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Chapitre 1 – Quelque chose ne collait vraiment pas !

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James has been summoned to Paris by his friend Max under mysterious circumstances. Unsure of what to expect, he heads to the apartment where Max lives. But what will he find there?

Welcome to the first episode of our new podcast for advanced French learners. In each episode of the story, published fortnightly, we’ll be following a chapter of La Vérité éclate toujours, specially written to help you build your knowledge of French and extend your range of expression. In the episodes, teacher Mark and narrator Pierre-Benoît will discuss the story, helping you to improve your listening skills.

There’s also an online course version of La Vérité éclate toujours which provides access to a range of additional materials including the text of each chapter, annotated notes, language study podcasts, vocabulary lists, video versions of each episode and our atelier linguistique which helps you to take the language you’ve covered in each chapter further. This course is available on the Coffee Break Academy.

Meet James, Coffee Break Spanish, Italian, French and Swedish learner

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This week, 31 year old Gardener, James from the South of England, tells us how he transitioned from having no knowledge of any foreign languages to becoming a language enthusiast, thanks to learning with Coffee Break.

For the past 20 years, James has been making trips to his holiday home in Torrevieja, just south of Alicante in Spain. However, admittedly, it took him some time to start learning Spanish. He tells us how he came to the realisation that a little language goes a long way:

“It didn’t even occur to me to start learning Spanish because the natives are so keen to speak English to tourists and it didn’t feel overly necessary. One day however, I noticed that my brother was attempting to speak in Spanish to the waiters etc a lot more and with some success. It was on that holiday 7 years ago that I was first introduced to Coffee Break. Fast forward to today, and I am now able to speak, write and read Spanish very well and will be sitting my A-level exams this year.”

James also credits Coffee Break Spanish for playing a part in meeting his other half: “Coffee Break also played a part in me meeting my now fiancée, who is French, which we’ll come to in a moment. I’m a gardener and I listen while I work. I was working at her rented accommodation listening to CBS when she overheard the Spanish. Somewhat intrigued, this led to a long conversation about languages, which led to our first date and the rest as they say is history!”

After meeting his French fiancée, James felt motivated to start learning French with Coffee Break. “Given that I was now dating a French girl I felt I ought to make an effort to learn French. 5 years on and I’m now speaking French to a good standard, all thanks to Coffee Break French!”

He didn’t stop there! Having gained a solid understanding of Spanish and French, James felt it was time to try his hand at Italian. “The fantastic Coffee Break Italian has allowed me to reach a good standard of Italian”. James is fortunate enough to have 2 Italian clients with whom he can practise what he learns from the lessons.

With three foreign languages under his belt, James admits that he caught the bug for language learning and has now set his sights on learning German and Chinese: “I couldn’t resist Coffee Break German and Chinese and again, thanks to Coffee Break, I have reached a basic level of both languages.”

It seems that this is only the beginning of his new found passion for language learning as he shares his plans to use some of our other courses: “I was absolutely delighted to hear the news about Coffee Break English for Spanish speakers because I can learn from the Spanish spoken in the lessons! Also, the announcement that Swedish would be added to the Coffee Break family was music to my ears.” He had previously been learning Danish but after hearing news of Coffee Break Swedish he decided to take a different route: “Given that Swedish isn’t too different from Danish I have decided to switch to learning Swedish and I can’t wait!” James has also been learning Portuguese on the side and hinted that he’s awaiting a Coffee Break Portuguese course!

It is clear that James has a passion and enthusiasm for language learning which has benefitted him greatly. James reflects on what language learning has done for him:

“Being a gardener who often uses machinery such as lawnmowers and strimmers, I can often expose myself to up to 10 hours a day of language listening at work. Coffee Break has been a godsend to me in these hours and has turned me from somebody who knew absolutely no foreign language, to somebody who can now converse in over 7 languages. Perhaps even better though, is the fact that being able to speak the language of a country, it unlocks so much more culture that wouldn’t be available to anybody not able to speak that language. I was able to attend una feria in a small village in Almería where very little English was spoken, and really experience that aspect of the culture as a native would, just because I was able to speak with the locals.”

James finishes with the following message for the Coffee Break team:

“Thank you so much for all you do, to Mark and indeed everyone at Radio Lingua… it feels great to share my amazing Coffee Break experience with you all!”

CBE 1.06 | One, two, three… – Los números

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Únete a Mark, un hablante nativo, y a la estudiante María en el último episodio de nuestro curso de inglés para principiantes. En la Lección 6, continuarás aprendiendo sobre el tema de los miembros de la familia y aprenderás a contar del 1 al 10 en inglés.

