Salut !
Today, I’m glad to share this interview with Johan from Français Authentique.
Do you know Johan? I’ll introduce him to you.
Johan is the founder of Français Authentique where he teaches French too.
We like each other’s content and we wanted to talk, for a while and at last, managed to share an episode together. 🙂
I’m happy to share it with you.
Et toi ?
Do you have other resources you use online?
Please share them with the Community. 🙂
Looking for more?
Here’s Johan’s site: Français authentique
Here’s his free 7-day course
Here’s « my side » of the interview, where Johan interviews me.
Bonne journée!
Géraldine
Coucou Geraldine,
Normally I would write to you in French but because of the topic and my excitement about it, I am writing in English (which is still my second language). I started to watch your blog a couple of weeks ago, and incidentally, I encountered Johan’s blog at the same time as yours so I have been learning French with both of you. For me, you courses and Johan’s compliment one another. Tonight, I was browsing your blog and found this video that you made with Johan a while ago. After watching it, I could not just close my computer. I felt a need to writie to you and express my pleasure and compliment you for a fantastic work that you have been doing. I have been to France many times and I learnt a lot about your country and there is still so much to learn. I am intellectually curious by nature, I find your blog saturated with a super information about France and its culture. Je suis époustouflée !!!! In the video with Johan, you asked your viewers if we use other resources for learning French. I would like to share ( perhaps you already know) another resource that I have been using for a long time, Français avec Pierre (https://www.francaisavecpierre.com). You may find it interested as well.
In conclusion, once again, I would like to emphasize that I like your videos tremendously and thank you very much for making them the way you do.
Great work, Geraldine!!!
Sincerely,
Teresa Czerwinski
PS. Geraldine, how many pairs of earrings do you have 🙂 ? They are your signature and they suit you well.
Thank you very much, Teresa. I love Johan’s work as well. As you said, our works complement each other’s. I’m familiar with Pierre as well. I’m glad you’re using several sources. It’s a great way to have different angles on the language and culture.
Use HelloTalk and be chained to your smartphone. Thanks, but no thanks. I rather find someone who uses Skype, that way I can actually be comfortable while learning a language and doing a language exchange. If I had to do this only from my iPhone (and it’s not a tiny one, it’s a 6S+), I’d probably quit due to the inconvenience.
I’m not going to have a 30-60 minute Video Chat to practice French (and help them Practice English, if needed) with a phone, and especially not on a regular basis.
I agree with him about his site. Not really usable until you’re at B1 level (using that as a general “guide”), at least.
I like your channel. You make this really fun. I watched almost every episode of “Deutsch für Euch” (I’m not even learning German, it was just really entertaining) and was desperately looking for a similar French channel (since I AM learning French!)…
Yours is the one.
Thanks a ton!
Merci pour information
Merci , Geraldine!
J’ai déja connu Johan. Je suis une fan de Français Authentique.
J’ai decovert ton site. J’ai beaucoup progressé en Français depuis que j
Hello, Geraldine. Thanks for you comment.
Listening comprehension in Spanish is much easier than French.
1. first student must know all Spanish sound.
2. Oral comprehension is a skill, so it comes with time.
So knowing this, the student must work step by step, a beginner cannot understand a spanish or latin spanish serie, we have to build building blocks first.
1. First short sentences, clear audio. They should repeat the audio said out loud. Very slow, then normal speed then super speed. very slow to know how to move the mouth, medium speed to talk noramal, and super high speed to be able to understand fast speakers. if you do it, you understand it. There are some studies on that.
2. move to dialogues, clear audio(book type audio, assimil, or any textbook) I make student reapet each sentence so Lots of Pause/play and going back, if students do not get some words I make them to say all the words they know, then I will read the script so they know what they are missing, at this time I teach them how in Spanish we strech sound (make them large), or we chuck sounds, for example we dont say ELLA está en el baño, but mostly Ellaesta_nel_baño all like a big word.
So at beginnig easy to understand , clear sentences, like a documentary script of national Geographic type of Spanish then you move to more real life audio. (NAtional news, they are very clear too)
Then series, but american series spoken in Spanish, why?? they are easy, they used Standard Latin spanish, it is well spoken, not many glides (chucking words, etc) when the student have build enought now it is time to listen native series. They are much harder to understan, also authetic dialogues, my text book contains authentic dialogues. ( I use texbooks) they have lots of audio materia, authentic, they sound natural, not booktype. Or read like a president is reading something in the news, nooo they sound very natural.
It is better to watch a serie than movies. as you will know the charanters and repeat vocabulary over and over.
So, it is not easy to just understand Spanish in fast, it is dooble but takes time.
from basic to more authetic real life audio, it takes time. Bu there a some advance students that can speak, read, write but not understand, because they have to train with lots of play, pauses, know how words do the liason(glides) I think in one month of intensive listenign and play and pause method, any student will see a huge improvent. (when you have vocabulary and grammar in place of course)
Thanks Horacio. This indeed applies to French as well.
