To conclude her series on musical expressions, Patricia will sing your praises for having learned and practiced everything she taught you.

It took two hundred years to standardize French spelling before it could be taught in schools using a method called la dictée (dictation), in which a student writes out the words he or she hears. As a matter of fact, this is the exact same principle behind Yabla's Scribe game!

Patricia explains the importance of dictation exercises for learning French. Now an essential teaching tool in the classroom, dictation was originally a pastime for French nobility. The author Prosper Mérimée created a dictation exercise for Empress Eugénie that stumped even the brightest intellectuals. Think you can beat them? Try it yourself here.

Patricia explains the multiple benefits of dictation exercises. Having fallen out of favor in recent years, dictation is making a comeback after the French Ministry of Education realized that language skills were deteriorating. Why not take full advantage of Yabla's Scribe game to improve those skills?

The first of April is the day of hoaxes, pranks, and jokes. In France, the tradition is to hang paper fish on people's backs and shout, "Poisson d'avril!" (April Fish!).

Patricia explores the origin of the poisson d'avril (April Fools') tradition. There are numerous theories about this, some of them contradictory.

Using her favorite fruits as examples, Patricia demonstrates some different ways of saying you "like" or "love" something in French.

Patricia will teach you how to say that you don't like something in tactful ways and in more direct ways. There are many interesting expressions to convey dislike, even disgust, but you might want to save some of them for private conversations.

Victor Hugo is best known for his novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables, but he also wrote numerous poems. In this video, Patricia reads an excerpt from his poem "À l'Arc de Triomphe," in which he pays tribute to the city of Paris.

Patricia explains the basic principles of French numbers and their usage, and shares a few grammatical points.

In part two of her lesson on numbers, Patricia counts from 41 to 100 in French. Be prepared to do some arithmetic!

Humanity has always dreamed of flying through the air. That dream was made possible with the arrival of the zeppelin at the end of the nineteenth century.

Patricia discusses the various ways zeppelins were used in the twentieth century, as well as what led to their downfall.

In centuries past, when a person's honor was offended, he would challenge the culprit to a duel. The last duel in France took place as recently as 1967, between two respected politicians!

Take a class with Lionel as he teaches you colors in French. You'll even learn how to say all the different shades of blue!