French

Hear a schoolteacher explain that the academy wants to close a class, understand the numbers behind it, and decide not to accept it.

Hear an old man refuse to accept a decision, the way the French refuse, with pas question, il faut se bouger and de mon temps, and get him to help.

Set up a parents' meeting the French way, with a date, a room, an agenda and a vote, and learn the words for taking the floor.

Persuade a friend who says no to take the lead, with the arguments the French find hardest to refuse, and promise to stand beside her.

Write a French petition with the formula every petition uses, nous soussignes, and decide what it asks for and who signs first.

Knock on a neighbour's door for a signature, make the case in three sentences, answer a doubter, and let a teenager close the deal.

Put a request to a mayor who will not commit, hear the words French officials use to say maybe, and leave with something anyway.

Face a school inspector with numbers, hear how French administration talks about children, and answer figures with figures.

Speak live on French radio for ninety seconds, answer a journalist's questions in short sentences, and land one line that people will repeat.

Read a page of a French classic aloud to someone who loves it, meet the passe simple, the tense of books, and hear what it turns into when people talk.

Practise the values questions of a French citizenship interview, and learn to give a full answer with a nuance in it, the way examiners like.

Answer the doubts of people who love you and think you are wasting your time, with je comprends, mais, and turn their doubt into an argument.

Hear a speech to a full village hall, with the formulas French speakers use to open, to thank, to promise and to close, and the one line everyone stands up for.

Accept help from an old rival without losing face on either side, with the French formulas for burying a hatchet and setting a condition.

Read the most famous poem in French aloud, hear what the French of poetry does to word order, and learn why Mamie knows it by heart.

Walk into a citizenship interview, answer the first question, why France, with a story rather than a slogan, and hear the examiner warm up.

Answer the history and values questions of a citizenship interview fully, with a date, a definition and an example, the way the examiner wants.

Answer the one question in an interview that has no safe answer, with the French formulas for weighing two sides and saying what you think anyway.

Come out of an interview and tell the person waiting how it went, with the French for I think so, we'll see and the questions you remember.

Sit at the back of a French council meeting, hear a motion read, a vote taken and a result announced, and learn the words of local democracy.

Coach a teenager for an oral exam with the structure French schools demand, first, next, finally, and have him coach you back.

Read an official letter that says yes, in the French that official letters use to say it, and tell the village in one phone call.

Celebrate a win with a whole village, hear the short speech that thanks everyone without forgetting anyone, and the two words a crowd shouts back.

Plan a big birthday by the sea for a woman who says she wants nothing, with the French for renting a house, counting guests and keeping a secret badly.

Hear a ninety-five-year-old tell her youth on a long drive, in the imperfect that French stories are made of, and ask the questions that keep her talking.

Persuade a grandmother into the Mediterranean after twenty years out of it, with the three arguments that work on a Frenchwoman of ninety-five and the one word that ends it.

Sit at a French birthday table for a woman of ninety-five, hear the second toast of Marcel's life and a short poem by Emma, and sing the song everyone knows.

Hear what a woman of ninety-five thinks it means to be from somewhere, in short sentences that are the wisest French in the course.

Read the letter that says the interview went well, understand the difference between an opinion and a decree, and learn to wait a little longer in French.

Stand at the school gate on the first day of term, count the children through the door, and hear the sentence that ends a campaign and a level.