We’ve had lots of very positive feedback on the most recent lessons in our third season of Coffee Break French which feature translation challenges based on vocabulary and grammar included in the series. We’ve created a set of expansion packs which feature five bonus episodes, each of which includes five translation challenges with a full audio explanation of how the phrase is translated, picking up on grammar and vocabulary points.
Each expansion pack costs just £8.00 GBP (approximately $11.70 USD at current exchange rates) and features five audio lessons of around 10 minutes each, a pdf lesson guide with the English phrases and their French translations, and an ebook version which is perfect for iPad users.
We hope you find these products useful as you continue to build your knowledge of French.
This episode marks the end of an era! It’s the final lesson of Season 3 of Coffee Break French. We first met Alf, Katie and Veronica over 18 months ago and since then hopefully all our listeners have built their confidence and developed their range of expression in the French language. This final episode provides further opportunities for listeners to practise what they’ve learned through a series of translation challenges and, for premium members, a further dictation exercise.
In this week’s basic (free) version (12 minutes), we’ll give you five English sentences which you need to translate into French using your knowledge of the grammar points covered over the lessons of Season 3. The extended version (31 minutes) includes a further five translation exercises and this week’s dictée which will put your writing skills to the test. As usual, in addition to the extended lesson, the members’ materials also include a lesson guide in both pdf format and our ePub version which now includes audio clips too. This ePub format has been specially created for the iBooks app on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.
If you’ve not yet decided to become a member for this season of Coffee Break French, you can purchase Season 3B (lessons 321-340) for £37.00 (+VAT in EU). If you prefer you can opt for Season 3 Complete (lessons 301-340) for £64.00 (+VAT in EU). If you’re an existing user, log into your Control Panel and choose your preferred option. If you’re new to Coffee Break French, choose between Season 3B (321-340) or Season 3 Complete (301-340) in our store. You may also be interested in Coffee Break French Season 3 on the iBookstore.
Purchase Membership | Access Members’ Materials | iTunes link | RSS feed
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It’s time for the penultimate episode in this season of Coffee Break French. Our translation challenges this week include further practice on the subjunctive and a couple of examples of the future tense.
In this week’s basic (free) version (12 minutes), we’ll give you five English sentences which you need to translate into French using your knowledge of the grammar points covered over the lessons of Season 3. The extended version (33 minutes) includes a further five translation exercises and this week’s dictée which will put your writing skills to the test. As usual, in addition to the extended lesson, the members’ materials also include a lesson guide in both pdf format and our ePub version which now includes audio clips too. This ePub format has been specially created for the iBooks app on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.
If you’ve not yet decided to become a member for this season of Coffee Break French, you can purchase Season 3B (lessons 321-340) for £37.00 (+VAT in EU). If you prefer you can opt for Season 3 Complete (lessons 301-340) for £64.00 (+VAT in EU). If you’re an existing user, log into your Control Panel and choose your preferred option. If you’re new to Coffee Break French, choose between Season 3B (321-340) or Season 3 Complete (301-340) in our store. You may also be interested in Coffee Break French Season 3 on the iBookstore.
Purchase Membership | Access Members’ Materials | iTunes link | RSS feed
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Podcast (cbf-podcast): Download
This week’s coffee break provides some practice on the tricky pronoun y and some further subjunctives.
In this week’s basic (free) version (13 minutes), we’ll give you five English sentences which you need to translate into French using your knowledge of the grammar points covered over the lessons of Season 3. The extended version (33 minutes) includes a further five translation exercises and this week’s dictée which will put your writing skills to the test. As usual, in addition to the extended lesson, the members’ materials also include a lesson guide in both pdf format and our ePub version which now includes audio clips too. This ePub format has been specially created for the iBooks app on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.
If you’ve not yet decided to become a member for this season of Coffee Break French, you can purchase Season 3B (lessons 321-340) for £37.00 (+VAT in EU). If you prefer you can opt for Season 3 Complete (lessons 301-340) for £64.00 (+VAT in EU). If you’re an existing user, log into your Control Panel and choose your preferred option. If you’re new to Coffee Break French, choose between Season 3B (321-340) or Season 3 Complete (301-340) in our store. You may also be interested in Coffee Break French Season 3 on the iBookstore.
