Jean-Benoît Nadeau is among the finalists for the Grands prix 2012 from L’Association québécoise des éditeurs de magazines for his article in L’actualité, Plan Nord : un Québec flou, flou, flou…
Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoît Nadeau are bestselling authors of books on language and culture. Partners in life and writing, the couple lives in Montreal, Canada with their twin daughters. Read more »
FIVE DAYS TO SAVE NESBITT |
It’s a parent’s nightmare. You find out your children’s school has been slated for closure and you have 5 days to save it.
Well, it’s happening to us, parents of Nesbitt Elementary School, a 100-year-old school with a highly respected, 30-year-old French immersion program – a school that draws kids from all over East Montreal.
The classic “débutant” mistake I made when I started studying my first second language was thinking: the more I study, the faster I’ll learn. It’s true, you do have to study. But as I learned, none of the memorizing sticks unless the words come out of your mouth at some point. In other words, the only way to get a new language inside your head is to use it.
When I did my first Spanish immersion in Puebla, I knew the danger of studying too hard.
Back in 2006, when I started seriously trying to learn Spanish I signed up for a month of private courses at the (very excellent) Spanish Institute of Puebla, in Puebla, Mexico. The clocking was ticking on my Spanish studies. At the time, I was “expecting” (our girls were due to arrive from Haiti any time) and I knew it would be years before I would get to do another immersion abroad.
Luckily, when I was in Puebla, I discovered something that would seriously boost my Spanish learning curve.
Unlike learning a second language, experience has taught me that to teach kids a second language, you need a plan. There’s nothing organic or natural about it.
My twins spoke French Creole for the first three years of their lives. Read more »
When you want to learn a new language, where do you start? In my experience – and this is my fourth – it doesn’t really matter.
Learning a new language is like building a house. Not that I’ve actually built a house. But I’ve seen it done. You start with a structure and some kind of foundation. Then you add walls, eventually you have something that stands on its own. Then you make it something you can live in. Later, you maybe make it elegant.
It’s the same with languages. Except for one difference. Don’t start with a plan. Just plunge in. Read more »
This is the question that motivated us to write The Story of French in the first place. With the mind-blowing spread of English across the planet, a lot of people assume French is being wiped out. Is it? Do these numbers surprise you? Read more »
In my last posting I spoke about francophones and used the pronoun “we.”
Okay, where I live, in east Montreal, no one would call me a francophone. I moved to Montreal when I was 19 and learned French as I worked my way up in society, from retail sales to writing.
Today I speak French almost without an accent. Read more »
Jean-Benoît Nadeau will be in Paris from March 11th to the 27th for the release of their new book, Le français, quelle histoire! With Télémaque Publishing.
This is a second edition and an adaptation of The Story of French. Jean-Benoît will give two public lectures on March 16th and March 22nd.
If you’re a Quebecker, you’ll probably recognize the background music playing on our speaking page. It’s Quebec singer-songwriter Martin Léon’s song “C’est ça qui est ça”. (And YES, we paid for the right to use it.)
If you’re not a Quebecker, Martin Léon is big star on the Quebec music scene. He’s still pretty young so he’s bound to become an even bigger star, maybe even what you call a monument in Quebec. Other Quebec musicians are starting to record his music, so that’s a good sign. Read more »
The first biography of the French language.
The first biography of the French language.
The first biography of the French language.
A voyage through the French mindset.
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