MY STORY: How Culture Shock Inspired Me To Create Comme une Française

Summary

Geraldine, a French-Mexican engineer, shares her journey of adapting to British culture and language after moving to Leeds for work. She empathizes with foreigners struggling with French, inspired by her mother's experience as a Mexican in France. Geraldine's passion for helping others led her to teach French at the Red Cross and later create online lessons to assist people worldwide in understanding French language and culture, amassing over 8 million views on her YouTube channel.

Takeaways

• 🌐 Geraldine Repair, the speaker, shares her personal journey of struggling with understanding and speaking English in Britain, despite being proficient in the language.
• 🎓 After completing her engineering degree in France, Geraldine moved to Leeds, England for a job, where she experienced cultural and linguistic challenges.
• 🏡 Geraldine's mother, originally from Mexico, faced similar struggles with language and culture when she moved to France, which inspired Geraldine to help others.
• 👩‍🏫 Geraldine began teaching French at the Red Cross to asylum seekers, which was her initial step towards helping others integrate into French society.
• 🌟 She found fulfillment in teaching French, which led her to start creating online content to help a broader audience understand and speak French.
• 📈 Geraldine's online French lessons have been a success, with over 8 million views and nearly 500 videos, showcasing the demand for her content.
• 👥 Her lessons aim to help learners not only with the French language but also with understanding French culture and customs.
• 🌟 The video script highlights the importance of community and support in language learning, as Geraldine's friends encouraged her to create online content.
• 📚 Geraldine's story emphasizes the value of sharing one's culture and language with others, as she did through her YouTube channel.
• 💌 She invites viewers to share their own stories and motivations for learning French, fostering a sense of community and engagement.

Q & A

What was Geraldine's initial struggle when she moved to Britain?

Geraldine struggled with understanding and speaking everyday spoken English, as well as comprehending the culture, jokes, and local customs.

Why did Geraldine decide to move back to France after living in Britain?

Geraldine decided to move back to France because she realized that working as an engineer in a big company was not her true passion.

How is Geraldine connected to Mexico?

Geraldine is fully Mexican as her mother was born in Mexico and moved to France. Geraldine herself was born in France to a Mexican mother and a French father.

What did Geraldine's mother experience when she first moved to France?

Geraldine's mother experienced difficulty in speaking and writing French, and also faced casual racism, but she managed to understand the culture and customs and made France her home.

What inspired Geraldine to start teaching French?

Geraldine was inspired to start teaching French after experiencing her own struggles with language and culture in Britain and seeing her mother's experiences as a foreigner in France.

Where did Geraldine initially start giving French lessons?

Geraldine started giving French lessons at the Red Cross, teaching asylum seekers who had a good level of French.

What was the response from Geraldine's friends when she proposed the idea of helping people online to understand French?

Geraldine's friends responded enthusiastically to her idea, expressing that they needed such help and encouraging her to start doing it.

How long has Geraldine been creating content to help people learn French?

As of April 2022, Geraldine has been creating content to help people learn French for over seven years.

What kind of content has Geraldine produced to help people learn French?

Geraldine has produced over 400 videos on YouTube, which have garnered over 8 million views, to help people learn French and understand the culture.

What is Geraldine's goal with her French lessons?

Geraldine's goal is to help people speak French, understand the culture, customs, and all the little things that are often missed when learning a language, so they can feel at home in France.

How does Geraldine feel about teaching French and sharing her culture?

Geraldine loves teaching French and sharing her language and culture, as it allows her to help others in a way she would have liked to be helped.

Outlines

00:00

🌐 Embracing French Culture and Overcoming Language Barriers

Geraldine Repair shares her personal journey of falling in love with British culture and the English language, which led her to move to Leeds, England, after obtaining her engineering degree in Ghana. Despite her proficiency in English, she faced challenges in understanding colloquialisms, humor, and cultural references, such as the popularity of Doctor Who. After two years, she returned to France, inspired by her mother's experience as a Mexican immigrant in France, and decided to help others integrate into French society by teaching French at the Red Cross. This experience was transformative, leading her to create online French lessons to assist a broader audience, including asylum seekers, in mastering the language and understanding French culture.

