Learn to be a little more French, in Seattle

Originally from France, Virginie Blackmoor moved to Seattle about 4 years ago.

“I decided to teach French full-time when I moved here. But I didn’t like their method all that much because I realized that the people who are into French and France, they are really fascinated by the culture. All I was doing in those classes was covering the language.”

So last year, she started her company, French Truly to bring French culture to the Americans who crave it.

I met Virginie at her Madison Valley apartment, where a group of women gathered to speak French and eat French cheese and wine.

“Tonight we’re going to talk about some great French couples starting with Napoleon and Joséphine de Beauharnais. So it’s really fun because people can practice their French, but at the same time they’re learning some really cool stuff about the French culture. Which is exactly what they want. They don’t want to just practice French.”

Virginie has created events around French food and wine, art, film, history, politics, music, and fashion.

“Sweat pants. I don’t even own these things! I don’t have anything like that, like REI, fleece, whatever. That’s so true, it’s not just a stereotype.”

Speaking of stereotypes, she is trying to dispel one: that all French people are rude.

“I had someone, the other day, telling me that he loved France but he had a really hard time because he kept smiling at people on the street, because that’s what the Americans do. He got those really nasty looks, especially from woman. So I had to tell him, ‘We don’t smile.’ There was a survey about this. They ask a French person, ‘If someone smiles at you on the street, what goes through your mind?’ The first one is: You’re making fun of me. You’re a hypocrite. I don’t know you, you don’t know me, we’re not friends. Why are you smiling at me? Third one is: You’re stupid. And the fourth one is: You’re flirting with me.'”

Seattle editor and writer Karen Snelson studied French in school, but hadn’t spoke a word of it in 20 years.

“I’d follow people around grocery stores. I could hear them speaking French and I was trying to get up the courage to say, ‘Where are you from?’ in French. I would go over but I would never talk to them.”

But now she’s back in the saddle again.

“I started taking French when I was in junior high school and all of us little girls were madly in love with [our teacher]. Larry La Bleu!” says one of Virginie’s clients, Madison Valley’s Hollis Palmer.

I asked Hollis, why France? Why do people glom on to a particular culture that isn’t their own?

“There’s something magical. There’s kind of a lot of mythology about the country. It’s the center of art and culture and fashion and it’s very compelling and it’s fun to be kind of connected to that.”