Hi everybody, BigBong here and today I have a very special guest
Elisa from French Mornings
How are you? Good, how are you?
Not too bad, thank you
So how is the lockdown and everything?
I'm doing ok
I'm getting really busy with this new YouTube channel
So basically, I have my mind on that
I'm not really frustrated to not be doing anything else
Yeah I can imagine, it's ok
So a lot of people ask me for advice, tools and resources to learn French
Now I recently discovered your channel
And I thought to myself that even though it's pretty new
it's actually perfect for those who are learning the language
You don't speak too fast, the audiovisual quality
as well as the editing make it very enjoyable to watch
And on top of that, you teach very useful idiomatic expressions
But you also talk about the French culture and history
Would you like to introduce yourself and tell us more about
your channel and yourself?
Yeah so... hi guys!
My name is Elisa, I'm 28 years old
I'm French and last year, I started giving classes on italki
And since then, I realized that teaching is something that I enjoy
And also teaching languages is something that I enjoy even more
I've been teaching on and off
Let's say for the whole year 2020
Since a few months, I decided that this is actually
what I really want to do now so
I'm trying to be serious about this
Nice, awesome, I wish you all the best!
Thanks!
And I think we have a similar way of learning and teaching languages
especially with movies, TV shows, travelling
When did you really feel like you started learning
and speaking English yourself, and in what kind of environment?
Where you an exchange student or did you do an internship?
Or have you ever worked in English?
Not really, actually I kinda taught myself English
When I was a teenager, I really liked to sing
Aaah nice!
We were a few friends always singing
So of course, we would sing in English
And I remember that I started to sing some songs
from the Disney movies
And that's actually how I started learning, I think
What was your favorite song?
"I just can't wait to be king"
Oh yeah, the Lion King
I love that one
And basically all of my favorite...
Oh yeah... Aladdin
I think that's my favorite one
Yeah I think I learned English through music
But usually in France, people watch Disney movies in French
So does that mean you were watching them in English?
No, I watched the movies in French
But then, I was like 12 years old
So I had watched all of the Disney movies in French
And then I started like
It was just the beginning of YouTube
and you could find the Disney songs in every languages possible
So I started searching for those kind of videos
And then yeah, finding the lyrics as well
Awesome!
So singing... which is a very useful and very powerful
mnemonic way of learning languages, I should say
Apart from that, you've met people
You had to speak in English
Do you have any anecdotes or funny stories
about some miscommunication you had in English
as you were learning the language or you still have today
So I think the most embarrassing one...
I was in Tanzania and I was having a party
with some expats, I don't know
We were working together
I was wearing a dress... So this is important for the story
There was a guy who was managing the music
And he wanted to put a new song
And he said something like
"Are you all ready for your panties to drop off the floor?"
And I said: "I'm not wearing any!"
Because I thought that "panties" meant "pants"
Yeah like "trousers"
So I was like: "Yeah I'm wearing a dress..."
So everybody must have thought "oh that naughty girl"
Yeah and actually everybody was like "huh French people..."
But actually nobody really cared
They were like: "Ok, you do you girl"
"I'm fine with that"
Wow that's pretty funny though
Yeah so it was embarrassing
But when I think about it, actually people didn't care
But hold on, when did you realize?
Did people tell you right away, when it happened?
Or did you realize it afterwards
I think I realized afterwards
Like "why are they all looking at me?"
I didn't say anything weird
And then I thought: "Oh ok no, panties... not pants"
Not the same thing...
When you learn English, are you more inclined to learn
British English or American English, do you have a preference?
I would say that I prefer British English
I wish I had the British Accent
But when I'm learning, I don't really mind
I know it would be better for me to memorize what kind of
vocabulary they use in the United States
and what kind of vocabulary they use in England
But to be honest, I don't really...
