Excuse Your French

Last Tuiles aux Amandes atelier was exactly what a Saturday afternoon should look like — flour on our hands, laughter in the room, and somehow, French happening naturally between two bites of biscuit.

C'est la magie d'Excuse Your French. ✨

A very warm merci to the team at Coast Cakes Whangaparāoa — you made the whole evening feel like a little corner of France on the Hibiscus Coast. The hospitality, the space, the vibes. Impeccable, as always. 🧡 (We may be slightly biased, but we think you're the best.)

Now — who's ready for round two?

🥂 Les Ci******es Russes — French Baking Atelier
Rolled wafer biscuits + a Friday evening + good company. Need we say more?

📅 Friday 5 June | Coast Cakes, Whangaparāoa
🕕 6:00–8:00 PM
💰 $40 enrolled | $65 general

Same team. Same good energy. Slightly more rolling involved. 😄
Link in comments — spots won't last. 🇫🇷

📸 more to come in a separate post.

As suggested earlier, no France for me this year 😢 So I've decided to cope the only way I know how — cooking, cinema, culture, and a lot of French. Brace yourself, here's what's coming... 🇫🇷

🍳 COOKING CLASSES & ATELIERS
Because the best French lessons happen in the kitchen.

🖥️ La Socca — Nice Street Food in Your Kitchen
The chickpea pancake of Nice — crispy, golden, and deeply personal to this Niçoise teacher.
Friday 28 May | Online | 6:00–7:00 PM | 💰 $28 enrolled students | $35 general admissons

🍪 Tuiles aux Amandes — The Art of French Biscuit Making
Delicate. Golden. Impossibly elegant. The biscuit the French bring out when they want to impress.
Saturday 23 May | Coast Cakes, Whangaparāoa | 3:30–5:30 PM |💰 $40 enrolled | $65 general

🥂 Les Ci******es Russes — French Baking Atelier
Rolled wafer biscuits + a Friday evening + good company. Need we say more?
Friday 5 June | Coast Cakes, Whangaparāoa | 6:00–8:00 PM | 💰 $40 enrolled | $65 general

🧅 Soupe à l'Oignon — Warm Up the Winter Days
Slow-cooked. Rich. Topped with bubbling gruyère. A French winter classic that makes Tuesday morning worth getting out of bed for.
Tuesday 16 June | Stanmore Bay | 11:00 AM–1:00 PM | 💰 $40 enrolled | $65 general

🫒 La Tapenade — A Winter Taste of the South of France
Olives, capers, anchovies — sunshine in a jar. A little taste of the Côte d'Azur to brighten up mid-winter.
Saturday 4 July | Stanmore Bay | 10:30 AM–12:30 PM 🌿 💰 $40 enrolled | $65 general

👉 Follow Excuse Your French on Humanitix to get your tickets or be notified when more events go live 🎟️

Mais ce n'est pas tout!!!

🎬 FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL IS HERE
Going to a French film is basically taking a French class. We're just making it more delicious.

We're gathering at some of Auckland's best French restaurants before each screening — because culture tastes better with good food and good company. 😄

🎥 Couture (Angelina Jolie. Speaking French. Oui vraiment.) Sunday 31 May | The Capitol, Mt Eden Dinner at Origine, Commercial Bay | 5:00 PM → Movie: 7:45 PM

🎥 Santiago, the Camino Therapy Saturday 6 June | Rialto, Newmarket Lunch at Maison Vauron | 1:00 PM → Movie: 3:15 PM

🎥 A Nun in the City Sunday 14 June | Bridgeway, Northcote Brunch at French Rendez-vous Café, Takapuna | 10:15 AM → Movie: 12:15 PM

🎥 Just an Illusion Sunday 21 June | Rialto, Newmarket Dinner at Panam Social | 3:00 PM → Movie: 5:15 PM

⚠️ I have access to group rates — but I need your name ASAP to secure tickets and book the restaurants. DM me or email [email protected] before it's too late.

Now the best for the end...

☕ NEW: FRENCH ONLINE DROP-IN CLASSES — FROM $5

Starting Friday 5 June — live, interactive, online French. Every week. No commitment. No strings. Just French.

💰 $5 enrolled students | $10 general public
🎯 Beginner to intermediate
📅 Weekly from Friday 5 June - 3:30-4:30 PM

For the price of a coffee, you get a full hour of real French teaching. Because language learning makes us more empathetic, more connected, and better human beings. And because education should never be the privilege of the few. If financial constraints have ever stood between you and French — this one's for you. And if you know someone in that position, please pass it on.