05:02

🗣️ Sharing Stories and Encouraging Language Learning

In the second paragraph, Geraldine extends an invitation to her audience to share their personal stories and motivations for learning French. She expresses curiosity about what led them to the language and what they hope to achieve. She encourages open dialogue in the comments section and looks forward to future lessons that will continue to enhance her students' understanding and proficiency in French. Geraldine's passion for teaching is evident as she reflects on the joy of helping others learn and appreciate the nuances of the French language and culture.

Keywords

💡French culture

French culture refers to the customs, food, history, and architecture of France, which are mentioned as key attractions for learners in the video. The speaker describes how her love for British culture led her to understand the struggles of immersing in a new culture, paralleling this to the learners’ experiences with French culture.

💡language barrier

The language barrier is the difficulty in understanding and speaking a foreign language in everyday situations. The speaker recounts her personal struggles with understanding British culture and English despite her proficiency, likening it to the audience's challenges with everyday French.

💡integration

Integration is the process of becoming part of a new society or culture. The speaker emphasizes the importance of helping others integrate into French culture, inspired by her mother's struggles with French when moving from Mexico. Her efforts to assist asylum seekers and others reflect this concept.

💡asylum seekers

Asylum seekers are individuals who seek refuge in a foreign country. The speaker highlights her experience teaching French to asylum seekers with a good level of the language. This reflects her broader mission to help people integrate into French society through language.

💡French lessons

French lessons in the video refer to the instructional videos and courses the speaker creates to help people learn French. After seeing the impact of her teachings at the Red Cross, she extended her lessons online, eventually creating over 500 videos to teach both the language and cultural nuances.

💡modern French

Modern French refers to the contemporary form of the French language, including everyday expressions and slang. The speaker emphasizes teaching practical, spoken French to help learners engage with real-life situations, not just formal textbook language.

💡casual racism

Casual racism refers to subtle or everyday acts of racism that can affect individuals, especially foreigners. The speaker shares her personal experiences with casual racism growing up as a Mexican in France, adding depth to her understanding of being an outsider trying to integrate into a new culture.

💡language and culture

Language and culture are interconnected, with understanding both being crucial for true fluency. The speaker discusses how mastering not just French vocabulary and grammar but also French customs and culture is key to feeling at home in France.

💡personal experience

Personal experience in this context refers to the speaker’s own journey learning English and adapting to British culture, which shaped her approach to teaching French. Her story resonates with the viewers, as she shares the emotional and practical challenges she faced, connecting with those learning French.

💡YouTube lessons

YouTube lessons refer to the platform where the speaker shares her free French tutorials. These videos are part of her larger mission to help non-native speakers learn French in a practical, accessible way, with over 8 million views showing their popularity and impact.

Highlights

Geraldine shares her personal journey of struggling with understanding and speaking English in the UK, despite being proficient in it.

She moved to Britain after completing her engineering degree in France to work as an engineer.

Geraldine's experience of cultural immersion in the UK included not understanding local jokes and the popularity of Doctor Who.

After two years in the UK, she decided to return to France to pursue a different career path.

Geraldine's mother's experience as a Mexican immigrant in France inspired her to help others integrate into French society.

She began teaching French at the Red Cross to asylum seekers to help them perfect their language skills and understand French culture.

Geraldine's realization that she could help people in a way she wished she had been helped led to her passion for teaching.

She started creating online French lessons after receiving enthusiastic support from her international friends.

Geraldine's YouTube channel, 'French with Géraldine', has over 8 million views and nearly 500 videos, helping students worldwide.

Her lessons aim to fill the gaps in understanding everyday modern French, including culture and customs.

Geraldine invites her audience to share their stories and reasons for learning French.

She expresses her love for teaching French and sharing her language and culture with others.

The transcript highlights the importance of understanding cultural nuances and everyday language for effective communication.

