Experience France Newsletters
Spring 2026
Our new plans for 2026: Discover, Immerse, Grow
We are delighted to share what we have shaped for 2026: three clear ways to step into French, from your first words to living it in full.
- Discover: Start naturally. Build your ear and begin speaking with ease.
- Immerse: Step into a thoughtfully packaged French holiday with a language twist. Small groups, shared days, real conversations.
- Grow: Keep up your momentum. Ongoing coaching, annual immersions, and a community (Experience France club) to help you have fun while learning.
A clear path, at your pace, with experiences that stay with you.
Do you know what châteauing is?
You might want to borrow this term. It’s a lovely way to enrich your French, bringing together history, culture, and place. Kris Hicks shares her time exploring some of the most notable, and notorious, châteaux around Saint-Germain-en-Laye. She calls it “châteauing” – moving from one castle to another, taking in the stories and atmosphere of each. With a bit of luck, it may even become a regular feature in her next series.
Learn French by listening at your own rhythm
Listening to French for some time every day is an easy way to learn. Lectures CLE en français facile has a full library of adapted classics in audio format, and it’s free! Proper recordings, a clear pace, easy to replay. You can dip in and out without overthinking.
Try Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, Les Misérables, Les Trois Mousquetaires, or Le Tour du monde en 80 jours. Because you already know the stories, you aren’t guessing what’s happening; you can focus on the sound, the rhythm, and how sentences are formed.
The website is in French, which becomes part of the practice. You can also order the actual books to follow along. This will help your learning as you’ll hear the words and read them at the same time. If you need a hand navigating or ordering, just let us know. Or take the ISBN to your local bookshop.
An idea for the spring: The centenary of Monet
If you are thinking about a trip to France this year, 2026 offers a special moment: one hundred years since Claude Monet’s passing, with celebrations across Normandy and the Paris region.
Spend a week’s immersion with us, then stay on in France afterwards and visit Giverny, Monet’s village. You’ll be amazed how much more confident you feel!
Autumn 2025
The summer has slipped away in a shimmer of rosé and cicadas, and suddenly France smells of rain and roasted chestnuts again. Autumn in France begins with la rentrée — that brisk, back-to-school energy when diaries fill, bakeries buzz, and everyone seems to stride a little faster. Then, as October ripens and la Toussaint approaches, the pace softens — markets glow with pumpkins and pears, cafés pull out their cosy blankets,
and conversations start to linger a little longer.
In this autumn edition, we’ve got stories from our travellers, a look at language and technology, and a quick trip to Normandy,
where Impressionism first took shape.
But before all that, let’s start with the word that opens every
French conversation: bonjour.
Why “Bonjour” Matters
If you remember nothing else from me, remember this: say “Bonjour”.
In France, it’s not a formality, it’s a key. It signals to people that you acknowledge that they exist and deserve respect. Skip it, and doors stay closed (sometimes literally). Say it, and you’re no longer a stranger; you’re part of the scene. I’ve seen Americans breeze into shops with
“Hi, do you speak English?”, and the room freezes.
But start with a warm “Bonjour, Madame”, and suddenly, even if your French stops right there, you’ve honoured the ritual.
You’ve opened the door.
It’s the smallest word with the biggest impact.
Seeing Us Through Janine’s Eyes
You know that feeling when someone finally gets what you’ve been trying to explain? That’s what happened when Janine Marsh from The Good Life France came to see how we do things at Experience France. She wrote about her time in Saint-Germain-en-Laye — walking, chatting, learning French the natural way, with no pressure and no grammar drills in sight.
It’s a lovely, honest piece about how real-world French (with all its quirks and laughter) starts to click once you’re actually living it.
Tech Temptation: AirPods & Real-Time Translation
Have you seen the ads? Pop in your AirPods, let Siri whisper the French into your ear, and voilà, you’re “speaking French”. Except… you’re not.
You’re outsourcing the most delicious part of travel,
the stumble, the smile, the surprise of connection.
Language acquisition research (Krashen, Asher, all the big names) is clear: real fluency comes from comprehensible input and interaction. Not perfect sentences, not instant decoding, but hearing, trying, messing up, and laughing.
If you let your AirPods do the talking, you’ll miss the eyebrow raise of the baker when you bravely ask for “un pain au chocolat” and she replies, “Un ou deux ?” That moment, that heartbeat, is where French lives.
Cultural Spotlight: Normandy & the Birth of Impressionism
Stand on the cliffs of Étretat, and you’ll understand why Monet kept coming back. The light here doesn’t sit still, it dances, it flirts, it hides behind a cloud and then bursts through like champagne bubbles.
Normandy isn’t just butter and cider (though, yes, please pass the Camembert). It’s where Impressionism was born.
Monet, Boudin, and Renoir weren’t painting “things”,
they were painting moments.
Fleeting, imperfect, alive.
Learning French works the same way. You’re not memorising a vocabulary list; you’re catching the shimmer of a phrase, the warmth of a “ça va,” the surprise of someone’s laughter when you mispronounce “huîtres.”
Summer 2024
How not to learn French
Why it’s time to throw away those French textbooks and get to grips with science instead.
The Normandy Gourmand
Is it cheese please, or do you prefer a drop of Calvados to wash down your Tarte Tatin?
Renoir's favourite model
Did Nini Lopez deserve to be called fish face?
Do you fear the French menu?
How to get to grips with the colloquialisms of the French menu.
Winter 2024
Did Van Gogh really shoot himself?
Discovering beautiful Auvers & Van Gogh's final resting place I did not expect to have an "Aha!" moment but following in his footsteps, through fields and picture post-card France, that's exactly what I got!
15 Van Gogh Quotes
Maybe you've only seen his art but he also wrote down his thoughts. Here's 15 lovely quotes from the Institut Van Gogh to brighten up your desktop, phone or tablet. Visit their website shop to get amazing re-prints of his Auvers paintings
Summer 2023
Dreaming in multiple languages?
Sleep has a more powerful role in language-learning than was previously thought. What does this reveal about our night-time brain?
Cycling in France?
Taking a bike (vélo) for a tour around Paris or the Normandy countryside is a great way to explore so here's a few of the important rules & signs that you need to know. (In French!)
Discover the Best of Normandy
Finally being recognised for it's beautiful countryside and great destinations, within 1-2 hours from Paris or Calais, see 12 Must-Visit Places.
Best Paris Terraces?
It's sunny terrace time 😎 in Paris! Most on this list are free. MUCH more space than that café on the corner. Ask us about our favourite terraces outside Paris 😉
You think French has crazy rules?
Great BBC video proving that the “sound of language” is important for English also. Learn about this odd ‘law’ that has been passed on from generation to generation, and most of us use them. Lexicographer, etymologist and broadcaster Susie Dent looks into these linguistic quirks.
“Ou est the bathroom?”
Going to powder your nose in France used be a game of Russian roulette but things have gotten A LOT better since the first “vespasienne”. Maybe not everyone’s idea of a day trip in Paris but you can tell a lot about a place by its toilets my Nan used to say!