La Vérité éclatera … le 1er juin 2020

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We’re delighted to announce that La Vérité éclate toujours, our new advanced French course, will launch on Monday 1st June. Given the current situation we’re not able to access our studio, so we’ve been putting in place new systems for recording the content and we’re excited that the “truth will out” very soon.

La Vérité éclate toujours is an audio drama which we think you’re going to love. However, this podcast will not be available on the normal Coffee Break French feed. Instead you need to subscribe to a new feed specifically for this new show. If you’re using Apple Podcasts, click here. Alternatively, just search for “Coffee Break French” on your favourite podcast app and you’ll find the new feed for La Vérité éclate toujours there.

If you find La Vérité éclate toujours is at too high a level for you, please check out our other Coffee Break French podcasts.

You can find support materials for this show in the online course for La Vérité éclate toujours on the Coffee Break Academy.

Meet Heather, Coffee Break French learner

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Tell us who you are, where you live, your nationality and how long you’ve been learning a language with us.

My name is Heather, and I live in Madoc, Ontario, Canada. I am Canadian, but come from Scottish parents. I started listening and downloading the Coffee Break French podcasts a few years ago.

What experience have you had speaking and learning other languages?

My immediate family speaks only English. I have had prior lessons in French, a very long time ago while in public school. French classes were mandatory in grades four to eight. I’m afraid that I did not enjoy those classes as they were not fun or engaging for me, and were only one hour a week.

I somehow stumbled upon Coffee Break French about a year after it started and listened just out of curiosity. I ended up hooked! My husband is in the military, and the Base where he is posted offered French lessons with wonderful and engaging instructors to military family members. I signed up, and because of Coffee Break French, I was allowed to start at a higher level, which I did complete. I used my Coffee Break podcasts to augment my learning. I signed up for the next level course, but it was cancelled because of a lack of students. Since then, I had a change in employment, which made it too difficult to attend classes in the evenings offered. My French learning was sidelined!I did try some other online French classes, but I grew bored very quickly with the picture and flash card techniques they all seem to use. Repetitive phases did not work for me, so I gave up on it.

Over the last year or so though, I found that I had learned enough French through Coffee Break, that I would often find myself reading the French side of pamphlets or other bilingual writings, signs, etc. I did not know every word that I read, but I would often get the gist of what I was reading. So, a couple of months ago I started listening to Coffee Break French again during my commute to and from work. Well, I came to the realisation that signing up for the course would take me to the next level, so I registered!

What are your favourite memories of learning a language?

I think my favourite memories of learning French is when I have made attempts to speak to my French speaking friends or to shopkeepers, etc., and was met with a funny little smile or chuckle because I had not quite got something right. They enthusiastically corrected me, but also said how much they appreciated my efforts. I found this especially true when I travelled in Quebec and France.

Where would your ideal coffee break be, and with whom?

I would love to return to Nice and converse with any of the local people there!

What’s the best language-learning tip you have found works for you?

With living in Canada, packaging on all store products is written in both French and English, as is any literature found in government buildings. I like to try reading the French sides of these items and then read the English side after to see how well I understood what I read in French.

Quickfire round

• Your favourite language: French
• Your favourite word or phrase in the language: Any word where I get to roll my “Rs “.
• Do you have a favourite film, TV show, book or singer in the language? Céline Dion
• Your favourite destination to practise your language: Anywhere on the French coast!

Please finish off with a message to your fellow members of the Coffee Break community and the Coffee Break Team.

Thank-you Coffee Break Team for all the hard work you put into your language lessons. I truly believe Coffee Break offers the best resources to learn a new language as it goes well beyond just memorising phrases. I love the fact that you teach how to actually use and construct the languages, and that it is taught at a nice, easy pace. The explanations are always so clear and easy to understand. The best part of all is the amazing amount of free material to get you started and it’s taught with real life situations and in a mature manner.

To all my fellow Coffee Break learners, enjoy your learning experience! I wish you all the best in your endeavours!

CBE 1.04 | Where do you live? – ¿Dónde vives?

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¡Bienvenido a Coffee Break English! En la Lección 4, aprenderás a hablar sobre dónde vives. Únete al profesor Mark y a la estudiante María, quien también es una principiante, y aprende inglés con ellos en este nuevo curso. ¡Solo necesitarás una pausa para el café!

CBE 1.03 | Where are you from? – ¿De dónde eres?