Geraldine's story emphasizes the value of personal experiences in overcoming language barriers.

Her initiative to help others integrate through language learning showcases the power of empathy and shared experiences.

The success of her YouTube channel demonstrates the demand for accessible language learning resources.

Geraldine's approach to teaching French is a testament to the effectiveness of combining language instruction with cultural education.

Transcripts

[Music]

if you're in love is everything French

you love French culture customs food the

country today of the history the

architecture but you struggle with

understanding everyday spoken French and

speaking it this is exactly where I was

ten years ago well I was not in the

exactly in the same situation because

for me that was English but I completely

understand what you're going through my

name is Geraldine repair and ten years

ago I was in love with everything

British with English itself and after my

engineering degree here in Ghana in the

Alps in France I moved to Britain in

Leeds actually in the north of England

in Yorkshire to get a job as an engineer

in Winfred that was fantastic

I loved English I my English was good

enough in order to get a job but every

day I was struggling with culture with

understanding the language itself the

jokes I didn't understand why everybody

was watching Doctor Who even if it was a

children program I was missing out on

lots of things and I didn't have anyone

to give you any answer not that I could

not ask questions but you can ask you

cannot ask people questions all the time

but to think that you don't understand

and there were lots of thing that I did

not know I didn't know so it was really

a struggle and after two years that were

wonderful I had a fantastic time there I

decided to move back to France to do

something else with my life because

being an engineer in a really big

company was not something that was

really my thing so I moved back to

France and I was really experiencing

what my mom experienced 38 years ago

because my my mom is Mexican so I'm

fully Mexican as well I have a Mexican

Passport

so she was born in Mexico and she moved

to France 30 years ago just for a visit

of the year she had a job here and she

did not speak any word of French she did

not know

think about the culture and then she met

my dad and decided it was a good country

she could stay and she had me so since I

was born I always experienced casual

racism and I saw the how much she was

struggling with speaking French which

was difficult which is still difficult

writing French which is still a

nightmare for her and but she understood

the culture and the customs and made

made it so but I always knew what it was

to be the foreigner because I could see

that in my mom so when I moved back to

France I did decided to help other

people integrate in my country like I

would have done for my mom if I could

and I started giving French lessons at

the Red Cross which was a fantastic time

I taught there for I think three years

and I was teaching to asylum seekers who

had a pretty good level of French and

this way I could help them perfect their

French fixed our little mistakes and

send the customs the news all these

little thing that I was missing when I

was in England and this was a revelation

for me because I could help people in a

way of would have liked to be helped and

I loved it so much that I decided to

start coming from sighs and I see I

talked to my American friends and also

if you British and Australian friends

here in Kanab and I asked them what do

you think about the idea of helping

people online to understand French speak

French and understand the culture better

and all said yes please do this I needed

for yesterday and it was such an

enthusiastic response that I got from my

friends that I started doing it and they

sent me so many questions that it was

very good so I could start making

lessons and also making paying programs

to help more people than just my group

of friends that Lisa Gherardini welcome

she come in France STV

live in France feel at home we have a

joke in France how do you spot a

foreigner in a cafe it's the one

drinking wine it's been eight years now

eight years in April 2022 I can believe

it

and I've been making one less than a

week for more than seven years which is

over five hundred four hundred videos

and that's crazy so all these lessons on

YouTube have helped so many people

[Music]

I've had over 8 million views so far so

I'm so happy because it's been helping

students all around the world for so

much time that I'm delighted to help you

speak French and understanding the

culture the customs and all this little

thing that have been missing from you

for so much time I told you why I love

teaching French so much and sharing my

language and culture but I would love to

hear from you what brought you to French

you can tell me what brought you to come

and processor as well I'm always curious

but what brought you to French why do

you love learning it and what do you

want to achieve tell me I would love to

hear from you I shared my story and I

would love for you to share yours let me

know the comments below and I hope to

see you next time in another lesson

about French culture or French language

to help you get better at understanding

and speaking everyday modern French