Conversation Starters ☕️ Phase 1
The very first French with Amélie dialogues — the early days, free to read
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Conversation Starters ☕️ Phase 1 — French Conversation Practice for Beginners
🌱 Very early beginner · 💬 45 dialogues · 📜 44 free to read
French conversation practice for beginners starts right here — with the 45 short dialogues that were the very first French with Amélie lessons. Each one turns an everyday question (“do you have pets?”, “coffee or juice?”) into real, spoken French. These early episodes are unmaintained now, but I keep them free to read — 44 of the 45, open to anyone.
🎧 A word from Amélie
Press ▶️ — 30 seconds, in my voice. (No audio on the episodes themselves — this is just me saying bonjour.)
« Bienvenue dans les Conversation Starters, phase un — là où tout commence ! Chaque leçon part d’une petite question toute simple : t’as des animaux ? C’est quoi ta boisson préférée ? Des questions de tous les jours... mais posées en vrai français, celui qu’on parle vraiment. Et le plus beau ? Presque toute cette phase est gratuite. Alors installe-toi, prends un café, et réponds-moi — oui oui, à voix haute, personne ne t’écoute ! On commence ? »
☕️ Where French with Amélie began
This is the shelf where it all started. Before the polished lessons, before the podcast, there was just me and a small question every few days: what are you scared of? what’s the last thing you do before bed? — the questions French people actually ask each other, answered in the French we actually speak.
You can almost watch the format invent itself as you scroll. The earliest ones are literally titled “Dialogue 17/02 : …” — me finding my feet. A couple of questions I even loved enough to record twice, a year apart (Quel est ton jour de fête préféré ? shows up young, then again once the format had grown up) — so you get to see the before and after in the same series.
These lessons are unmaintained: no audio on most of them, a few rough edges I’ve left exactly as they were. I keep them free because this is the newsletter’s photo album, and photo albums should be open.
[French with Amélie] makes me feel like I can do this.
— French with Amélie reader
👀 Who it’s for
This is beginner French conversation practice at its gentlest — for anyone with a little French who wants to stop reciting and start answering. If you can read a simple sentence, you can start here, and almost all of it is free, so you can settle in before deciding anything.
Already comfortable with everyday questions? Don’t linger on the archive — skip up the ladder to French 101 🇫🇷 (the survival-scenario course) or straight into Conversation Starters ☕️ Phase 2 for a real step up.
Not sure where you land? Find your level on the 🌱 Start Here page — it takes a couple of minutes.
📚 What you’ll learn
Even in these first lessons, I was smuggling in the little words that make you sound French. A handful you’ll pick up here:
je vois — “I see”, as in I understand. Very common. Use it!
des fois — sometimes, occasionally — the casual cousin of parfois.
quoi de neuf ? — what’s up? Laid back and familiar — real-life freshness for your stuffy textbook French.
d’accord — okay — the universal nod of approval, and a universal filler.
c’est vrai ! — it’s true! Use it to agree with someone enthusiastically.
je viens de… — I just… — your trump card for talking about recent actions (“je viens d’arriver”).
pas mal — “not too bad” — a French person’s default state; there is nothing they can’t use it to answer.
🧭 How to read the early days
Read them in order if you can. It’s a chronicle — the difficulty creeps up so gently you won’t notice, because you’re watching me learn to teach in real time.
Answer each question yourself, out loud, first. Before you read my dialogue, say your own answer. That ten seconds of effort is where the learning actually lives.
Don’t treat it like a course to “finish.” It’s an archive to wander. When the questions start feeling easy, that’s your cue to move up to French 101 🇫🇷.
🎬 The episode guide
Forty-five dialogues, oldest first — the actual order they were written, so the series reads as a chronicle. 44 are free to read; one (the very last) is a members’ episode.
45 dialogues · 🌱 Very early beginner · 💸 44 free to read
🌱 Start free
Here’s the lovely part: there’s almost nothing to unlock. 44 of these 45 dialogues are free to read — transcripts and notes included — so just start anywhere that catches your eye. If you’re not sure, begin at the top and let the chronicle carry you. A few doors in:
Reading along isn’t a commitment — subscribing free just means the next dialogue lands in your inbox.
🚀 Ready to move up?
This shelf is the beginning — and it’s free to keep. But when you’re ready for the real climb, the full maintained program is waiting: two full dialogues a week, slow and fast audio, my annotated notes, exercises, the private podcast 💜 and monthly level tests.
Finally understand real, spoken French — in months, not years. Here’s exactly what’s free, and what membership adds:
À très vite dans les premières leçons !
Ton prof, ton amie,
Amélie x
Last updated: July 2026 — this is an archive; the early dialogues stay exactly as they were.