French

Read the letter that makes you French, in the French the Republic uses for it, and find out that the first thing you do is sit down.

Tell the person who matters most a piece of news she already knows, and hear the French for I told you so, said with love.

Explain a French thing to people who do not have it, in French, on a video call, and hear your mother try a French sentence back.

Take a neighbour's tease as the affection it is, and give one back, in the spoken French of a village gate.

Steer a dinner table away from yourself with the three small words the French use for it, and watch everyone else dodge too.

Answer a child's honest question honestly, in simple French, about why you talk the way you do and how a person can be two things.

Read an official invitation out loud, decode its two formulas with your husband, and settle who comes.

Negotiate with a husband about a tie, hear the French for we'll talk about it again, and know what it really means.

Take Chloe's irony and give it straight back, in the third person, and hear the one word that admits a hit.

Stand in a prefecture hall, hear the Republic welcome you in its own words, sing what you know of the anthem, and answer the prefect.

Follow a formal speech, then make one of your own in the French of ceremonies, with the sentence that sums up seven years.

Vote for the first time in a village hall, with the neighbour as scrutineer who pretends not to know you, and hear the two words that close it.

Stand where you stood seven years ago and tell the story in the imperfect of memory, down to the sentence you did not understand.

Knock on the door of a flat you once lived in, apologise for disturbing, and be shown that nothing has changed, radiator included.

Order the baguette you ordered for six months, be recognised by the same baker, and hear what she remembers of your French.

Thank the person who started everything, in the room where it started, and hear the French answer to gratitude, which is to pass it on.

Hear a friend confess something hard, answer without a lecture, and say the sentence that lets her finish.

Sit with a friend who never cries, and say the four or five things French people say when there is nothing to say.

Make the full French apology to the person you live with, from I was wrong to I ask your forgiveness, and hear it accepted with a condition.

Say no to a friend who asks for a favour you cannot do, without a lie and without losing the friend.

Hear a clean bill of health in French, be teased by a professional about your age and your old dictionary, and give it back.

Coach a teenager for his first interview in the two registers he needs, the vous of the boss and the slang he must leave at the door.

Tell the story of your worst sentence in French as a joke, at an apero, and take the teasing that follows in spoken French.

Be made to speak with a glass in your hand, admit you prepared nothing, and say the three sentences that are enough.

Translate France to visitors from home, in French, and catch yourself saying chez nous about both countries.

Have the yearly conversation about the roof, with this year, last year and next year all in one sentence, and lose it gracefully.

Take down a recipe from someone who has never measured anything, and learn the French for by eye, a pinch and until it's good.

Explain a backwards word to your English mother, in French, with three generations of French at one table and one tart.

Answer the question what would you tell your younger self, in the French conditional, with the one thing you would keep back.

Be the person who answers the question you once asked, in the station where you asked it, and say the first sentence of this course last.