Geraldine, Please please do not go to speaking as slowly as Johan. I teach French and went to his site to see if it might be something my students could use. I think it’s anything but authentique when you speak that slowly. Yes you have to slow down for those who are trying to learn to speak but the premise of his program is essentially his students understand but are not ready to speak. So why the slow (painfully slowP pace if they understand? I would recommend his site for advanced beginners but not for intermediate students.
Bonnes vacances
When you say Johan speaks too slowly for you, do you mean his podcasts and free videos or his for-a-fee course packs? I’ve only listened to/watched excerpts from Packs 2 and 3, but the speaking rate in those (especially Pack 3) seem to be at a good natural speed.
Thank you for introducing Johan. He is a remarkably calm and
soothing person. His ideas are terrific.
Bien sur. Moi, j’ai commence apprendre la grammaire avec Alexa Polidoro. Sa soeur est une chanteuse magnifique.
Learn French With Alexa
Bonjour Fred,
Ca tombe bien, j’ai un épisode avec Alexa dans les cartons ! 😀
Great interview with Johan! I know his podcasts. C’est bien d’ecouter du francais. Je regarde aussi les videos en francais de Thomas de Francais Immersion. He’s funny!
Thank you Geraldine. Thanks to you each week I learn more about France and you make me love your country :-). Merci.
Merci beaucoup, Geraldine et Johan, pour votre interview. J’ai compris le sens, mais chaque fois va mieux. Je connais Géraldine depuis un ans et Johan depuis trois mois, et je vois des vidéos et écouté des podcasts presque tous les jours. J’aime aussi Français avec Pierre sur YouTube, Facebook et Internet. – I need all the practice I can get! Merci beaucoup, vous deux, Lorena
Geraldine, merci beaucoup pour la video avec Johan. S’il vous plais, dit moi the kind and colour of lipstick you wear. It is fantastic, and looks amazing on camera. Salut,
Merci Geraldine et Johan pour la presentation. Cest la premiere fois que j’ai entendu a propos de Francais Authentic. J’ai hate de l’essayer bientot. Merci encore.
Salut tous les deux. Voilá la difference ! Si on écoute Francais authentique, on n´ecoute pas des phrases en anglais mais ici en Comme une Francaise…on le fait. Il faut alors etre en contact avec nos deux profs…On va aimer beides natúrlich ! A todos los que nos encantan los idiomas, on va le faire d´une manniere superb ! Non ci vuole che semplicemente parlare bene ! I´ve got a little personal problem. J´aime Geraldine beaucoup ! Mais…vraiment !! C´est pour ca que je suis l´homme le plus heureux du monde ! Voilá quelquechose personal mais trés important. Voilá un sentiment qui va m´aider pour devenir le meilleur parleur de Francais du monde entier ! Merci Geraldine !
salut merci. alors je comprends pas que tu et Johan parlent parce que je ne peux ecouter.
I want to share a Canadian blog that a French teacher/friend shared with me: http://www.mtlblog.com/2016…
Enjoy!
Marcia
Merci, Géraldine, comme d’habitude, et Johan, magnifique de faire votre connaissance!! Le site Yabla m’amuse et m’informe aussi.
Thank you for sharing information about other sites available to learn French. One site that I listen to on a regular basis other than yours is “One Thing in a French Day”. What I like about this site is that I can read the script and then I can listen to her read the script. She writes about her daily life in France and daily life of her family. I find it very interesting. It helps to hear the french person reading the script not too slow or fast and consequently, I learn proper pronunciation. I can listen to the script as many times as I want to. I really like your site since you concentrate more on culture and traditions. I strongly feel that it is important to learn the culture and traditions of the country and not only the language. I lived in France for 5 years but I have learned many things about French culture from your site that I was not aware of. Thank you for sharing your culture with all of us.
Wonderful! Thanks Julia, On Thing in a French Day sounds fantastic!
Bonjour Géraldine et Johan. Je vous remercie pour les deux vidéos, elles sont formidables. C’est la première fois que j’ai entendu Johan parler en anglais. Je suis américaine, et j’ai trouvée qu’il parle anglais avec un peu d’accent allemand ! Voici les sites que j’aime :
Lawless French (grammaire)
Le bistrot de FLE (grammaire)
Frenchspanishonline.com (prononciation)
Frenchbyfrench.com (instruction)
Kwiziq.com (examens avec instruction, explication)
Frenchtruly.com
Nathaliefle.com
Bonne chance et merci encore, Géraldine !
Génial ! Merci Leslie pour ce partage !
Comment as-tu entendu parler de tous ceux-là ?
You know, as someone who’d left school long
before personal computers and laptops came
on the scene I still marvel at how much the
internet enables all sorts of information
communication.
Your Comme une Française Géraldine, and
Johan’s site really compliment each other.
From the point of view of anyone wishing to
improve their French your two sites and
methods add up to a really excellent resource.
I must say also that you both speak English
extremely well. Johan said something about
making mistakes in English, but didn’t really
happen at all … and yes, we all love your
French accents 🙂
I thought a very interesting point that you
talked about was when people find that they
can understand what’s being said in French
but have trouble at speaking in French.
Amazing ! With me it was always the other
way round. I started learning French properly
during my last year at school when I was 15.