Purchase Membership | Access Members’ Materials | iTunes link | RSS feed
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Podcast (cbf-podcast): Download

[Updated, 1st March 22:00]
It’s 29th February and as we all know, this day only comes round once every four years. Tradition has it that the normal rules don’t necessarily apply today. Hundreds of years ago this day was not officially recognised by English law: it was “leapt over” and had no legal status, so a break in tradition was acceptable.
Some of our female listeners may taking advantage of this break in tradition to propose to the man they want to marry, but we’ve decided to break our own rules a little and offer a 29% discount on all courses purchased on the Radio Lingua site for one day only. Well, not exactly one day – we’ll make it two days, until the end of the day on 1st March on 2nd March, just to make sure everyone in every part of the world has the opportunity to purchase while it’s still 29th February wherever you are!
If you’ve previously purchased a membership or product from us, log into your Control Panel and add the relevant product from the drop down menu. Enter 29FEB12 in the “coupon code” box.
If you’ve not purchased an item from us before, you can view our full range of products here, or visit the appropriate store front for Coffee Break French, Coffee Break Spanish, Show Time Spanish, or One Minute Languages. When you complete the form, make sure you enter 29FEB12 in the coupon code area at the bottom of the signup page.

Update: Wednesday 29th February, 16:30 GMT
We’ve been experiencing a huge surge in traffic today as people have been checking out our one-day sale. Any sale day would normally result in lots of traffic but today traffic seems to be particularly high. We’re delighted that so many of you are interested in finding out about what we have on offer. However, this has affected the speed of the site and things are going slowly. If you’ve just purchased, perhaps you’d consider not downloading all the content for your product immediately – instead just download a few of the first episodes you require and collect the rest later in the week when things are back to normal. We’ll monitor this carefully over the next few hours and we will extend the sale if necessary to ensure that no-one misses out on using the coupon code as a result of problems. Apologies to everyone for the inconvenience.
Update: Thursday 1st March, 00:15 GMT
The traffic spikes have continued this evening and we’re continuing to monitor the server. We assume that over the next 12-24 hours things will calm down a little. If you have had problems signing up for a course please do try again at some point tomorrow, or contact us and we’ll take a note of your details to ensure that you don’t miss out on the discount. We can only extend the code if you have contacted us to explain that you’ve had difficulties before the end of the sale as detailed below. Thanks again for your patience and apologies again for the inconvenience.
Update: Thursday 2nd March, 22:00 GMT
As we have indicated on Facebook and Twitter, we have decided to extend the sale by 24 hours as a result of the problems with our server over the past 48 hours. The interest in the sale was much greater than we anticipated and our server didn’t quite cope with the unexpected traffic. For information we are currently going through the process of moving our site to a new server and this process will be complete within the next couple of weeks. Please see below for the revised end times of the sale. Once again we’d like to apologise to all our listeners for the inconvenience caused over the past couple of days, and thank you all for your patience.
Terms and Conditions
- Please note that the 29% reduction will be applied at checkout.
- The coupon code is limited to one use per customer. Please do not create a second account in order to use the coupon code twice: your accounts cannot be merged afterwards and multiple accounts will cause major problems for using iTunes to access the materials.
- EU customers should be aware that the prices quoted on our signup pages do not include VAT. If you use the coupon code easter then the 29% discount will be applied and then 20% VAT will be added to the total cost.
- The sale only applies to items purchased directly on the Radio Lingua website through our membership system and is not applicable to products currently available in the iBookstore or Kindle store.
- No refunds will be given on any materials purchased at full price during this time if the coupon codes have not been used.
- We are publicising this sale on Twitter, Facebook, through our members’ database by email and via our mailing list. If you do not receive this information via one of these channels within the period of the sale we cannot retrospectively apply the discount.
