To browse Academia. The text outlines the purposes of the publication series "Speak the Culture", specifically focusing on French culture. It emphasizes the importance of understanding cultural context in relation to language learning, featuring insights into French history, art, music, cuisine, and everyday life. The introduction highlights the interconnectedness of cultural appreciation and communication skills, aiming to enrich the reader's experience of France and its society.
Discover how modern France was shaped by nature, foreign tongues and upheaval. Meet the writers and thinkers who forged literary and intellectual life in France. Get to know world famous artists and architects, their paintings and buildings. Become intimate with the legendary French filmmakers and their best movies. Unravel religion, sport, education and the media to learn the French mode of life.
Investigating the people, the way they live and their creative heroes, the series unlocks the passions and habits that define a country. Easily digested chunks of information, nuggets of knowledge and helpful lists decipher the complexities of a foreign culture, from composers to chefs, poets to presidents, so that you might get to know the country as one of its own citizens.
Speak the Culture: France begins with the essential milieu of the country -the lie of the land and the regions, history and language on which French culture is built. Then we immerse you in the creative side -the artists, writers and thinkers who've lent France such an elegant swagger.
Finally, we serve up an insight into how the French live -the rituals, joys and tensions that preoccupy modern life. With these three strands Speak the Culture: France plunges you into the French experience. Setting the boundaries French school children are taught to draw their country by sketching out a hexagon. While it may only provide an approximation of shape, l'Hexagon does give France a neat brand that media and politicians alike seem keen to uphold.
