environment with me and my amazing French guests who I am selecting because they represent true Chartres landmarks : art historians, chefs, entrepreneurs, artisans, pâtissiers, etc. all passionate experts in their own fields.
• Practice speaking & listening to French while learning about the French culture. This will ensure a rich discussion as well as expand your French vocabulary.
• Learn French grammar & conjugation in a natural way thanks to a practical context.
• Relax knowing that I’m here to manage our time together and make sure everyone gets a fair opportunity to participate.
• Discover Chartres, my new gorgeous city, with me! I very recently moved to this little piece of heaven and I am beyond excited to explore and share all I can with you!
• Bask in French traditions & history in medieval Chartres, an endless source of fascinating stories.So, if you’re feeling a strong “OUI” for this, just click on the appropriate sign up button right below!

French online book club

Next groups will begin in January 2023 so stay tuned!

Benefits

• Improve your French comprehension skills in a completely safe & friendly environment avec moi.
• Practice reading, speaking, and listening to French while bursting out laughing at every page. This will ensure a rich discussion as well as expand your French vocabulary and sentence structure.
• Learn French grammar & conjugation in a natural way thanks to a practical context.
• Relax knowing that I’m here to manage our time together and make sure everyone gets a fair opportunity to participate.

 

French online course #1: 600 WORDS

In this course, you will find 15 videos (+ 10 bonus ones) to help & accompany you every step of the way through the course + for each word, each sentence, each expression, each conjugated verb, I have created an audio file of my voice, slow and slightly faster speed. Your French language learning experience has never been so easy, fun, and fruitful. You can learn French online and benefit from the flexibility working at your own pace offers, while having me with you the whole time.

 

Did you know…

You can converse (speak + understand) in French with only 600 WORDS?

The average French person only uses between 300 & 3,000 WORDS?

This means that if you can master a relatively short list of words, you’ll be able to express yourself like the average French person! Plus you’re much more likely to understand the French when they talk back to you!

 

This course will teach you…

1- How to speak French

2- How to pronounce French

3- How to make French sentences

4- How to conjugate all the most common French verbs

5- How to polish your results

6- How to self evaluate your French

More info HERE

• It should take you about 30 hours to complete this course, which is made up of 10 lessons
• This course is designed for a beginner / intermediate level. If you are intermediate but feel like you could really reinforce your foundations, you will love it.
• You can join whenever, either by buying the course or by becoming a monthly member giving you access to my French online courses from $10 / month. See more details about the membership at the bottom of this page

 

Online course # 2: PERFECT PRONUNCIATION

In this course you will find 11 videos + 150 audio files + 92 pages PDF format to help & accompany you every step of the way throughout the course. In some parts of the videos, my face will appear close up and profile so you can easily see how I make these sounds with my mouth. The 150 audio files are composed of the 100 most popular French words and the 50 most common French phrases. They are recordings of my voice, speaking slowly enough so you can easily grasp every syllable. Your French language learning experience has never been so easy, fun, and fruitful. You can learn French online and benefit from the flexibility working at your own pace offers, while having me with you the whole time.

NB: if you are the proud owner of my previous French online course 600 WORDS, don’t worry, this is not a repeat as we are now exploring 1 letter words and up, whereas in 600 WORDS we began at 4 letter words and up.

 

Combine knowledge with confidence…

For you to be able to have a pleasant and efficient conversation with a French person, one thing is key… can you guess what it is? Confidence! How well do you think you will communicate in French if you don’t feel confident about your accent? If you are scared that people won’t understand you? Or even worse if you think someone might make fun of you? Without a minimum of confidence there is no room for communication. Yet if you feel confident, you can afford to make a few mistakes here and there because people will still understand you. What prevents a conversation from happening isn’t just a lack of knowledge, it’s also a lack of confidence. You need to have both to make it work, not to mention, to make it fun!

