Bonjour ! I'm Simon Marion
I'm a Frenchman who lives in Paris. Thanks to my dad’s job, I traveled a lot when I was young: I was born in Congo where I stayed only 1 year, and at the age of 4, I went to live for 5 years in China where I attended a French school, until I came back to France at the age of 9. This international experience opened my mind to different cultures, and now I always want to discover more of them. Today I speak fluently 3 languages: French, English and Portuguese, and I’m currently learning Chinese Mandarin.
French is my mother tongue, and regarding English, well I’ve learnt it naturally as I grew up. I never lived in an English speaking country, but unlike most French people, I’ve always watched movies in English with English subtitles, listened to music in English while reading the lyrics… Somehow, I could immerse myself in an English environment, and I would always keep in touch with English speaking friends I would meet in my life.
But it’s only during my last year of high school I realized learning a new language is not that difficult. My mom actually comes from Brazil (yes I know I don’t look Brazilian) but sadly she always spoke French and not Portuguese to me. That’s why I started to learn Portuguese by myself. It took me a few months to acquire the basics of the language, and as soon as I started to speak with my family (with whom I had never talked before), I became fluent in less than a month.
So I guess if you’re in this blog, it means you want to speak French, right? Well that’s my job! I met many foreigners who said: “I’d love to speak French… but it’s so hard!” , well these guys inspired me to create this blog, because it’s not! Of course some aspects of French are not easy, but every language has its quirks and eccentricities. I believe the reason why people struggle so much to speak French is because they speak WRITTEN FRENCH and not SPOKEN FRENCH, meaning they might be able to say something in French, but they’re not able to answer back to a French native.
That’s why I created a course (The Blog French Course) focusing on realistic conversations which will help you gain the confidence you need to speak French with natives. At the beginning you acquire the basics of the language by focusing on everyday life dialogues with the most essential grammar points. Then, as you continue to improve progressively, listening to the audio recordings and paying attention to the explanations, YOU become more and more actor of your learning and you will notice the progress that you’ve made while consolidating your knowledge.
Of course there's no magic recipee, you just got to believe in yourself, and I've created this blog especially for this purpose. I want to share with you many tips and explanations to stay motivated, understand everything about this beautiful French language, and some great aspects of French culture.
Bon courage!