Learn French

The first time I tried to be polite in France, I overdid it so hard I almost apologized for existing. I was in a small supermarket in Lyon. The cashier handed me my receipt, and I panicked and fired off merci /mɛʁ.si/ — thank you — three times in a row. She smiled, said de […]

On my second day in France, I decided to be very formal and very adult. I walked into the office, smiled at my new colleague and said, in my best textbook voice: Comment allez-vous ? /kɔ.mɑ̃ ta.le vu/ — how are you? He smiled back, said Très bien, merci /tʁɛ bjɛ̃ mɛʁ.si/ — very well,

The first time I tried to say goodnight in France, I was not going to bed. I was leaving a bar in Toulouse at 10 p.m., waved at the group and confidently said: bonne nuit /bɔn nɥi/ — good night. The table went quiet for half a second, then someone laughed and said bonne soirée

The first time I tried to say “Good afternoon” in France, I was standing in front of a bakery in Lyon, rehearsing in my head like an anxious opera yak. I had bonjour /bɔ̃.ʒuʁ/ — hello, good morning, good day — ready to go, but it was clearly not morning anymore. My English brain wanted

My very first French “good morning” in France was a disaster. I walked into a bakery in Lyon at 7:30 a.m., rehearsed my line, and proudly said: Bon matin /bɔ̃ ma.tɛ̃/ — literally “good morning.” The baker blinked, looked deeply confused, then smiled and said Bonjour /bɔ̃.ʒuʁ/ — hello, good day, in the gentle way

The first time I tried to introduce myself in France, I was in a tiny bakery in Lyon, sweating over a baguette. The baker asked me something that sounded like komɔ̃tapɛltu and my brain just… blue-screened. I panicked, answered with bonjour /bɔ̃.ʒuʁ/ — hello, and accidentally re-helloed her three times instead of telling her my

My first week in a French primary school, I met three Emma /ɛ.ma/, two Chloé /klo.e/, one Léa /le.a/, and approximately 97 little girls named something ending in -ie. At one point the teacher said « Emma, viens au tableau » and two Emmas and one Ella all stood up at the same time. That’s

I once tried to impress a French friend by casually mentioning Le Petit Chaperon rouge /lə pə.ti ʃa.pə.ʁɔ̃ ʁuʒ/ — Little Red Riding Hood.I pronounced chaperon like an overconfident yak chewing marbles, and he stared at me as if I had just reinvented the French language in the worst possible way. That was the day

When I first moved to Lyon, I apologized so often that a baker once told me, with the gentlest eye-roll in France, “vous n’avez pas tué quelqu’un, hein” — you didn’t kill anyone, okay. Apparently, I was using pardon /paʁ.dɔ̃/ for everything, including apologizing for their mistake. If there’s one thing the French love (besides

The first time I tried to impress a French friend with my nature vocabulary, I pointed at a pigeon /pi.ʒɔ̃/ and proudly announced: “Regarde, un poulet !” — Look, a chicken! Technically still a bird. Socially… not my best moment. The good news is that French bird vocabulary is incredibly fun once you get past