In “A Bit of French with A&C” podcast series, you’ll listen to Kwiziq superstars Aurélie and Céline‘s light-hearted chats in French about fun (and random) topics. To help you practise your listening skills, these podcasts will be accompanied by some useful vocab, grammar lessons, and interesting links to go further! Bonne écoute !
👂Today’s podcast: “Souvenirs d’école”
First of all, thank you so much for your lovely comments on the previous podcasts: please keep leaving us feedback and contributing your own anecdotes, we love reading you! 🥰
In today’s podcast, A&C (that’s us!) are discussing their favourite (and least favourite!) school subjects, and reminiscing about special teachers that left a lasting impression. Bonne écoute !
🧐 A Bit of Context
To help you navigate the organisation of the French school system, here’s a short list of a typical school journey in France, complete with the specific names of classes and types of schools:
- L’école maternelle – 3 years
- la petite section – 3 y.o.
- la moyenne section – 4 y.o
- la grande section – 5 y.o
- L’école primaire – 5 years
- le CP (Cours Préparatoire) – 6 y.o.
- le CE1 (Cours Élémentaire 1) – 7 y.o.
- le CE2 (Cours Élémentaire 2) – 8 y.o.
- le CM1 (Cours Moyen 1) – 9 y.o.
- le CM2 (Cours Moyen 2) – 10 y.o.
- Le collège – 4 years
- la 6e (Sixième) – 11 y.o
- la 5e (Cinquième) – 12 y.o
- la 4e (Quatrième) – 13 y.o
- la 3e (Troisième) – 14 y.o
- Le lycée – 3 years
- la 2nde (Seconde) – 15 y.o.
- la 1ère (Première) – 16 y.o.
- la Terminale – 17 y.o.
- Le Baccalauréat (final exam)
🔠 Vocabulary Pit Stop
Here’s some useful vocabulary featured in this podcast for you to learn and/or review:
- la rentrée des classes = first day of the school year / first day back to school after a break
- les langues vivantes = modern languages
- Ben tiens… = Well, here… (for example)
- la famille royale britannique = the British royal family
- autrement = otherwise
- un prof d’histoire-géo = A History-Geography teacher [re: in France, these 2 subjects are usually taught by the same teacher as a “twin” subject]
- participer à un concours = to take part in a competition
- deux fois d’affilée = twice in a row
- La classe ! = Cool/Classy!
- la sous-préfecture = sub-prefecture
- les petits fours = appetisers/canapés
- Tu m’étonnes ! = No kidding/I bet/No wonder!
- l’E.P.S. (l’Education Physique et Sportive) = P.E. / Phys.Ed.
- redouter [quelque chose] = to dread [something]
- remonter loin = to go back far
- une file = a queue/a line
- Ce n’est pas mon dada ! = It’s not my cup of tea!
- meubler = to fill the space/to pad (with words)
- “Peux mieux faire” = Can do better
- marrant/marrante = funny
- irradier [quelque chose] = to radiate [something]
- affiner [quelque chose] = to refine [something]
- une dédicace = a dedication (written or printed)
Proper Nouns:
- René Descartes (French philosopher)
- M. Séradin (Céline’s French teacher)
- Mme Mélinat (Aurélie’s French teacher 1)
- Les sœurs Brontë (Brontë sisters, English writers)
- Louisa May Alcott (US writer)
- “Les Hauts de Hurlevent” (“Wuthering Heights” – novel by Emily Brontë)
- “Jane Eyre” (novel by Charlotte Brontë)
- Mme Cottin (Aurélie’s French teacher 2)
- Philippe Delerm (French writer)
🙉 Peux-tu entendre cette phrase ?
Ready for a little challenge? Listen out for this sentence taken from the podcast:
“Une des seules choses qui m’est restée de mes cours de philo, c’est la fameuse citation de Descartes : “Je pense donc je suis”… voilà … que j’ai d’ailleurs utilisée sur [sic. dans] une dissertation quand j’ai fait ma formation d’enseignante au Royaume-Uni.”
To help you practise your grammar, here’s a list of Kwiziq lessons related to this sentence:
- Qui = Who/which/that (French Relative Pronouns)
- Conjugate rester (+ être) in the compound past in French (Le Passé Composé)
- Adjectives ending in -eux become -euse in the feminine in French
- Que = Whom/which/that (French Relative Pronouns)
- Conjugate regular -er verbs (+ avoir) in the compound past in French (Le Passé Composé)
- Special cases when the past participle agrees (in number & gender) when used with ‘avoir’ in the compound past in French (Le Passé Composé)
- Conjugate faire (+ avoir) in the compound past in French (Le Passé Composé)
✏️ More practice! More!
Want to practise your French knowledge on this topic? Have a go at these amazing Kwiziq exercises:
- Dictée (Premium subscribers only) – Rentrée de professeur (B2)
- Writing Challenge (Premium subscribers only) – The morning of the first day back to school(A1)
- Gapfill – Mon prof préféré (A2 L’Imparfait conjugations)
Not Premium yet? Now’s a great time to upgrade! You’ll get unlimited exercises, kwizzes and multiple notebooks to help you stay organised and make progress faster, plus Weekend Workouts exercises every week.
🤗 À vous de jouer !
Now it’s your turn to speak/write! Tell us about your favourite (or least favourite!) school subjects and teachers in the comments below – en français bien sûr !
Allez, à bientôt, et vive l’école !
Author info
Aurélie is our resident French Expert. She has created most of the wonderful content you see on the site and is usually the person answering your tricky help questions. She comes from a small village near Chartres in Central France, country of cereal fields and not much else. She left (in a hurry) to study English at the world-famous Sorbonne in Paris, before leaving France in 2007 to experience the “London lifestyle” - and never looked back! She's worked as a professional French teacher, translator and linguist in the UK since. She loves to share her love of languages and is a self-professed cinema and literature geek!
For over ten years now, Céline has been teaching French and Italian to students of all ages and abilities in the UK. This French native speaker comes from Brittany, and likes crafts, Breton dance (of course!) and Breton music which she actually played for four years. She also has a fondness for European cinema and British History.