The Bonjour Effect: The Secret Codes of French Conversation Revealed

Julie Barlow · Jean-Benoit Nadeau

Aug 2017 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Teri Schnaubelt

About this audiobook

Jean-Benoît 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-Benoît 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-Benoît explain why, culturally and historically, conversation with the French is not about communicating or being nice. It's about being interesting.

About the author

Award-winning author and journalist Julie Barlow is a regular contributor to the Montreal public affairs magazine L'actualite. Her writing has appeared in magazines and newspapers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, including the New York Times, USA Today, Toronto Star, and the International Herald Tribune.

Jean-Benoît Nadeau, an award-winning author and journalist, is coauthor, with his wife, Julie Barlow, of the international bestseller Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong. His writing has appeared in newspapers and magazines across Canada, the U.S., and Europe.

Teri Schnaubelt is a Chicago-based stage, on-camera, and voice actor as well as oil painter and photographer. She has voiced over 100 books for New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors, in addition to helping independent authors get their stories heard.