Alysa Salzberg 
Whether you’ve been to Paris, are planning to go, or are just an armchair traveler, you know the Seine. It’s the river that cuts through Paris, giving us the Rive Gauche (Left Bank) and Rive Droite (Right Bank) as designations for the two main divisions of the city. For centuries, the river itself, as well …
If you ask the average person what they can say in French, there’s a good chance they’ll tell you “Oh là là”. It’s a phrase that’s even more iconic and well-known than Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir ?. Unlike that phrase, though, French people actually do say Oh là là – a lot! It’s …
READ LESSONWhy the French really say Oh là là (and how to use it correctly)
There are so many ways to learn and practice a foreign language today. One of the easiest is by using an online language learning platform. Language learning platforms aren’t complete universes unto themselves – each platform has its own way of teaching and its own materials, so you aren’t likely to find, say, written lessons, …
One of the best French teachers I ever had was a charming criminal. After several years of learning French, I started reading French stories and books on my own. Some were fairly easy, while others required me to look up nearly every word (and in the days before dictionary apps, this meant taking a significant …
READ LESSONThe Best Short Stories to Improve Your French (And Where to Read Them for Free)
19th-century French poet Charles Baudelaire once wrote Le beau est toujours bizarre. (The beautiful is always bizarre). Although he wasn’t talking about the word beau itself, he might as well have been. Beau and its feminine form, belle, mean “beautiful” or, depending on the context, “handsome”. That seems pretty straightforward. But the more you use …
READ LESSONHow do you say “beautiful” in French? Here’s the bizarre answer!
Here’s some great news for French learners: The Académie Française recently announced that French words will no longer be gendered! …Poisson d’avril ! In case you’ve never heard this term, it means I played a trick on you, in honor of April 1, or, as it’s known to Anglophones, April Fool’s Day. As you may …
READ LESSONPoisson d’avril ! Why the French say “April Fish” instead of “April Fool’s”