Coffee Break French

Welcome to this introductory episode of the Coffee Break French Verb Fix in which we explain the concepts behind this course and offer an introduction to the whole idea of French verbs: how they work, what it means to conjugate a verb, and the meanings of the four main tenses we’re covering in the course. This show is your weekly fix of Coffee Break French, and through the weekly episodes we’ll he...

This episode marks the end of an era! It’s the final lesson of Season 3 of Coffee Break French. We first met Alf, Katie and Veronica over 18 months ago and since then hopefully all our listeners have built their confidence and developed their range of expression in the French language. This final episode provides further opportunities for listeners to practise what they’ve learned through a series...

It’s time for the penultimate episode in this season of Coffee Break French. Our translation challenges this week include further practice on the subjunctive and a couple of examples of the future tense. Please note that lesson 39 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 339 of Coffee Break French. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to make things more simple for our l...

This week’s coffee break provides some practice on the tricky pronoun y and some further subjunctives. Please note that lesson 38 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 338 of Coffee Break French. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to make things more simple for our listeners. This season of Coffee Break French features a total of 40 lessons, all of which will be inc...

We’re back with more translation challenges to help you test your knowledge of the materials covered in Season 3. Please note that lesson 37 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 337 of Coffee Break French. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to make things more simple for our listeners. This season of Coffee Break French features a total of 40 lessons, all of which...

In this week’s Coffee Break French we provide another opportunity for you to test your translation skills based on what you’ve learned in Season 3. Please note that lesson 36 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 336 of Coffee Break French. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to make things more simple for our listeners. This season of Coffee Break French features a...

We’re back with another lesson of translation challenges to help you practise what you’ve learned in this season of Coffee Break French. Please note that lesson 35 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 335 of Coffee Break French. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to make things more simple for our listeners. This season of Coffee Break French features a total of 40...

In this week's lesson we provide more translation exercises for you based on the constructions, vocabulary and grammar covered in this season. We’ll give you the phrase, followed by some time to work out the answer, and then we’ll talk through the answer, helping you to construct the phrase yourself in French. Please note that lesson 34 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 334 of Coffee Brea...

This episode is the first of eight lessons which focus on consolidating what you’ve learned in the past 32 lessons. We’ll be testing your grammar and vocabulary with a series of guided translation exercises: we’ll give you a phrase to translate into French and then work through the solution with you. Please note that lesson 33 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 333 of Coffee Break French....

It’s time to listen to the final section of Katie’s diary which she has kept throughout her time spent in Nice. In this week’s lesson we’ll be hearing about her plans for the future and we’ll find out if these plans include Jérôme! Please note that lesson 32 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 332 of Coffee Break French. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to make...

In this new edition of Coffee Break French we’ll be starting our farewells for Katie. We’ll cover the first part of her text in this lesson and then complete it in lesson 332. Please note that lesson 31 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 331 of Coffee Break French. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to make things more simple for our listeners. This season of Cof...

It’s five years since we launched the first lesson of Coffee Break Spanish, and since then we’ve served up millions of language lessons to learners around the world through our podcasts, our enhanced lessons and our ebooks. We’re delighted today to announce five new courses, and we’ll also be letting you know about a few exciting projects which are due to be launched early in 2012. Spanish ¡Empece...

It’s time for another lesson of Coffee Break French and this week we join Alf in his final text. He has been writing a diary over eight weeks while he has been renovating his new house in the south of France and attending daily French lessons with Veronica and Katie, the two other protagonists of our series. In this week’s text he tells us about the party he organised for his classmates. Please no...

In this latest lesson of Coffee Break French we’ll be joining Veronica and listening to her final text. She has been learning French in Nice along with Katie and Alf and in this final text she updates us on what she has been doing and tells us of some important decisions she has taken. Please note that lesson 29 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 329 of Coffee Break French. We have renumbe...

This week's lesson offers an analysis of the second part of Katie’s latest text. As usual, we’ll be covering a range of expressions and grammar points. The free version of this lesson includes the recording of Katie’s text along with explanations of the language she uses to help you understand the text. Please note that lesson 28 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 328 of Coffee Break Frenc...

In this week's episode we're looking at the first part of Katie’s latest text in which she updates us on what’s she’s been getting up to in Nice. In this episode we’ll be looking at a variety of grammatical topics including the relative pronouns ce que and ce qui , and we’ll also consider some examples of the future perfect tense. The second part of Katie’s text will be analysed in the next lesson...

We return to Alf’s story this week on Coffee Break French and his wife, Jennifer, has finally arrived in France. Alf has been preparing for her arrival, both with the house renovations and he’s even learned to cook! As usual there are plenty of useful expressions and interesting grammar points in this week’s lesson. In addition, following many requests from our members, the extended version of thi...

This week on Coffee Break French Veronica is feeling a bit down in the dumps: elle a le bourdon ce soir ! She has been doing some thinking about her future and the fact that she is accro au travail – addicted to her work. This episode provides lots of examples of interesting grammar and vocabulary in use, and you’ll learn about question formation, reported speech and lots more! Please note that le...

This week we’re offering a special treat for our free subscribers: the extended version of our lessons is normally only available to subscribers, but this week we’re giving this extended version away free to our non-members to let you know what you’re missing! The extended version features the same basic content as the free lesson, but there are over 15 minutes of extra explanations, examples and...

In this week’s lesson we’ll continue with Alf’s text from last week. There are some fantastic examples of preceding direct objects in this week’s show, and you’ll have the opportunity to practise ne … rien and ne … que . Please note that lesson 24 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 324 of Coffee Break French. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to make things more...

Today's episode is the first of two lessons which focus on Alf’s latest text which has lots of interesting language points to discuss. Alf has been attending cookery lessons in Nice and he reports back on this in this week’s episode. Language points include lots more preceding direct object examples and the intriguing use of que l’on instead of qu’on ! Please note that lesson 23 of Season 3 was or...

In this week's episode of Coffee Break French we hear about Veronica’s exciting weekend at the Monaco Grand Prix. We’ll be hearing about the party she attended at the house of one of her clients. We will be hearing more examples of the subjunctive along with a couple of interesting preceding direct objects! Please note that lesson 22 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 322 of Coffee Break F...

In this week's lesson we’ll be hearing from Alf, one of our three students learning French in Nice. Alf will be telling us about a chance meeting he had with his neighbour and his new interest in the game of pétanque , French boules. Please note that lesson 21 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 321 of Coffee Break French. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to mak...

This week we’re testing you on what you’ve learned in the first twenty episodes of season 3. We’re providing you with a series of sentences in English to translate into French, and you’ll be encouraged to think of the grammatical constructions and vocabulary which have been covered in the texts of Veronica, Alf and Katie. You’ll have 20 seconds to work out each translation and then Mark will talk...

We rejoin Veronica this week in our series of episodes coming from our featured learners in the south of France. “Veronica” has been getting to know one of her clients and, as we’ll be finding out this week, she has been invited to a party at this client’s house. In terms of the language covered in this episode, you’ll hear further examples of the subjunctive, and we’ll also be discussing the conc...