Cultivate your French - Slow French Laetitia Perraut

We’re at Gare Saint-Lazare, in the Europe district, whose streets bear the names of capital cities. This summer, I’d like to invite you on a four-part historical, cultural and gourmet summer stroll! 


Where were we?  Ah yes, Micaela and I were walking up Rue de Rome, the street that runs alongside the train station from the Cour de Rome up towards the Batignolles district. We’re going to talk about painting today. 


So if you’d like to improve your French comprehension, discover this part of Paris and benefit from all the positive effects of the exact text, as well as the cultural notes, you could subscribe to the Cultivate Your French transcript at www.cultivateyoufrench.com.


The subscription costs 4 euros a month and each new subscriber receives the 10 latest episodes.

Gare Saint-Lazare is a star! What is it? A station that doesn’t even have a TGV? A star? But why? 
Well, there are several reasons.

First of all, in terms of passenger traffic, it’s the second busiest station in France (after the Gare du Nord). The station serves the western suburbs of Paris, as well as Normandy.

It’s also the oldest station in Paris. It opened in 1837. It has been painted by some very famous artists. Would you like some names? Gustave Caillebotte, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissaro, among others. 
These are all 19th-century artists. The Saint-Lazare station was fascinating because it embodied modernity and technical progress. These were themes dear to the artists who settled in the new Europe district. 


Micaela swiped her Navigo, I swiped my ticket, and you could hear the automatic gate open. We’re at Gare Saint-Lazare, in the Europe district, whose streets bear the names of capitals. I’d like to invite you on a four-part summer stroll through history, culture and food! 


So if you’d like to improve your French, discover this part of Paris and benefit from all the positive effects of the exact text, as well as the cultural notes, you could subscribe to the Cultivate Your French transcript at www.cultivateyoufrench.com.


The subscription costs 4 euros a month and each new subscriber receives the 10 latest episodes.

This episode is a re-run of an episode from 2020, at the end of the lockdown when we started to be able to move around. But it’s also a very summery episode! 
This week, I’m on a kung fu course in Reims, the Champagne region! 
In the notes that come with the transcript,I give you a list of words from this episode that I find interesting to know. We’ll also take a look at three turns of phrase and you’ll see how to use them with examples. 

So if you want tobenefit from all the positive effects of having the exact text of the episode, you could subscribe to the Cultivate Your French transcript at www.cultivateyoufrench.com.

The subscription costs 4 euros a month and each new subscriber receives the 10 latest episodes.

We have some major political news in France with the legislative elections since the President, Emmanuel Macron, dissolved the National Assembly. We therefore have to elect new deputies. There is a rise in the far right in France, certainly because people feel misunderstood more than out of racism. Still, it makes everyone a bit nervous. This rise is mainly affecting rural areas. The second round of legislative elections takes place on Sunday 7 July. 


My daughter Micaela is eighteen, so she voted in this year’s European elections, the results of which prompted the head of state to dissolve the assembly. 
She took part in the counting of the ballot papers, as the municipality had too many problems with the electronic machines used instead of paper ballots. 


In the notes accompanying the transcript, we’ll take a look at a few expressions. You’ll also find the election vocabulary and some sample sentences. This is very useful for following what’s happening in France on TV, radio or in the press. 
So if you want to get your French right up to the ballot box and benefit from all the positive effects of having the exact text of the transcript, you could subscribe to the Cultivate Your French transcript at www.cultivateyoufrench.com.


The subscription costs 4 euros a month and each new subscriber receives the 10 latest episodes.

For the Olympic Games, which start in Paris in a few weeks’ time, we have a beautiful poster. It was designed by the artist Ugo Gattoni, who studied art after a spell in the sports and swimming studies section. The poster took two thousand hours of work, and was produced on a graphics tablet, but entirely by hand. Anne-Laure and I got together to talk to you about this poster.


In the notes that come with the transcript, I invite you to try your hand at collecting adjectives based on the last blog post on the podcast. You can share your harvest with me, either orally or in writing. 


So if you want to cultivate your French and harvest a good crop and benefit from all the positive effects of having the exact text of the transcript, you could subscribe to the Cultivate Your French transcript at www.cultivateyoufrench.com.


The subscription costs 4 euros a month and each new subscriber receives the 10 latest episodes.

Last week, on Thursday to be precise, our friends Isabelle and Thierry, Pietro and I, got on our bikes for a trip to Paris. Our destination? The Centre Pompidou, also known as Beaubourg. Until 1 July, the museum is showing an exceptional retrospective of the sculptor Brancusi. It’s an extraordinary museum, with one of the best views of Paris. On the way back, we took the rue de Rivoli, which is now reserved for bicycles (but still has a lane for buses and taxis) and runs alongside the Louvre and the Tuileries gardens. We turned off towards the Madeleine, then the Gare Saint-Lazare, the 17th arrondissement, Neuilly, the Levallois bridge and we were back home. We left at 1.30pm. So it was a nice ride, which of course also included a gourmet break, as you’ll discover in this episode recorded on the spot! 
In the notes accompanying the transcript, I’m going to suggest three sentences for you to repeat! Yes, three because I find them interesting. I’ll explain my choice for each one, pointing out a few things along the way, but I can already tell you that the idea behind these choices is to practise speaking French as you would in everyday life. 


www.cultivateyourfrench.com