DM me or email [email protected] to reserve your spot. 🎉

🎵 AND COMING SOON… Something special is in the works for La Fête de la Musique in June. 🎶 Watch this space — you won't want to miss it.

Language classes grow your brain, light up your mind, and hug your soul. Fact. ✨🇫🇷

Un grand merci. 🙏🇫🇷

A huge thank you to Nick from More FM Rodney and W***y from the Youth Hauora Network for inviting me to speak on radio about something I care about deeply — the impact of language learning on our emotional well-being.

It was a conversation I wish more people could hear. And honestly? That’s exactly the point.

📣 Because here’s what doesn’t get talked about enough:
Language learning isn’t just a hobby or a travel skill. It reduces stress, builds resilience, releases dopamine, combats isolation, and supports brain health at every age. It’s one of the most accessible and underrated tools we have for emotional wellness — and almost nobody is framing it that way.

🇳🇿 And in Aotearoa New Zealand, the conversation matters even more.

Up to 75% of the world’s population speak more than one language — bilingualism and multilingualism are THE global norm. We are, as a nation, missing out. Not just culturally — but cognitively and emotionally too.

👀 Research shows that monolingualism actually limits our health and well-being. Learning another language, even as an adult, keeps your brain sharp as you age and can delay the onset of conditions like Alzheimer’s by years.

Whether it’s te reo Māori, French, Mandarin, Samoan, or Spanish — every language learned is a brain protected, a connection made, a life enriched.

This message needs to be louder. In schools, in communities, in health conversations.

🧠 Language learning isn’t a luxury — it’s a public health investment. Fact. ✨

Thank you très sincèrement for giving it a platform. 🎙️

BrainHealth LearnFrench TeReoMāori HibiscusCoast AotearoaNZ EmotionalWellbeing Bilingual NZWellbeing LanguageIsWellness FrenchNZ

🇫🇷 France isn't just a country. It's a state of mind.

France - Nice, my homeland, more precisely - wasn't on the cards this year (again).

Cancelled flights, a world in turmoil, and a petrol crisis that made rebooking feel like a cruel joke.

I was dying to see my folks; to reintroduce my side of the family to our daughters; to give big hugs to those who lost loved ones; to share meals with all the cousins while the next generation plays together; to learn about all the changes that took place while I've been away; to look after my parents - even for a very brief second...

C'est la vie - it wasn't meant to be.

But here's the thing — France isn't just a destination.

It's a feeling.
A perspective.
A way of slowing down, eating well, and finding joy in small things.

So instead of "pleurer sur mon sort" (grieving the trip), I'm determined to bring France here.

Through cooking classes, cultural events, and every little moment that makes you feel like you're sitting at a café in Nice with the sun on your face.

Sure. I won't be able to bring my people, but I can bring a taste of what their warmth, their critical thinking, their resilience and their joie de vivre feel like.

I hope you'll join me. 🇫🇷

Let's talk about the thing that holds most language learners back more than anything else.

Not grammar. Not vocabulary.

Their accent. Or rather — their fear of it. 😅

🧠 Your accent is literally wired into your brain. From as early as 6 months old, your brain begins mapping the sounds it hears — and that map strengthens until those sounds become almost ineradicable.

When you learn French, your brain doesn't hear the new sounds as they are — it hears them translated into sounds it already knows. That's not failure. That's neuroscience. Fact.

🎭 Even celebrities haven't cracked it.

Bradley Cooper studied in Aix-en-Provence & still speaks French with an accent — yet charmed an entire French TV audience doing it.

Hugh Grant speaks basic French with a very British accent & somehow makes it delightful.

I'll give it to you, Jody Foster, Paul Taylor and Natalie Portman have blown us away with their French!

But for once, the French don't expect perfection. They appreciate the effort.

🌍 French itself has dozens of accents.

Parisian French sounds nothing like Nice, Lyon, Marseille, Québec, Senegal, or Martinique. There is no single "correct" French accent. Even native speakers sound completely different. The idea that there's one perfect accent to aim for? C'est une illusion. 😄

✨ How to actually improve your accent:
🎧 Listen obsessively — podcasts, films, music, radio.
🗣️ Speak out loud every day — even alone.
🎵 Sing in French — fastest way to nail rhythm and intonation.
📱 Record yourself — uncomfortable but transformative.
🤝 Speak with native speakers — confidence IS the accent.

And the most liberating fact of all?

The French actually find a slight foreign accent cute. Your New Zealand accent speaking French isn't a flaw — it's a signature. Own it. 💪🏾