- [Information below updated as of Thursday, 22:00 GMT] Just to be absolutely clear, our “one-day” sale ends at:
2nd March 2012 – 15:59 / 1 minute to 4pm in San Francisco
2nd March 2012 - 16:59 / 1 minute to 5pm in Denver
2nd March 2012 - 17:59 / 1 minute to 6pm in Chicago
2nd March 2012 - 18:59 / 1 minute to 7pm in New York
2nd March 2012 - 20:59 / 1 minute to 9pm in Buenos Aires
2nd March 2012 - 23:59 / 1 minute to midnight in Glasgow
3rd March 2012 – 00:59 / 1 minute to 1am in Paris
3rd March 2012 - 01:59 / 1 minute to 2am in Cape Town
3rd March 2012 - 02:59 / 1 minute to 3am in Moscow
3rd March 2012 - 06:59 / 1 minute to 7am in Bangkok
3rd March 2012 - 07:59 / 1 minute to 8am in Beijing
3rd March 2012 - 08:59 / 1 minute to 9am in Tokyo
3rd March 2012 - 09:59 / 1 minute to 10am in Sydney
After a slight delay we’re back with another episode of Coffee Break French with more translation challenges to help you test your knowledge of the materials covered in Season 3.
In this week’s basic (free) version (12 minutes), we’ll give you five English sentences which you need to translate into French using your knowledge of the grammar points covered over the lessons of Season 3. The extended version (35 minutes) includes a further five translation exercises and this week’s dictée which will put your writing skills to the test. As usual, in addition to the extended lesson, the members’ materials also include a lesson guide in both pdf format and our ePub version which now includes audio clips too. This ePub format has been specially created for the iBooks app on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.
If you’ve not yet decided to become a member for this season of Coffee Break French, you can purchase Season 3B (lessons 321-340) for £37.00 (+VAT in EU). If you prefer you can opt for Season 3 Complete (lessons 301-340) for £64.00 (+VAT in EU). If you’re an existing user, log into your Control Panel and choose your preferred option. If you’re new to Coffee Break French, choose between Season 3B (321-340) or Season 3 Complete (301-340) in our store. You may also be interested in Coffee Break French Season 3 on the iBookstore.
Purchase Membership | Access Members’ Materials | iTunes link | RSS feed
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Podcast (cbf-podcast): Download
In this week’s Coffee Break French we provide another opportunity for you to test your translation skills based on what you’ve learned in Season 3.
In this week’s basic (free) version (14 minutes), we’ll give you five English sentences which you need to translate into French using your knowledge of the grammar points covered over the lessons of Season 3. The extended version (33 minutes) includes a further five translation exercises and this week’s dictée which will put your writing skills to the test. As usual, in addition to the extended lesson, the members’ materials also include a lesson guide in both pdf format and our ePub version which now includes audio clips too. This ePub format has been specially created for the iBooks app on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.
If you’ve not yet decided to become a member for this season of Coffee Break French, you can purchase Season 3B (lessons 321-340) for £37.00 (+VAT in EU). If you prefer you can opt for Season 3 Complete (lessons 301-340) for £64.00 (+VAT in EU). If you’re an existing user, log into your Control Panel and choose your preferred option. If you’re new to Coffee Break French, choose between Season 3B (321-340) or Season 3 Complete (301-340) in our store. You may also be interested in Coffee Break French Season 3 on the iBookstore.
Purchase Membership | Access Members’ Materials | iTunes link | RSS feed
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Podcast (cbf-podcast): Download
We’re back with another lesson of translation challenges to help you practise what you’ve learned in this season of Coffee Break French.
In this week’s basic (free) version (10 minutes), we’ll give you five English sentences which you need to translate into French using your knowledge of the grammar points covered over the lessons of Season 3. The extended version (31 minutes) includes a further five translation exercises and this week’s dictée which will put your writing skills to the test. As usual, in addition to the extended lesson, the members’ materials also include a lesson guide in both pdf format and our ePub version which now includes audio clips too. This ePub format has been specially created for the iBooks app on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.
If you’ve not yet decided to become a member for this season of Coffee Break French, you can purchase Season 3B (lessons 321-340) for £37.00 (+VAT in EU). If you prefer you can opt for Season 3 Complete (lessons 301-340) for £64.00 (+VAT in EU). If you’re an existing user, log into your Control Panel and choose your preferred option. If you’re new to Coffee Break French, choose between Season 3B (321-340) or Season 3 Complete (301-340) in our store. You may also be interested in Coffee Break French Season 3 on the iBookstore.
Purchase Membership | Access Members’ Materials | iTunes link | RSS feed
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Podcast (cbf-podcast): Download
In lesson 34 of Season 3 we provide more translation exercises for you based on the constructions, vocabulary and grammar covered in this season. We’ll give you the phrase, followed by some time to work out the answer, and then we’ll talk through the answer, helping you to construct the phrase yourself in French.
