'Franglish!'

Bonsoir from France everyone!

My original plan was to write about my move/settling in for this blog post, but I’m currently writing a piece along those lines for ‘mylifelivingabroad.com’ so you get something a bit different this week!

Last night, me and 9 of the other girls decided to check out a 'Franglish' session which is a kind of language exchange night structured a bit like speed dating. You have to speak for 7 minutes in English and 7 in French and then move to the next table, which, after a week of speaking minimal French was very daunting!  

                    

The night costs 8 euros for students (12 for non-students), includes a drink (wine, beer or a soft drink), and lasts about an hour with a break in the middle. Last night it was held at Chapi Chapo in the 5^th arrondissement, which is a cute little bar; the nights are held at various places around Paris and other major French cities. We arrived a little bit tipsy (Dutch courage was definitely needed!) and were each given name tags and a table number. 

Table 7 was my first port of call and I was paired with a man called Florian who spoke very fast but I was surprised by how well I managed to talk to him (thank you alcohol!). The time went really quickly and with my confidence growing I moved onto my next table where I found myself face to face with a very dishy guy called Eliott - good bye confidence. We were just getting to know each other when my friend Charis joined us due to there being too many native English speakers (gutted!). Romantic convo interrupted we spent the rest of the 14 minutes talking about travelling.

I spoke to three other people throughout the night and enjoyed it a lot! Philippe on table 14 was quite a challenge as I found his French accent very hard to understand and he spoke very little English (he was also a little bit leery). The night ended a lot quicker than I thought it would, but luckily all of us decided to stay and keep drinking. 

Needless to say, at my first opportunity, I made a beeline for Eliott and we chatted for the rest of the night, slipping from French to English then back again (once again thank you alcohol). I don't actually know if I made any sense in either language but the night ended well and we’ve spoken since…

Overall I would definitely recommend this as a way of practising your language skills. It forced all of us to speak French in a laid back setting and it can be carried on way after the session finished: we all stayed til 11.30pm. It was a lot of fun and I will be going again!

This is the website if any other year abroaders are interested :) http://www.franglish.eu/

Bisous à tous