Bonjour, et bienvenue.

My name is Claire Duval. I was born and grew up in Lyon, and I have lived in this town for twenty-two years now, since I married an American who was studying in France and who promised me that his home was "a little like Burgundy." It is not at all like Burgundy, but I have come to love it anyway, and I have never stopped missing the sound of my own language.

That is why, in the autumn of 1994, I asked the library whether I might have the meeting room for one hour a week so that anyone who wished to speak French could come and do it. They said yes. Five people came the first Thursday. Now it is usually fifteen or twenty, and we have never once missed a week, not even the Thursday of the ice storm, when four of us sat in our coats.

This page is for those who are curious about the Table but have not yet dared to come, and for those who come and would like the phrases written down. Both are most welcome.

The rules are few, and the first one is the only one that matters:

1. At the Table, we speak French. Only French, from six o'clock until seven. If you cannot find a word, you describe it, you point, you draw it on a napkin, you ask "Comment dit-on...?" and someone will help you. What you do not do is switch to English. This is difficult for exactly two weeks and then it is not.
2. All levels sit together. We do not divide into beginners and advanced. The beginners hear real French spoken at a natural pace, and the advanced speakers learn patience, which is also a skill. If we are many, we make two or three groups around the room, and I move between them.
3. Nobody corrects anybody in the middle of a sentence. Let the person finish the thought. If they ask for a correction, give it gently. If they do not ask, let it go. We are here to speak, not to be graded. I taught French for many years in the schools here and I promise you that fear of mistakes silences more students than any lack of vocabulary.
4. There is no fee, no registration, no homework. Come when you can. Come once a year if that is what your life allows. Bring a friend.
5. Coffee and something sweet appear on the side table by some arrangement I have never fully understood. If you would like to contribute, a plate of anything is welcome. Madeleines are particularly welcome.

Usually I bring a topic to begin: a question, a photograph, an article from a French newspaper a friend mails to me, a song. Within ten minutes the conversation has gone wherever it likes, and that is exactly as it should be.

I will not give names, because that is not mine to give, but I can tell you who is at the Table on an ordinary Thursday, so that you know you would not be out of place.

Two or three students from the high school who want to practice before their exam, and who are better than they think. A retired doctor who learned his French in Montreal in the 1950s and speaks it beautifully, with an accent I adore. A young mother who lived in Toulouse for a year and does not want to lose it. A gentleman of eighty who was in France in 1944 and remembers perhaps forty words, every one of which we are glad to hear. A couple who are going to Paris in the spring for the first time. A woman from Belgium, and a man from Senegal, so that on our best nights there are four kinds of French in the room and we argue happily about all of them. And several people who simply love the language and have no reason at all, which is the best reason.

The youngest regular is fifteen; the oldest is eighty-three. Nobody has ever been asked to leave for speaking badly. Several have been asked, kindly, to speak a little more.

These are the phrases I write on the board most often. With these thirty you can survive your first evening at the Table and, for that matter, your first day in Paris. Print this page and keep it in your pocket. I have used the polite vous throughout, which is what you will want with strangers (see the note below the list).

A small note on the little space before the question mark: in French we put a space before ?, !, : and ;. It looks strange to American eyes, but it is correct, and I cannot bring myself to write it any other way.

French has two words for "you," and Americans worry about them more than they need to.

Vous is the polite form, and also the plural. You use it with anyone you do not know, with anyone older than you, with shopkeepers, waiters, officials, your friends' parents, and with any group of people. The verb that follows it takes the -ez ending: vous parlez, vous avez, vous êtes.

Tu is the familiar form, for one person only. You use it with family, close friends, children, animals, and God. The verb takes the -es or -s ending: tu parles, tu as, tu es. There is even a verb for it: tutoyer, to call someone tu, and vouvoyer, to call someone vous.

The rule I give beginners is simple: when in doubt, use vous. Nobody was ever offended by too much politeness. If a French person wishes to be on tu terms with you, they will say so ("On peut se tutoyer"), and it is a small warm moment when they do. Using tu too soon with a stranger, on the other hand, sounds like calling a man you have just met "buddy."

At the Table, most of us have known each other for years and use tu freely. When you are new, use vous with everyone, and let us be the ones to invite you to change. We will, and soon.

Thursdays, 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., in the meeting room at the back of the library, past the magazines. We have the room until 7:30, and conversation usually spills into the parking lot after that.

If the schools are closed for weather, the library is closed and there is no Table. Otherwise, we are there. Always.

Once a month or so, instead of talking, we watch. The library lets us use the television and the VCR in the meeting room, we start at 6 instead of 7 so we can finish at a decent hour, and afterward we talk about the film, in French, for as long as anyone wishes. The films are shown in French with English subtitles, so beginners can follow, and I ask everyone to try not to read the subtitles for at least the first ten minutes. You will be surprised how much you understand.

This fall:

• Thursday, October 21: Le Ballon Rouge (1956). Only 34 minutes long, and almost no dialogue, which makes it the perfect first French film. We will follow it with Mon Oncle (1958), by Jacques Tati, which is nearly as wordless and very funny.
• Thursday, November 18: Jean de Florette (1986). Provence, a spring of water, and two hours of the most beautiful French you will hear. We will watch the sequel, Manon des Sources, in January, because you will insist.

Films we have shown before, for those who ask what to rent: La Belle et la Bête (1946), Les Enfants du Paradis (1945), Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953), Jules et Jim (1962), Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), Au revoir les enfants (1987) and Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964), which is sung from beginning to end and which half the Table adored and half did not. Most of these are at the video store on the highway if you ask; the library owns three of them.