We’d been doing French before that, but …
malheureusement, je n’étais pas bon élève 🙂
Anyway, I suddenly got interested for my last
year and quickly became confident at saying
stuff in French … my problem was understanding
what then came back at me !!
My “progress” has gone in fits and starts ever
since, but I find that the Comme une Française
posts, plus your own school for more advanced
speakers make a superb resource for getting
one’s French properly tuned in. Introducing us
to Johan can only add to our progress .. and
yes, I will check out his site.
Your talk with Johan was such an interesting
post, and I’ve enjoyed listening to you both
very much.
Thank you again for all that you do for your
students ..
salut
John
Yes! Please do, John, and let me know how Johan’s site helps you too. 😀
Yes, I notice the same, but in fact French people speak all like that. I am Spanish tutor, so, naturally we tend to talk slower to non native speaker, but I am like Johan as the way he speaks frech well articulated, I speak spanish like that, Geraldine maybe in her videos speaks a little more articulated 20% fast percent slower. So my trick is this with all languages courses it is to train to say things between 10%-30% faster as People tend to articulate when they are teaching, it is normal. It is like a human mechanisme that we develped in the need to be understood, it is when you speak to a child, you change your language, you try to use automatically a basic language, you don’t think you just do. Some same applies here, but mostly at the speed. As I said, we humans beings are designed to makes things easier, communication easier, as we like to be understood fast.
Thanks Horacio,
glad to have your input, as a Spanish tutor, that’s very helpful. 😀
As you say, teaching a language is the same whatever language you pick!
How do you help your students understand fast Spanish?
Replaying the video more than once helps THE SPEED OF LISTENING, which we all need in addition to your blog. FRENCH RADIO (possibly listed as “Radio Francaise” can be played on iPad and other devices as background while you putter around kitchen. (I do it while I paint in my studio sometimes.) It could be compared to the way a child overhears conversation in French ht by being around the rhythm and inflections. Soooooooo helpful.
Geraldine, have you thought about occasionally giving us flowing discourse….speaking a few paragraphs…maybe in English first. THEN! Do the same in French …AT NORMALLY SPOKEN FAST FRENCH SPEED. We could replay it more than once because each time we will get 10-20% more than the previous. Training the ear s so crucial and if I do not hear it spoken at normal speed I quickly lose my ability to listen at speed.
I also use http://www.FrançaisFacile.com which explains French grammar and sends a free weekly lesson. There is also a lot of other learning material on their website, including the opportunity to correspond with a francophone person.
Wow, what a great surprise to see you together here! Indeed, “Comme une Française” and “Français Authentique” are my two favourite French channels – It’s with a huge pleasure that I watch every episode and I would even say that your free courses are much better than most of the language schools. So once again: thank you, Géraldine and Johan, for your extremely useful work! 🙂
yay! 😀
Salut Géraldine
C´est très amusant d´écouter la Géraldine authentique. C´est rapide comme un bâton dans une roue. 🙂 ( Expression danois )
Mais la vitesse de Johan est agréable pour tout comprendre, et grâce à toi , on as un moyen d´apprendre de plus. Merci.
C´est rapide comme un bâton dans une roue. > Ma nouvelle expression préférée. 😀
Thank you Géraldine. It’s wonderful to see such a long interview, and I am especially grateful to see the text typed out (phew, what a long dictée exercise!). Your conversation was mostly too fast for me to follow, but it was great with the text.
Salut tout le monde! I’m using sometimes Frantastique app. It also helps to improve french.
Thank you for sharing this Géraldine. I have just watched your interview with Johan and then watched him speak about his course….he speaks slowly and I was able to understand most of it…yay! Another great resource to compliment Comme Une Française.
Desolée – “utiliser”!
Fabulous ………………..
very well done Géraldine .. it’s so kind and
thoughtful of you to make the connection
with Johan and present it to us .. merci.
You both have so much excellent content
and ideas for your students .. brilliant.
And I’ve just watched your talk with
Johan on his site .. my word, you do talk
fast in French 🙂
I really liked this week’s video Géraldine
(I like them all) and I’m going to watch it
all again and post a bit more on this comments
blog.
Just for the moment I have to press on with today’s stuff, but I’ll get back with a few more thoughts on this.
Merci beaucoup ………
John
Yes, I speak fast. 🙂
Merci Géraldine, je peux utilise tous les deux sites maintenant.
There are 2 blogs that I love to read: French Word A Day by Kristin Epinaise an expat Americaine living on their vineyard in South of France and Paris Breakfasts by Carole Gilot also expat Americaine watercolourist living in Paris.
Both in English but sprinkled with phrases etc and Kristins French husband does an audio. Both worth a look.
Bonjour Géraldine, merci beaucoup pour ce lien – ça sera un complément parfait à vos cours.
One good resource is http://www.kolibri.linguapr… where you can download (for a small cost) PDFs with audio download.
A great interview! Thank you both for providing so much quality free content – I have learned a lot from you Geraldine 🙂
Merci beaucoup Geraldine et Johan,
C’est tres interessant savoir de Johan et Francais Authentique – maintenant on a deux tres bien sites de la langue francais.
Merci encore,
Barbara