In this week’s basic (free) version (15 minutes), we’ll give you five English sentences which you need to translate into French using your knowledge of the grammar points covered over the lessons of Season 3. The extended version (38 minutes) includes a further five translation exercises and this week’s dictée which will put your writing skills to the test. As usual, in addition to the extended lesson, the members’ materials also include a lesson guide in both pdf format and our ePub version which now includes audio clips too. This ePub format has been specially created for the iBooks app on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.
If you’ve not yet decided to become a member for this season of Coffee Break French, you can purchase Season 3B (lessons 321-340) for £37.00 (+VAT in EU). If you prefer you can opt for Season 3 Complete (lessons 301-340) for £64.00 (+VAT in EU). If you’re an existing user, log into your Control Panel and choose your preferred option. If you’re new to Coffee Break French, choose between Season 3B (321-340) or Season 3 Complete (301-340) in our store. You may also be interested in Coffee Break French Season 3 on the iBookstore.
Purchase Membership | Access Members’ Materials | iTunes link | RSS feed
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Podcast (cbf-podcast): Download
Lesson 33 of Season 3 is the first of eight lessons which focus on consolidating what you’ve learned in the past 32 lessons. We’ll be testing your grammar and vocabulary with a series of guided translation exercises: we’ll give you a phrase to translate into French and then work through the solution with you.
In this week’s basic (free) version (11 minutes), we’ll give you five English sentences which you need to translate into French using your knowledge of the grammar points covered over the lessons of Season 3. The extended version (32 minutes) includes a further five translation exercises and our new dictée which will put your writing skills to the test. As usual, in addition to the extended lesson, the members’ materials also include a lesson guide in both pdf format and our ePub version which now includes audio clips too. This ePub format has been specially created for the iBooks app on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.
If you’ve not yet decided to become a member for this season of Coffee Break French, you can purchase Season 3B (lessons 321-340) for £37.00 (+VAT in EU). If you prefer you can opt for Season 3 Complete (lessons 301-340) for £64.00 (+VAT in EU). If you’re an existing user, log into your Control Panel and choose your preferred option. If you’re new to Coffee Break French, choose between Season 3B (321-340) or Season 3 Complete (301-340) in our store. You may also be interested in Coffee Break French Season 3 on the iBookstore.
Purchase Membership | Access Members’ Materials | iTunes link | RSS feed
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Podcast (cbf-podcast): Download
It’s time to listen to the final section of Katie’s diary which she has kept throughout her time spent in Nice. In this week’s lesson we’ll be hearing about her plans for the future and we’ll find out if these plans include Jérôme!
In this week’s basic (free) version (14 minutes), we’ll present the text spoken at a slow speed and we’ll highlight one or two language points to help you understand the text. The extended version lasts over 29 minutes and includes a line-by-line analysis of the text and further examples of many of the grammar points and vocabulary included in the text. In particular we’ll be looking at the difference between enfin and finalement, and we’ll look at further examples of the preceding direct objects. As usual, in addition to the extended lesson, the members’ materials also include a lesson guide in both pdf format and our ePub version which now includes audio clips too. This ePub format has been specially created for the iBooks app on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.
If you’ve not yet decided to become a member for this season of Coffee Break French, you can purchase Season 3B (lessons 321-340) for £37.00 (+VAT in EU). If you prefer you can opt for Season 3 Complete (lessons 301-340) for £64.00 (+VAT in EU). If you’re an existing user, log into your Control Panel and choose your preferred option. If you’re new to Coffee Break French, choose between Season 3B (321-340) or Season 3 Complete (301-340) in our store. You may also be interested in Coffee Break French Season 3 on the iBookstore.
Purchase Membership | Access Members’ Materials | iTunes link | RSS feed
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Podcast (cbf-podcast): Download
In this new edition of Coffee Break French we’ll be starting our farewells for Katie. We’ll cover the first part of her text in this lesson and then complete it in lesson 332.
