#LIKEACHALLENGE 

There’s so many things I want to share with you about France and learning French (and lots more to come in the vlogs soon!) I’ll be honest, I wasn’t that fond of France before I starting learning the language in January. Whenever I happened to go there, it was always for a TV shoot and I remember the endless, super knackering drives from one village to the other on the vomit-inducing countryside roads. France is the third largest country in Europe area wise (behind Russia an

My 90days of learning French is over. Well, saying that, I’ll be learning French for the rest of my life, but at least the 3 months of intense studying was a solid start to this lifetime journey ahead. Now, back to business. The grand finale which I promised at the beginning of the challenge. Initially the plan was to go to Paris for a weekend, but…as I well know from TV, organising a ‘shoot’ in a busy city like Paris (and throw the famous Parisian attitude into the mix), I

Wow.. it’s been a while since I wrote a blogpost about my French challenge and it uddenly hit me that the 90days deadline is tomorrow! Yikes. To keep my promise and prove to you that I’ve actually learnt something, I’m currently planning a trip to France in May, where I’ll do a bunch of fun, cultural activities ONLY using French. And of course I'll aim to speak French for the whole time I’m there (well, most of the time...there will be some sign language involved I'm sure).

It's over half way through the French challenge, so where am I at? Well, I can finally talk about the past as the last couple of days have been about learning 'passe compose', the basic past tense in French. I did future tense a couple of weeks ago, so in theory I know all the verb forms now, but I have to practise, practise and yet again practise to feel more at ease using these in conversation. I had two French lessons this weekend as I wanted to catch up after a busy week

So, first ever blog is finally up. Very humble beginnings, random bits filmed on my iPhone & laptop :) Summary of my first month mastering French pronunciation and memorising basic phrases. And an opportunity to see me with barely any make-up on, wet hair straight out of the shower, sitting in the kitchen. Think I sold it to you..!

Week 5 has been a lot about ‘forcing’ myself to do those 15min of French when I know I’m losing momentum in my challenge and can’t find the same motivation I had in the first week. I did two 1:1 lessons in week 5, so that’s good, but I had to find new, interesting ways of learning in order to not get bored. I guess it’s easier when you just learn French in France and then you’re surrounded by the language all the time anyway. But doing it in London, I have to do (at least) 15

I know a bit more than 'une baguette' by this stage..just finished week 5 of my learning French challenge, but still writing a blogpost about week 4. My only excuse is that...I’ve been learning French plus doing the Vicky’s Secret challenge. So no sitting around for sure! Week four was when I had my first 1:1 lessons and that gave me a massive boost of confidence when it comes to actually speaking the language! You can learn from books, internet or listen to tapes / apps / y

I’ve had some moments of doubt this week pondering if I can ever get past only being able to name things and memorise whole sentences. It’s speeds up the learning process at the beginning, but at some stage you want to express genuine opinions or say how you feel, naturally, rather than delivering a script. I think I haven’t reached that stage with French yet. I’m getting to the point of ‘Tarzan French’ (a name used in the ‘Language hacking’ book), where you simply use whate

As it was an extremely busy time for me work-wise, my second week has mostly been about trying to fit in at least one minute of French whenever I could. On the train, in the cafe, between phone calls, listening to the app when standing in a queue or at 11pm at home before going to bed. This is the reason why a lot of people give up their challenge a few days into it, they just don't find the time. Or rather, they don't even TRY to find the time. We've got work, daily erran

Week two has been all about learning French words for clothes and colours, apart from trying to memorize another dozen of sentences along the lines of 'please speak slower' which will hopefully save my life in France when I eventually head across the Channel. My pronunciation is failry good (well, it’s always been my strongest point when learning any language), vocabulary is not bad.. just trying to put everything together into a coherent conversation is not easy (i.e. I've

It’s the beginning of week two and I was thinking that I need to organise the ‘words of the day’ which I do on Instagram and have some French inspirations for every week. Apart from constantly talking to myself on instastory, I introduced you to a few French words for clothes and colours. So, this week I’ll continue with that, but here on the blog I also want to explore the French minimalist wardrobe and the basic items you need to look like a proper Parisian! I’m a big fa

Pas mal! Not (too) bad. I was very excited the first day and then it got a bit slower towards the end of the week. Luckily, with the help a salted caramel cheesecake, I got back on track at the weekend and did my reading and speaking exercise like a diligent first class student. (I was far from that during my Uni days, so not sure what being a 'diligent first class student' actually means, but... I’m doing fine, by the way.) I’ve yet to have a one to one lesson. I’ve asked a

It’s not that easy to find those 15min where I solely just focus on learning French. I mean, I’m not doing too bad considering it’s been a busy week overall and I had a long list of boring admin stuff which I had to be sorted out. I did manage to 5-10min each day so far (a good hour on day one!), but it’s still the bare minimum. I find it really tough to suddenly zone out, forget about everything else and.. speak French. There’s so many things to do each day and then it’s so

Back to business. I'm kicking off 2018 with yet another amazing challenge: starting on 15th January I'll have 90 days to master French. For the grand final (and to prove I've actually learnt something or not), I'll head across the English Channel / la Manche for a 48h weekend where I'll only be allowed to speak le Francais.* *Everyone laughs. Especially the French I've asked a good friend of mine to join me on that final trip and film the drama of ordering a coffee in Paris