Bonjour… I’m starting to realise that their were lots of things people tell you when you’re at school/college that were correct. I mean don’t get me wrong there was a lot of nonsense people told me in both school and college…and on the flip side I reckon I also spoke a fair amount of nonsense, but I’m getting away from my point. The one great thing about being at school and college is…it’s free (unless your parents had a few quid spare…but it’s still free for you!). What you don’t appreciate at that age is that all this info they give you…you have to pay handsomely for as an adult! One subject that I always enjoyed was the delights of French…and why I didn’t carry it on when leaving school I’ll never know…as now I have the pleasure of visiting on a semi regular basis this wonderful country where the wine flows like water, cheese and bread are a staple, and no ducks are safe, whilst the entire country stops operating at meal times, I wished I was better at the language! The occasional bonjour, ca va, or j’ai réservé une table…all the while praying that “parlez vous anglais” was going to cut it and give me the answer we all want…“Oui”…followed by a smiley face. Fat chance of that!

Anyway…I decided that if I’m going to be spending more and more time somewhere I should probably start to learn the lingo a little more…looked into night school (very punchy…but something for a New Years resolution I feel, as November and December are a bit mental to start something like this), I considered tapping up anyone I knows that speaks French to maybe go for a weekly brew with and see if I can steal some of their French from them.

Finally I settled with…my first ever Audio Book…I’ve not read a real book properly truth be told since James and the Giant Peach back in the day (great read if you haven’t read already)…so I was nervous about having someone read to me. After much balling around in the iTunes Store (for French audio books) I picked out this treat… Learn French with Paul Noble (Volume 1…I’m going back to basics)…and I must say Paul is what I would describe as a Wizard of the language world so far. I’m a couple of hours in and starting to pick it up again. I’ll report back as I complete volumes 1-4 and even throw in the odd phrase for free on here! If you’re learning along with me then let me know how you’re getting on! MJB (who still has no idea whether what I’m writing is what is intended for this kind of thing)

You can tell by the picture that Paul Noble is an utter #lad