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¡Bienvenido a Coffee Break English! En la Lección 3, aprenderás a decir de dónde vienes y a preguntar a los demás. Únete al profesor Mark y a la estudiante María, quien también es una principiante, y aprende inglés con ellos en este nuevo curso. ¡Solo necesitarás una pausa para el café!

Meet Emma, Coffee Break Spanish learner

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Tell us who you are, where you live, your nationality and how long you’ve been learning a language with us.

I’m Emma, and I’ve been living in Germany for 12 years. I’m British and naturalised German, and I’ve been using the Coffee Break Spanish Masterclass since October. I also tried Coffee Break Spanish for a while a number of years back, but I had to take a break with my Spanish learning due to being a busy working mum!

What experience have you had speaking and learning other languages?

I learnt German at school before forgetting everything except ja, nein and ich bin zwölf Jahre alt, and then moved to Germany to be with my boyfriend when I was 22. I pretty much started over with German in intensive adult education classes which were brilliant because there was such a mix of nationalities that you HAD to speak (hesitantly) in German even in the breaks because there was no other common language. I took Goethe exams up to a C1 level and found it really helpful to be immersed in the language every day. A little over a decade later, I still use my German every day for plenty of things, not least my work – I’m a translator and work translating German texts into English.

As far as Spanish goes, I started learning around 8 or 9 years ago, again at evening classes where I live. The progress wasn’t as fast as I’d wanted, because of course we had German as a common language so if the right word didn’t spring to mind then saying it in German was easier. I don’t recommend learning a third language “from” your second language necessarily, it was very confusing! Then I let it slide a bit while my sons were little, and in the last year or so I’ve been picking it back up with Coffee Break Spanish, other podcasts, books and TV shows.

What are your favourite memories of learning a language?

It’s hard to choose! Probably a toss-up between being complimented on how good my English was in Nuremberg once when interpreting a German language guided tour for my parents – I should hope it’s good given that it’s my mother tongue! – and getting to hear all the speeches at our wedding twice because they were all in both English and German. Spanish-wise, visiting Barcelona and being able to understand menus and communicate a little.

Where would your ideal coffee break be, and with whom?

I’d like to be able to speak Spanish with an acquaintance of mine who lives nearby – at the moment we communicate in German but I’d like to switch to speaking Spanish with her!

What’s the best language-learning tip you have found works for you?

Immersion! As much as you can, switch your everyday activities over to your target languages. Reading books, watching TV shows, listening to podcasts while you work out or travel, anything you can find that makes the language a natural part of your day.

Quick-fire round

• Favourite language: At the moment it’s still German – sorry Spanish!
• Favourite word or phrase in the language: Doch – so versatile and I miss it in English!
• Favourite film, TV show, book or singer in the language? Fanta 4 are always good
• Favourite destination to practise your language: The town I live in in Lower Franconia

Please finish off with a message to your fellow members of the Coffee Break community and the Coffee Break Team.

Thanks for the thorough and well-thought out content you produce!

CBE 1.02 | What’s your name? – Saludos y presentaciones

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¡Bienvenido a Coffee Break English! En la Lección 2 aprenderás a saludar dependiendo del momento del día que sea, y serás capaz de presentarte a los demás. Únete al profesor Mark y a la estudiante María, quien también es una principiante, y aprende inglés con ellos en este nuevo curso. ¡Solo necesitarás una pausa para el café!

CBE 1.01 | I’m very well, thanks – Estoy muy bien, gracias

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¡Bienvenido a Coffee Break English! En la Lección 1 aprenderás a saludar, a decir cómo estás y a preguntar a los demás. Únete al profesor Mark y a la estudiante María, quien también es una principiante, y aprende inglés con ellos en este nuevo curso. ¡Solo necesitarás una pausa para el café!

Join the Coffee Break Choir

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We’re bringing together the Coffee Break Community from around the world for a one-off creative event. Right now we believe that spreading some love around the world is important, so we’ve chosen the Nat King Cole song L-O-V-E, which just happens to have versions in French, German, Spanish and Italian as well as the original English. We’d like you to film yourself singing in English and in the foreign language you’re learning, and we’ll put together a video featuring the members of the community joined together in song.

For rehearsal videos, lyric sheets and everything else you need to know about this project, please visit the Coffee Break Choir page here.

CBS Mag 3.10 | La serie del momento

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In this final episode of this season of the Coffee Break Spanish Magazine, we discuss the popular Spanish crime television series, La Casa de Papel. In response to listener, John’s question, Fernanda explains how to say “to try” in Spanish, and more specifically, when to use the verb tratar, or the verb intentar. To finish, Anabel explains the meaning behind an interesting expression.