In this week’s basic (free) version (11 minutes), we’ll present the text spoken at a slow speed and we’ll highlight one or two language points to help you understand the text. The extended version lasts over 25 minutes and includes a line-by-line analysis of the text and further examples of many of the grammar points and vocabulary included in the text. In particular we’ll be looking at the difference between tant de and autant de, and we’ll consider the difference between croire à quelque chose and croire en quelque chose. As usual, in addition to the extended lesson, the members’ materials also include a lesson guide in both pdf format and our ePub version which now includes audio clips too. This ePub format has been specially created for the iBooks app on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.
If you’ve not yet decided to become a member for this season of Coffee Break French, you can purchase Season 3B (lessons 321-340) for £37.00 (+VAT in EU). If you prefer you can opt for Season 3 Complete (lessons 301-340) for £64.00 (+VAT in EU). If you’re an existing user, log into your Control Panel and choose your preferred option. If you’re new to Coffee Break French, choose between Season 3B (321-340) or Season 3 Complete (301-340) in our store. You may also be interested in Coffee Break French Season 3 on the iBookstore.
Purchase Membership | Access Members’ Materials | iTunes link | RSS feed
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Podcast (cbf-podcast): Download
We’d like to apologise to listeners for the current delays with some of our shows including One Minute Arabic, One Minute Dutch, One Minute Flemish and Coffee Break French. Things have been extremely busy at Radio Lingua over the past few weeks and we’ve been dealing with some technical problems and the availability of the people involved in the shows. Everything should be back to normal by the week beginning 28th November and we’ll have new content for you to enjoy.
Sorry to all our faithful listeners for the inconvenience.
It’s time for another lesson of Coffee Break French and this week we join Alf in his final text. He has been writing a diary over eight weeks while he has been renovating his new house in the south of France and attending daily French lessons with Veronica and Katie, the two other protagonists of our series. In this week’s text he tells us about the party he organised for his classmates.
In this week’s basic (free) version (12 minutes), we’ll present the text spoken at a slow speed and we’ll highlight one or two language points to help you understand the text. The extended version lasts over 29 minutes and includes a line-by-line analysis of the text and further examples of many of the grammar points and vocabulary included in the text. Topics covered in this week’s extended edition include more examples of preceding direct objects, some interesting situations where the subjunctive is used, and a number of worked examples where the listener will have to do some “mental translation”! As usual, in addition to the extended lesson, the members’ materials also include a lesson guide in both pdf format and our ePub version which now includes audio clips too. This ePub format has been specially created for the iBooks app on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.
If you’ve not yet decided to become a member for this season of Coffee Break French, you can purchase Season 3B (lessons 321-340) for £37.00 (+VAT in EU). If you prefer you can opt for Season 3 Complete (lessons 301-340) for £64.00 (+VAT in EU). If you’re an existing user, log into your Control Panel and choose your preferred option. If you’re new to Coffee Break French, choose between Season 3B (321-340) or Season 3 Complete (301-340) in our store. You may also be interested in Coffee Break French Season 3 on the iBookstore.
Purchase Membership | Access Members’ Materials | iTunes link | RSS feed
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Podcast (cbf-podcast): Download

Since the launch of iBooks for iPod touch, iPhone and iPad we’ve been steadily repurposing our existing content for this new platform. However, we have also been working on some new content, pushing the possibilities of the format as far as possible. We’re very pleased today to announce that the first in the series of Focus on French is now available in the iBookstore. This first ebook features the basics of French conversation and is aimed primarily at learners of French in secondary schools. The content will, however, be useful to all learners of French. Best of all, Focus on French Conversation is a free download in the iBookstore!
Each chapter of the book begins with a short video presentation by our bilingual presenter Anaïs. Anaïs grew up speaking French but has lived in Scotland for the past few years so she has perfect French and English. Every phrase in the book is accompanied by an explanation, pronunciation tips and an audio clip, giving learners the chance to practise their own pronunciation. At the end of the chapter there’s another video in which Anaïs tests your understanding of what has been covered.
Future books in the series will cover grammar and common vocabulary areas useful for exam revision. These books will be launched in the coming months and we intend to have a whole range of titles available by exam time 2012 to help students prepare effectively for their exams.
iBooks can be viewed on all iOS devices including iPod touch, iPhone and iPad. You need to have the iBooks app on your device, and the title is downloaded directly through iTunes.
Focus on French Conversation can be downloaded from the links below:
Please note that because of the audio and video files included in the book it is 269mb and must therefore be downloaded via a wifi connection.