About this item
Jean-Benot Nadeau and Julie Barlow spent a decade traveling back and forth to Paris as well as living there. Yet one important lesson never seemed to sink in: how to communicate comfortably with the French, even when you speak their language. In The Bonjour Effect Jean-Benot and Julie chronicle the lessons they learned after they returned to France to live, for a year, with their twin daughters. They offer up all the lessons they learned and explain, in a book as fizzy as a bottle of the finest French champagne, the most important aspect of all: the French don't communicate, they converse. To understand and speak French well, one must understand that French conversation runs on a set of rules that go to the heart of French culture. Why do the French like talking about "the decline of France" Why does broaching a subject like money end all discussion Why do the French become so aroused debating the merits and qualities of their own language Through encounters with school principals, city hall civil servants, gas company employees, old friends and business acquaintances, Julie and Jean-Benot explain why, culturally and historically, conversation with the French is not about communicating or being nice. It's about being interesting. After reading The Bonjour Effect, even readers with a modicum of French language ability will be able to hold their own the next time they step into a bistro on the Left Bank.
About the Author
Julie Barlow was born in Hamilton, Ontario in 1968. She moved to Montreal and began learning French in 1987, then started working as a French language journalist in 1996. She lived with her husband, author Jean-Benoît Nadeau, in Paris from 1999-2000 and wrote her first book, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong (2003) , which went on to become an international bestseller. Her next book, The Story of French, won France's 2011 Prix la Renaissance. In 2013, after publishing The Story of Spanish, she returned to Paris with her husband and daughters to write her latest book, The Bonjour Effect (2016) . She lives with her family in Montreal, where she works as a journalist, translator and writing instructor.
