Cuisinez-vous le français? That’s the abiding question driving the newest (and perhaps most engaging) language program online today.
Though it’s been over ten years since I last pursued French studies in an academic capacity, I never stop learning. Each conversation with a shopkeeper, a new French friend, colleagues or even my accountant, keeps me on my toes and invariably teaches me a word or idiom that hadn’t yet wiggled its way into my linguistic toolbox. My work writing about food and, on occasion, design has exposed me to a broader vocabulary but I didn’t always have that opportunity.
When I was in graduate school, instructed in English, I was intent on building my vocabulary. Though my time was limited, I imposed a French-only rule for leisure reading and kept a pocket notebook on hand to mark down the words I struggled to retain or weave into conversation. To be sure, the act of writing the words and their definitions helped make them stick a bit better but I never fully developed the reflex to review the notebook more than once a week. Blame a hectic academic schedule or a lack of patience but religiously jotting down words was where the exercise in rigor…
