Before I dive into my second update, let me first translate that title. Let’s start with this song I first heard while watching Emily in Paris.

I’ve been listening to Edith Piaf’s La vie en rose this week, and the title itself became a mini French lesson for me.

Literally, la vie en rose translates as “life in pink”—though in English we’d say “life through rose-colored glasses.”

Here’s the breakdown:

• la = the (feminine form)

• vie = life

• en = in

• rose = pink (the color)

At first, I was confused. Why does French say la vie (“the life”) when in English we usually just say life without an article (e.g. a, an, the)? That’s one of those grammar shifts I’m starting to notice more often. French nouns almost always come with an article — masculine (le), feminine (la), or plural (les).

For example:

• les enfants = the children → but in English we’d just say children.

• l’amour = the love → but we just say love.

• le temps = the time/weather → but we often drop “the” and simply say time or weather.

First off, I love that a simple song lyric is teaching me something about how French thinks about the world. It feels poetic; it’s like even everyday grammar choices are tinted with color.

Second, while I’d translate Piaf’s title as life in pink, the French version naturally includes la. These little quirks make learning the language tricky but also fascinating. I went down the whole rabbit hole of learning a lesson on French Articles and even the ones used in cases of negation. Thank the Lord I could do this for free as my progress on Lawless French has pretty much come to a grinding halt.

I had started on their AI chatbot kwiziq. When I first found this, it said I can take 10 quizzes (or kwizzes as they say, btw nice wordplay!) and I thought to myself, “10 quizzes per day! yay! This is all I need.” Boy, was I gravely mistaken. More on that (a bit) later.

And then I was gifted a week-long trial of their premium version. “Start for free” it said. I went all in and finished 75 quizzes.

I made some crazy progress.

But alas! The trial lasted until 24th September. And now that it’s over, the free vs premium comparison gave me a big “Gotcha” moment.

It was 10 kwizzes “per month” and not per day. Here’s a video of exactly how I felt like a blithering idiot. I might get a premium—yet to make a decision. Until then, I will miss their listening practice and those quizzes which came with explanations for my mistakes. Arghh! Why do all good things have to come to an end!

But now that it’s done, I am left with the good memories, the last one being this fantastic lesson on using better/best/worse/worst that I’ll never forget.

On to greener pastures! There’s something which I won’t lose for the foreseeable future (unless I stop paying for it of course!). Duolingo! Just to be clear I am paying for it only as I got it back in India where it was cheap (just Rs. 599/year which is approx CA$12) and that subscription auto-renews in Indian rupees LOL. The Canadian version is CA$137.99 (didn’t include a screenshot as this post has too many :p) and I am glad I don’t have to pay for that.

This week I made hefty progress. For context, my French score last week was 82. This week……

it has increased to 83. I am in too deep (791 day streak) and there’s no turning back. This week, I accumulated 13000XP (13 is Taylor’s birthdate and lucky number, so I absolutely love it). The stars aligned and the dominos cascaded in a line as the lesson I learnt last is all about teaching and learning.

This one sentence made me laugh the hardest ever and deserves a shoutout: “These students would become good clowns” (See screenshot above). Hahaha… Jokes aside, this week’s lesson was probably the most useful as it taught me language I would need to describe my teaching and express my thoughts on good vs bad teaching. The most powerful sentence was

Les façons de transmettre des connaissances de cet enseignant sont uniques et amusantes !
which translates to
This teacher’s ways of conveying knowledge are unique and fun!

Don’t we all love such appreciation as teachers?

R.I.P. Dame Maggie Smith 😢

Apart from Duolingo (which balances “gamified” and “structured” learning), this week I focused on getting into a consistent rhythm with my French learning. I practiced other free methods. Cue the labels.

I labeled objects at home with sticky notes: le frigo (the fridge), le placard (the cupboard), le lit (the bed), la table (the table), l’étagère (the shelf), and honestly, 100s more. I wanted to include pictures here but this post is already 100 miles long so we’ll have to do without. I’ll be sure to talk more about this next week. But it’s funny how quickly I started using them naturally without even noticing. Instead of saying “I’m going to the fridge,” I’d find myself saying au frigo. That little shift turned into a mini grammar lesson for me—French prepositions are more precise than I realized. I’ll dive into that more next week. Stay tuned for more.

Despite the free-versus-paid debate, I am glad some things in life are free. I am all for the cheap thrills.

And here’s where songs come in. Music makes grammar stick in a way textbooks never can. A single lyric gets lodged in your head, and suddenly you’re repeating correct structures without even realizing it. French songs especially feel magical; they sneak grammar and vocabulary into your memory wrapped in melody.

And I am lucky that there’s no dearth of free resources for learning through music. There’s so much French music on YouTube. The subtitles are so helpful. Some videos also show the lyrics (les paroles, I learned the word this week, so I had to flaunt it) along with translations. I’d also like to thank frenchlyricstranslation.com for translating la vie en rose for me.

What about the other way? There are also websites that translate your favorite songs into French. I’ve used lyricstranslate.com time and again, to explore how my favorite English songs would translate to French.

And, as you all know by now, Taylor Swift is a big part of my musical world, so it was extra special that the very first time I really noticed French in a song was from her. In the music video for Me!, she and Brendon Urie start off by arguing in French. Taylor ends the spat by shouting je suis calme (“I am calm”), which is hilarious because she’s very much not calm. That playful moment stuck with me and reminded me how much music (and even just lyrics or lines) can motivate language learning.

So naturally the first song I searched translated lyrics for was Peter by Taylor Swift. The website shows the original lyrics as well so you can see both versions side-by-side. Love this song to death! And now I can even (somewhat) sing it in French.

Between sticky notes on household stuff and Duolingo on my phone, I’m surrounding myself with French in daily life—and who says language learning can’t be about rhythm and emotion?

✨ Next week, I’ll share how labeling everything in my apartment turned into a crash course on French prepositions (sur vs. au-dessus had me scratching my head). Spoiler: sticky notes can teach you more than you think. Can’t wait to see what new French discoveries next week brings!

Living my musical French learning era,

Dishant