Dialogue In English: What Image Do You Have of the French?

By 19 June 2016 Video lessons 35 Comments
dialogue en anglais

“We put it in VO with the subtitles?”

It’s Thursday night and the work day. Woohoo!

The dishes are in the machine and even if the of half empty lasagna dish is still laid on the work plan … eh. It can wait.

Tonight is House of Cards on Netflix! Double woohoo!

Oh, the American series. Nothing better to work your understanding of the English dialogues

Well … when we get to understand them …

When Kevin Spacey turns to the camera to talk to you, it’s ok maybe

When it is a dialogue in English between several people … let’s say that, fortunately there are subtitles!

Normal.

I spent a few years before I could easily follow French series and movies. When I was (much) younger and my French was less good, Romain wanted to make me discover one of his favorite movies: La Cité de la Peur

And for 10 years now, I hear this:

Romain: “You know that movie you didn’t like and didn’t make you laugh?”

And I answer: “No, it’s just that I did not understand!!”

Not easy when it’s real spoken language. Real English.

No subtitles. You have the impression that these are not words, but a continuous stream of sound that comes out of their mouth. They talk at the same time. There’s noise around. “Darn, I hear nothing!”

And after a while, either you say “Sorry, what?” more often than you’d like, either you pretend to understand. (Often it was the second option, I admit …)

To help you avoid this, I present (drum roll, please….)

“Tame the hot potato*”: Real dialogues in English

* Thank you Manon for the idea of the title!

This is a category of videos to help you understand real English spoken in real dialogues every day!

The idea is: With my friends, we film while talking about a subject for a few minutes.

With the video, you have a worksheet (that we will call Hot Potato Sheet, you can download it at the bottom of the article)

The goal is to help you gradually better understand real dialogues in English.

Sure, the video editing is less “pro” and the image trembles a little (you can’t imagine how heavy a selfie stick is!). There’s noise around and maybe it’s harder to understand, but your Hot Potato Sheet will help you understand that sound flow in English!

This week, you will meet Jennie and Chris and we talk about the image of the French among the English (and the Germans because they both work in Germany).

Have fun!

What do you think of the French? - Spontaneous English conversations with listening exercises
You will hear, they have a British English accent (because I don’t have only American friends, I like everybody J, but I don’t know how to describe the British accent. They talk with hot tea in their mouth? “You will tell me …

If you like this idea, tell me! I will then think about making a video from time to time.

What do you think ?

And if you have any suggestions, I’m all ears! I’m listening to you !

Potatoes from Grenoble,

Christina

Apprivoise la patate chaude & comprendre le vrai anglais parlé. Enfin !

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