I'm not trying to make any efforts
But you still have a weak spot for the British accent
Yeah like a lot of people
We do learn the British way in French schools
I don't think my accent is the result of my English classes
back then, right
It's more like I really liked watching Game of Thrones
I wanted to talk like them, so I tried to
you know, repeat after them
Yeah I tried to practice the British accent but after some point
I kinda gave up, I mean I stopped
And yeah, now I'm just happy with my English at this point
You know, that's actually one of my main struggles
because I used to learn English with British people
I used to go to England many times
So I sounded a little bit more European
But then I came to Canada
I started working for an American company
And it kinda... like people didn't understand everything I was saying
And at a certain point, you don't...
It's a bit annoying when people ask you
"Are you from the UK?"
"Are you from Europe?"
So you just don't want people to ask you that
And you just start mimicking and adapting
the accent from the country you're in
So I wish still had my accent back in the days
But I think if go back to London, in England, my accent will shift
It's the same thing with my French
When I go back to France, my accent switches back to
European French but I'm here in Canada, in Montreal
So when I speak to Quebecois friends
I tend to have a tiny different accent
I think we have that kinda of way of being a sponge with accents
Like if I speak English with someone who has a British accent
I'm not even going to realize it
but I'm going to mimic the accent without trying
I know you teach on italki
By the way, if you want to take lessons with her
her link will be in the description
What is your background regarding teaching?
I always had a soft spot for languages
Like really really
I was always learning something like it was English
for a very long time and these last few years
I've been learning other languages
But I feel like I know what it is to learn it
You need the method
Where do you need to start?
I also really like French, I think it's a great language
I love our idioms, I think they're really funny sometimes
So no, I didn't study languages *at the university
I might do it in the future
I think that's something I would really enjoy
So maybe, we'll see
What is your approach when you teach?
What does a usual lesson with you look like?
So basically, it would really depend on the level of the students
I teach both beginners and intermediate
and even more advanced students
Sometimes I'm really impressed by some people's level
I'm like wow!
If I were you, I wouldn't even take classes
So with beginners, I would really focus on pronunciation
and spelling because French is complicated
It's not very logical
You need to remember a few rules and also, you need to practice
So I like to practice pronunciation with reading for example
And I also teach them some useful idioms
or short sentences so that they have already the feeling
that they can speak and can have a conversation
even a basic one
And for more intermediate students, I would focus both
on conversation and grammar
And for intermediate students, I would work mostly on idioms
because I think that's what makes the difference between
a good level and a really really good level
Like if you can start using the idioms of the language
especially in French, we use them so often!
I think that's what makes the difference
I'm curious, are you learning any other languages at the moment?
Yeah at the moment, I'm learning Italian
Cool!
I've been trying to be a bit more serious about learning languages
Is there a particular reason for that?
I'm actually super inspired by my students
I'm like: "these guys are so dedicated!"
I also need to practice
Yeah so I started learning Italian like a year and a half ago
But I wasn't really consistent
Now back to the topic of your YouTube channel
So it's very recent
When exactly did you start or did you start thinking about it?
And how did you come up with this idea?
So I started thinking about it a few months ago
Yeah as I said, I was planning to create something to help people
I would say that my channel is more for
intermediate French learners
But also for beginners who want to listen to more French
Like even though you don't understand as much
I think it's still very important to listen to the language
as much as possible when you're starting
So yeah, I came up with that a few months ago
So yeah new year 2021, I was like
ok now, let's do this!
Absolutely and again, all the best to you and your channel
So what can we expect on your channel?
I saw that it was very cultural, you talked about
numbers in French, you talked about...
What is it in English? La galette des rois...
So French pastries
and everything that's related to that with history
What kind of topics can we expect, for the next few weeks?
So there is definitely going to be more videos about food
I love that! It's a great topic, right?
And then, I think this was very fun!
So I hope I will meet other YouTubers
and that we'll make some videos together
about languages, about French and idioms
I will also try to add maybe conversations videos
So maybe with some friends, talking about any topics
And I think listening to conversations is also a great way to
to practice the language
Absolutely
Thank you so much for accepting my invitation
So again, if you want to learn French, visit her italki account
And also, subscribe to her channel where we actually made another video
in French, so if you're learning the language, go check it out!
Don't forget to subscribe to support this channel
Like and share if you enjoyed this interview
And I'll see you soon for more videos, bye!