 

This course will teach you…

1- How to pronounce every letter of the alphabet

2- How to pronounce every digraph & trigraph

3- How to make every French sentence flow

4- How to pronounce the 100 most popular French words

5- How to pronounce the 50 most popular French phrases

6- How to avoid the pronunciation mistakes everyone makes

More info HERE

• It should take you about 20 to 2 hours to complete this course, which is made up of 11 lessons
• This course is designed for a beginner level. If you are intermediate but lack confidence when it comes to talking and feel like you could really benefit from focusing on pronunciation, you will love it.
• You can join whenever, either by buying the course or by becoming a monthly member giving you access to my French online courses from $10 / month. See more details about the membership below 

 

Online course # 3: FRENCH DICTÉES

 

In the FRENCH DICTÉES online course you will find 20 videos + 10 audio files to help & accompany you every step of the way throughout the course. Why 20 videos? Because there are 10 dictées in total, each focusing on one particular topic, and for each dictée I have prepared 2 videos. Let’s say the video focuses on both French past tenses called imparfait & passé composé. The first video will go though the grammar, the conjugation, and all the tips on these two past tenses to help you understand and remember how and when to use them. The second video will be the actual dictée, a short story written by me, describing everyday life situations conveniently packed with imparfait and passé composé verbs! Boom! Efficient! The dictée will also be read by me, slowly first and then a little faster, with a close up on my face so you can more easily recognize the words and copy the shapes I make to improve your own pronunciation.

 

Become a French language expert

How do you become an expert at anything? By focusing on one thing at a time.

I’ve made sure to categorize and isolate either a verb tense, a verb group, a grammar or vocabulary topic per dictée, so you can effectively focus and interiorize concepts separately, which makes it a lot easier to remember them.

 

Here’s what you’re going to learn

What grammar & conjugation points will each dictée focus on?

Dictée # 1: Present tense

Dictée # 2: Past tenses – imparfait & passé composé

Dictée # 3: Future tenses – futur proche & futur simple

Dictée # 4: Conditional, imparfait, asking questions

Dictée # 5: Imperative form

Dictée # 6: First group verbs all tenses

Dictée # 7: Second group verbs all tenses

Dictée # 8: Third group verbs all tenses

Dictée # 9: Numbers

Dictée # 10: Prepositions

Each dictée is a short story written by me about practical everyday life situations. This means that not only do you get to work on conjugation & grammar drills, but you also improve your conversational skills at the same time: a magic combination for your next trip to France!

 

Grow your confidence talking about practical everyday topics

The dictées will refer to common topics that you are very likely to hear or very likely to use to express yourself such as:

-Traveling to France

-Socializing

-Childhood memories

-Family dynamics

-Everyday life routines

-How to express your ideas, opinions, and dreams

 

Two videos per dictée

First video: key grammar and conjugation reminders explained very clearly so you feel prepared and confident entering each dictée.

Second video: the actual dictée. I’ve made sure to categorize and isolate either a verb tense, a verb group, a grammar or vocabulary topic, so you can effectively focus and interiorize concepts separately, which makes it a lot easier to remember them.

 

And for you challenge lovers over-achievers?

Yes I have prepared something just for you! I have also made 10 audio files, 1 per dictée, so that if you wish to, if you want it extra difficult, if you want to test yourself more deeply, you can solely rely on sound. Indeed there are many occasions in life where we hear a language but we don’t see it: speaking to someone on the phone or listening to the radio for instance.

 

20 videos? 10 audio files? What else?

This new FRENCH DICTÉES online course also comes with written files with both the French text along with the English translation, so that you can evaluate yourself when you’re done taking notes.

To summarize, you’ll be able to use video, audio, and written material.

 

Dictées worked for me, they’ll work for you!

Let me tell you, I LOVE dictées because THEY WORK. And clearly you realize this too and that is smart of you. So now let’s see how something as simple as a dictée can truly help you become a little bit French! Your French language learning experience has never been so easy, fun, and fruitful. You can learn French online and benefit from the flexibility working at your own pace offers, while having me with you the whole time.

 

Become a monthly member!

My goal is to transform your French language learning experience. This is why I’ve decided to offer you a new way to learn French online and gain access to the French Truly Online School! Actually, more than 1 new way, you’ll have 3 plans to choose from so come and learn French online with me!