Margarita Smagina

You don’t have to be 100% proficient to read and understand "serious" literature in French. With this selection of short excerpts from French-language works of fiction, you will explore the themes of freedom, difference, memory, and language. This will allow you to strengthen your speaking and reading skills, as well as deepen your knowledge of les lettres françaises.

January 21: Difference
Assia Djebar - L’Amour, la fantasia (1985)

You may sign up here for one session only for $28, or choose a bundle of four for $105.

You don’t have to be 100% proficient to read and understand "serious" literature in French. With this selection of short excerpts from French-language works of fiction, you will explore the themes of freedom, difference, memory, and language. This will allow you to strengthen your speaking and reading skills, as well as deepen your knowledge of les lettres françaises.

January 28: Memory
Patrick Modiano - Dora Bruder (1997)

You may sign up here for one session only for $28, or choose a bundle of four for $105.

You don’t have to be 100% proficient to read and understand "serious" literature in French. With this selection of short excerpts from French-language works of fiction, you will explore the themes of freedom, difference, memory, and language. This will allow you to strengthen your speaking and reading skills, as well as deepen your knowledge of les lettres françaises.

February 4: Language
Nancy Huston - Nord perdu (1999)

You may sign up here for one session only for $28, or choose a bundle of four for $105.

This grammar-oriented series of workshops will allow you to strengthen all of your language skills by focusing on some of the ways in which different parts of speech function in French.

January 18: Pronoms
What about all these y and en that seem to be all over the place? Why do we need them, and how to use them accurately?

This grammar-oriented series of workshops will allow you to strengthen all of your language skills by focusing on some of the ways in which different parts of speech function in French.

January 25: Verbes I
Verbs set languages in motion! We will look at the French verbs of movement in the most commonly used tenses (présent / passé composé / futur simple).

This grammar-oriented series of workshops will allow you to strengthen all of your language skills by focusing on some of the ways in which different parts of speech function in French.

February 1: Verbes II
In the concluding workshop, we will focus on the subjunctive mode, used to express wants and needs (as well as some other things), and dreaded by many English-speaking learners of French.

This series of workshops will allow you not only to develop your translation skills, but also learn how the French language works “from inside out” by comparing and contrasting it with English. Each workshop will introduce a specific translation challenge, illustrated by the short texts of various genres.

January 20: Translating neologisms and invented vocabulary
Boris Vian - L'Écume des jours (1947)

This series of workshops will allow you not only to develop your translation skills, but also learn how the French language works “from inside out” by comparing and contrasting it with English. Each workshop will introduce a specific translation challenge, illustrated by the short texts of various genres.

January 27: Translating metalanguage
Jeanne Favret-Saada - Les Mots, la Mort, les Sorts : la sorcellerie dans le bocage (1977)

This series of workshops will allow you not only to develop your translation skills, but also learn how the French language works “from inside out” by comparing and contrasting it with English. Each workshop will introduce a specific translation challenge, illustrated by the short texts of various genres.

Febryary 3: Translating gender-inclusive language
Iris Brey - Le Regard féminin : Une révolution à l'écran (2020)