Meet James Michael, Coffee Break French and Italian learner

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Tell us who you are, where you live, your nationality and how long you’ve been learning a language with us.

My name is James and I was born and raised in Southern California in a very mono-lingual family. I started learning Spanish at school when I was 12 years old. Changing schools meant that even though I passed Spanish One with an A grade the first time around, I had to retake different versions of Spanish One with different textbooks three more times. Finally, after settling into one school for three years, I got to take the next two years of Spanish courses. Having a pretty good grounding in Spanish, I then spent the next ten years working in restaurants in California where in many instances I was the only English speaker in the back of the house.

Fast forward twenty years and I found myself working on a ranch in Arizona where I met an outfitter that did two week horseback camping trips with guests from Europe. Working for them for two years I found myself learning basic phrases and words in German and French. I also met an English woman who later became my wife. We moved to England (Northumberland) for four years to get visas for the both of us to live in each other’s countries.

Since I was from a sunny, warm climate, my wife recognised that I might need to find warmer weather. On a trip to Barcelona, I found that while walking through the airport, my Spanish came back to me. It felt like I was at home in a “foreign” country. Since Catalan is the prevalent language in Barcelona, it seemed natural to learn it. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a way to learn Catalan online. The language seemed to me (wrongly of course) to be a mixture of French and Spanish. This led to learning French with the free Coffee Break French podcasts that I found on iTunes. We travelled to Paris a couple of times and found the basics I had learned from your podcasts felt fairly comfortable there.

Moving back to the United States to work as a tour guide at the Grand Canyon, I was the only Spanish speaking guide the company (Pink Jeep Tours) had at that location and having a forty-five minute commute gave me plenty of time to listen to Mark and Anna from Coffee Break French. Soon I was doing tours with guests from both Spanish and French speaking countries.

I have now purchased the premium editions of Coffee Break French Seasons 3 and 4, Coffee Break Reading Club (Spanish and French), and En Route avec Coffee Break French. The latter was particularly fun because my wife and I were planning a trip to Nice to coincide with a trip back to Northumberland to visit family and friends.

We now reside in Sedona Arizona where I still work for Pink Jeep Tours, but very seldom use Spanish or French because while Sedona is a major tourist destination, we seldom get international guests as we did at Grand Canyon. We still visit Northumberland every year and take a side trip to either Spain or France each time. I still feel my brain “switching channels” as we walk through airports.

A friend from the London area is renting a villa in Tuscany for her 60th birthday and we will be joining her and other friends there for a week so now I’m working on Coffee Break Italian.

What experience have you had speaking and learning other languages?

I love spending time in France and Spain and being able to converse with locals. As I grew up just a short drive north of Mexico I used to travel there when I was younger and was delighted at the look on people’s faces when they found out I spoke their language. I have heard from acquaintances that when travelling to other countries, the locals can be quite rude. But while I am travelling I find I am greeted warmly when people find that I have taken time to learn their language.

What are your favourite memories of learning a language?

My favourite memories are when I’ve spoken to a local shopkeeper or just about any other local for a couple of minutes before they realise from the cut of my clothes and my “strange” accent that I’m not from “around there”. Since my wife has a British accent they figure me to be a Brit also, and comment how strange it is to find an Englishman that speaks another language. I really love the shocked faces when they find that I’m an American that travels to Europe.

Where would your ideal coffee break be, and with whom?

Just about any cafe on the Mediterranean would be fine with me.

What’s the best language-learning tip you have found works for you?

Practise every day. Even just a couple of minutes a day helps keep things fresh in your brain. DON’T try to cram your brain with long sessions of learning. More than a half hour or so seems too much like work and you won’t learn as fast or as easily.

Quick-fire Round

Favourite language: French
Favourite word or phrase in the language: s’il vous plaît
Favourite destination to practise your language: Nice, Côte d’Azure

Please finish off with a message to your fellow members of the Coffee Break community and the Coffee Break Team

Have fun, practise often, but never for long periods of time. If travelling by plane to where you plan on speaking your new language, strap on your headphones and be ready when you hit the ground.

CBS Mag 3.09 | La Gastronomía Mexicana

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It’s time for another episode of the Coffee Break Spanish Magazine! We hope you’re hungry as this week’s episode is all about Mexican food. Listener Jorge would like to know more about the phrase el uno al otro and Sofía shares a joke about a much loved Mexican dish.

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