As Charlmagne once said, “To have another language is to possess a second soul.”

Welcome to French Fantastique – A French for Beginners Series.

People have always asked me to help them learn French. But teaching French was never something I set out to do and I simply wasn’t sure I could do it.

Having tried a few one-to-one lessons with friends who were complete beginners, the feedback was that I put them at ease and gave them to space to make their mistakes. They could feel like an idiot with someone like me who was sympathetic and we could have a laugh about it together.

After a few lessons, they were happy with my approach and felt that they were finally learning French. And for me personally, it was unexpectedly rewarding to see those people grow in confidence to a point where they were able to have a conversation with me, even in basic French, and hopefully in real-life situations. And just as important was that I was actually enjoying it too.

In my experience, one of the reasons why people wanting to learn French stumble at the beginning is that they get put off by the sheer volume of what they realise they need to know. Grammar books can be daunting as there is just so much information in one place. I started to believe that many of these people would be better off with bite-sized learning.

Which is why I started to write French lessons for my blog – Dordogne-Life (closes end of January 2026). From those lessons, I started to write a series of French for Beginners books (3). And here we are! Books 1 & 2 are published, Book 3 is due to be published by the end of October 2025.

I have also worked as a language assistant (French and Spanish) in a secondary school in the UK. I also stepped in on a regular basis and taught the French classes on my own at the same school.

I have experience of teaching English as a foreign language to nurses in Bordeaux.

My books are available to buy on Amazon, click the links below.