Au Service de la France

Last night I started watching a French television series on Netflix. The English title is A Very Secret Service, but the French title is Au Service de la France.

It's set in 1960 and has a mixed feeling of being a spy spoof, which it very openly is, and a comedic alternative to Mad Men. I enjoyed the pilot. It had a very dry sense of humor carried off well by the sincerity of the cast, none of whom I recognized. The episodes are short (half hour), so I think it will make a great end of the day program to make sure I hear some French before I fall asleep each night.

The hero is introduced in his underpants, strapped to a chair in an interrogation room. After being drilled on some patriotic points, he is informed that he's been selected to be a secret agent. He's told his first day of work will be a test, though it mostly consisted of being admonished for his cheap suit and for answering a ringing phone that everyone else usually ignores. Mocking the mundane is right up my alley, so I'm excited to keep watching this one.

IMDB says there are 24 episodes, though I'm not sure how many are on Netflix. I'll find out.

Reading list

I'm compiling a reading list of French and French-related books. Full disclosure - at this stage in the game I'll be reading them in English, but hopefully, by the holidays I'll be reading them in French. I have read several French classics already, but I may revisit some once I switch over to reading in French. Only time can tell.

Here are the titles on my list so far:

• The Stranger, Albert Camus
• Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell
• The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery
• The Red and the Black, Stendhal
• The Paris Wife, Paula McLain
• Swann's Way, Marcel Proust
• Delta of Venus, Anaïs Nin
• Shakespeare and Company, Sylvia Beach
• Paris, France, Gertrude Stein
• Cousin Bette, Balzac
• A Year in Provence, Peter Mayle
• Lunch in Paris, Elizabeth Bard

I'm adding to the list constantly, but let me know in the comments if there are any books either by French authors, set in France, or about France that you think I should add to my reading list.

Au revoir!

Christine and the Queens

Bon après-midi!

Today I listened to a LOT of Christine and the Queens. Contemporary French pop music led by Héloïse Letissier. You may have heard them perform "Tilted" on The Daily Show, or maybe you were lucky enough to see them live at the Governor's Ball in 2016 before they really took off in the US. Anyway, I'm loving Héloise's urgent yet light voice and the group's persistent electric beats.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/04vj3iPUiVh5melWr0w3xT

Video:

Practicing French & some tweaks

According to Duolingo, I am 28% fluent in French. I'm at level 11 and feel like I have plateaued a bit, but hopefully, with practice on some of the things I'm finding more challenging (bonjour, conjugaisons de verbes), I'll pop out of this stuck spot and keep getting better.

Two of my coworkers can speak conversational French and do so from time to time. Hopefully, I can offer more in those conversations soon.

I am practicing French and Spanish simultaneously, though I only added Spanish a couple weeks ago. Because there is so much literature in Spanish in my daily life (signs on the subway, advertisements, etc.) I think I am coming along in that much faster, which is a little disheartening considering that I lived in France for a summer and took two courses in the language in college. Immersion makes a huge difference, and that summer in France was 13 years ago (wow)!

To try to increase my level of immersion, I've made the following little tweaks in my life:

• Set the language on my phone to French
• On an iPhone, choose Settings>General>Language & Region>iPhone Language>Français
• Set the language on my internet browser to French
• In Chrome, click the three vertical dots to the right of your URL bar. Choose Settings. Scroll down and open the Advanced tab. Set your language (I almost exclusively type to other people in English, so I have left my spell check settings in US English, but my browser is now in French!)
• Writing my to-do lists in French. This one is harder as I tend to jot things down in a hurry, and now I have to stop and think about them more. Also, to-do lists are always verbs. But that's where I need to work the most, so it's probably good that this is tough.

Have you made little adjustments in your daily life to help you learn a new language? Any tips?

Bonjour!

Bonjour! Je m'appelle Becca, and I am a Francophile.

I, like everyone else, am busy most of the time. I work, I have social obligations, I cook, I have a side hustle. Nothing special. We all do.

But I also wish my French weren't so abysmal, so I thought I would start a blog to track my practice and the cultural tidbits I alway seem to be checking out. Nothing fancy.

I use Duolingo to practice both French and Spanish, and I'm always happy for some friendly competition. I'm whynotbecca on the Duolingo app.