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Organising regular meeting to improve a language skills
I'm a French man of nearly 50 years old.
I travel a little so I've rarely occasions to practice other languages.
But I always think to be opened to other cultures is very important so I want to be more and more fluent in English and Spanish languages.
I think it is almost ten years, a friend of mine knowing my desire to be more fluent in languages invites me to join an informal group of friends that meet once a month in a café in the downtown of Nantes. It was a Spanish group with half of this people as native speakers.
There was only one rule. We can speak about everything but only in Spanish.
At the beginning, i found conversations very hard to understand.
Despite I've been studying Spanish language at school for 9 years and being in Spain for 5 months, I quite understand nothing that was said.
I though native speakers spoke very quickly without doing efforts to speak distinctively.
I never spoke at the beginning because the time I need to understand what has been said and what I can add, the conversation has changed of subject ! It was so frustrating.
But I stay and continue to come to the meetings. Several months later, I was able to follow what non native speakers were saying because they spoke slower and with the same accent as me but I was still saying so few words.
And, one day, there was something that was unlock in me. I started to participate actively and spoke severals sentences. I felt very happy because I reached the point where I was able to understand what was said and to reply with new ideas.
My friends were so surprised that I didn't spoke so bad. They were pleased too.
I notice that I did a lot of mistakes and that I didn't use correct words but it didn't matter. The meaning of what I wanted to said was quite well understood. This is the mist important. And, often my mistakes were the ocasions of funny moments and sometimes of laughting ones.
Surely, finding Italki communities give me, and you, to follow a similar method I used. And, with the help of Skype, we can easily create a small group of people that meet together once a month, once a week. Why not ?
Only one rule : speak about everything but only in English for the first part then in French in the second part.
Please, contact me if this idea pleases to you.
Bye.
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Let's have a walk in the centertown of Nantes
With near 600.000 inhabitants in the city and the suburbs, Nantes has the faciliies of a big town but not its problem.
In comparison with bigger city, Nantes seems to be a big village.
Nowadays, the centertown is around a large street whose name is "Cour des 50 otages". Two lines of tramways pass there (numbers 2 and 3) and cross the first one which number is number one and was built in 1986.
So, there is a lot of people that come there for going to work or to have a walk or to do shopping. It depends of the hour of the day !
Let us have a walk around "Le château de la Duchesse Anne de Bretagne" (the castle of the duchess Anne of Bretania). It is at 500 m from our start point. It is a fortified castle and was built in the years 1500 in its most actual form. But the first castle on this place was started to be build in 1207.
It was Anne de Bretagne which marry Charles VIII then Louis XII that give the actual form of the castle. She was well known for being at the origin the unification between France and Bretania when she marry Charles VIII, king of France, at the castle of Langeais in december 1491 when she was 15 years old.
The walkway on the ramparts is free for visiting and is pleasant. It is approxmatively 500 m long and give the impression to go back in the past.
There is a restaurant in the tower of the old dungeon which which name "oblivion" (Les Oubliettes) must not afraid you !
The site is loaded with history.
There is also an interesting museum and an ancient building used for exposition.
Near the castle, there is the cathedral, symbol of the religion power.
Between the castle and the cathedral, the is a large empty place named "Cour Saint-André". And between it, and the carhedral, the garden if the cathedral, a small one, hard to find but so romantic with a beautiful tree in the center a large circle of grass.
In the start of my adult life, I've rent a little appartment near this place and it was very stressless to take a walk in these places.
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A beautifull city, Nantes
In the West side of France, the biggest city is Nantes. But it is not so big that we can lost in it.
There isn't motoways like inside Marseille. There is only one centertown and it is pleasant to walk there.
The river La Loire cross an other one L'Erdre that is smaller but more beautifull. The two rivers make a structure for the town. Many people do jogging on the Erdre's riversides.
It is possible to go on the top of the only one tower of Nantes which name is "Tour Bretagne" and is 104 meters high. There, we can see all the town. We see very well La Loire and quite well L'Erdre and the bridge "La Beaujoire" and the well known stadium with the same name for playing soccer at the East side.
If you look at the in the West-South direction, you'll see at the thin radio antenna that is twice higher than the tower Bretania. Then, going to the South-East side, you follow the river La Loire and you'll find the airport. Sure, the time you're standing, there'll be at least one airplane landing.
If the weather is clear with no humidity in the air (no rain, no fog but no heat that makes condensation), you'll probably see in the West direction the two "pilier" (piles ?) of the bridge of Saint-Nazaire which are tall. It is at 60 km from there, in the sea direction.
Then, if you look to the North, there is only one construction to see, as high as a tower with 27 floors but that is a block whith one thousand appartements and a lot of offices, Le Sillon de Bretagne.
But, the better to see in the North side is near the foot of the tower, with the (quartiers) that can be identified and the tramway that pass at the foot of the Tour Bretagne and go at the foot of Le Sillon de Bretagne, 8 km far away.
The top of the tower has a café which name is Le Nid (The Nest). People like going the, specialy young people like students.
The is a very long bird inside the café whose neck seems to be 25 m long ! If you are aware during the walk arround the café, you will see at pictures of fallen eggs on the buildings roofs ! Surprise, it seems that some bird's eggs has fallen from the roof of the café at the 32th floor (;-))
There is an active cultural life in Nantes where Jules Vern was born. The town give the money for the project "Les machines de l'île" (the island's machines) that seems to came directly from Jules Verne mind.
So, I like this town wich I live for 43 years now.
It is pleasant to walk is the street by day or by night.
There is also a night life...
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