Learn French With The Alliance Française de Chicago -Winter Sessions Are Here

Bonjour darlings! Happy French Friday.

If you have followed me for a while you know that I dedicated quite a bit of 2019 to learning French. My in-person lessons with a tutor were paused after 7 months due to a busy fall schedule and then when I was ready to start again the lockdown occured pausing everything. But I have been trying my best to keep practicing here at home through home study, french films, french music, an app on my phone- and I am STILL having so much fun learning but it definitely comes with frustrations too, especially without a teacher. I have a really tough time with the phonetics, especially since I know Spanish. Honestly knowing Spanish makes learning French so much harder. LOL.

I have also found I am not putting in enough time to make and maintain my language learning progress. Language learning is a process of building, exercising, and maintaining a set of skills. It doesn’t happen overnight, and if you stop practicing, it’s easy to lose what you’ve gained. Like staying fit, learning to play a musical instrument, or mastering any complex skill, you need to dedicate time to it regularly–you need to practice most, if not all days of the week. Success will come with regular, focused practice. And it’s time to get REALLY focused again this year especially since I have some free time on my hands as I have lost so much work due to Covid-19.

I know that I need to remain patient with myself when I am feeling stuck, and I know that I must be willing to try new approaches to keep moving forward and I am thrilled to be enrolled in winter language classes at AF Chicago! I took a few of their workshops this year and was really impressed with the content and delivery. They have also made me feel very at home within their organization. It can be really intimidating being the American girl, you know?!

And everything JUST sounds better in French, doesn’t it?!

They offer so many classes outside of lessons! Around the Christmas holiday I attended the The Bon-Vivants Wine Club Holiday Party. I had always been wanting to understand the harmonious relationship between cheeses and wines and that virtual workshop party couldn’t have come at a better time. I learned so many amazing things I did not know from sommelière Alicia Barrett and cheese expert Chris Spier. I received a shopping list ahead of time so I could actually have the wine and cheese and Alicia was so accommodating to find you another wine option if you could not locate a particular wine on the list they provided as Chicago has different wine vendors from Oklahoma. It was a wonderful delicious virtual evening!

I also attended two Emily In Paris workshops with AF Chicago. The first one was a language workshop on the hit show….“Like wearing poetry" . We learned about some interesting and useful French phrases from the hit series Emily in Paris and how to use them flawlessly...unlike Emily. The 45 minute presentation was led by Geoffrey Ruiz, Alliance's School Director and French national living in Chicago and was followed by a Q&A and discussion with Tim Young AFC instructor, Executive Vice President at L.C. Williams & Associates and American who lived in France. They are quite a pair and it was a really wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning!

The second was a cultural workshop on Emily in Paris - "A little bonjour goes a long way" . We discovered the (sometimes not so little) cultural differences between France and the U.S and talked about how accurately, or not, those differences are depicted in Emily In Paris. Geoffrey led this one too but we also had a chance to hear from Rebecca Plotnick from the highly popular Everyday Parisian blog and that was just such a treat! I am a huge fan of Rebecca’s!

I am just thrilled to be starting my lessons again next week with AF Chicago. I will be taking you on my delightful journey through my experiences of learning French with them and sharing some BTS moments over on my Insta Stories . I will be sharing the many joys and many frustrations with learning a new language, and delving into the nuances of French. It will be so lovely to make contact with other speakers and learners of the language in the online community and really commit and focus on communicating with them too! I feel like this is an area where you can make great progress.

I have always been told successful learners set aside time for their language study every day. They put it on their calendars and keep those appointments with themselves, and with other speakers of the language they’re learning, whether they are native speakers of the language, fellow learners, or a coach or a teacher. And I have a standing lesson with my teacher every Wednesday for 8 weeks from 10-12!

If you have been wanting to also learn to speak French, I highly recommend working with Alliance Française de Chicago. They are all incredibly knowledgeable and incredibly patient. You can also learn more about the history of Af Chicago here.

They are currently enrolling for French classes right NOW for the winter session! (classes start as soon as tomorrow or next week) They offer classes for All levels and all of them are offered online via zoom.

Just look at all these options!

https://www.af-chicago.org/classes

If you’ve never taken French before, you can register for Unit 1 of their Initiation level. There is a really good resource too to find your level if you are have taken some french before but are not sure which class to sign up for. Find that here.

AF Chicago is also generously offering a free membership to you if you sign up for a 8 week session. Please contact Rachael Cohen at rcohen@af-chicago.org and give her the promo code “sam@afc”. The membership is valued at $75/year and benefits include reduced prices for events, as well as access to AF Chicago’s online library, and discounts at their partners. So if you join a few events per year it would be very well worth it darlings! Seriously whether you wish to enhance your language skills, follow courses in cooking and wine tasting, watch award-winning films or browse their library of over 19,000 volumes – it’s all available to you six days a week and just steps from North Michigan Avenue and you can do all this from the comfort of your own sofa in your pjs!! Plus learn French on your sofa in your pjs!

Read more about the membership here and sign up for your french classes here.