Cultivate Your French

When we visited the Cité internationale de la langue française in Villers-Cotterêts last month, I came across an edition of Émile Zola's Carnets d'enquêtes. The famous novelist took copious notes before writing his novels. His notes were sometimes bits of sentences, words or even complete and precise descriptions. The book was only there for consultation, but I was lucky enough to find a second-hand copy at the Gibert bookshop. This is a unique bookshop in Paris that sells new and second-hand books on the same shelves. I placed my order and went to pick it up this morning. I took the metro at Saint-Lazare. The bookshop is on boulevard Saint-Michel, not far from Odéon station. On the way, I noticed a lady reading. That's what I'm going to tell you about today.  In the notes that come with the transcript, I'll focus on three sentence structures that are very natural in French. Often, these are expressions that we understand, that we don't pay attention to, and that we forget to use when we speak. This way, you