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Nantes, or not

Our field trip to Nantes is all set, again; this time with a group of undergraduates who are studying on one of the many modules in French language studies.  Crossing the Channel in January was perhaps rather ambitious of me, so this journey is set for 4th May 2016.  We travel to Southampton by train from Plymouth on the Tuesday, staying overnight in the Premier Inn on the airport and then fly FlyBe direct to NTE on Wednesday. 

Bénédicte and Xavier at Le Voyage à Nantes have been very patient after my first research visit was postponed, and they have stepped in to help us to find venues and attractions for our students of French.  For example, they have found this wine bar to host our WSET training afternoon (Wine & Spirit Education Trust): La Comédie des Vins.  I am looking forward to reporting back from there on this blog: Travel Writers Online





Our French lesson for this post is taken from our lunchtime series of teaching quality talks at the university today, since it fits perfectly for a sight-seeing expedition to the city of Nantes with its Island of Machines: 

Tu as eu l’occasion de voir tout ce que tu voulais ?

Did you have chance to see all you wanted to? 

Or ‘all that you were wanting to see’ since that last verb, vouloir, is in the imperfect tense.  The sentence gives a useful example of the use of the imperfect where the desire the see the sights was in the past but lasted for some time while the opportunity to see them was gone.


For more on the WSET Qualifications, please see their web-site






 

 

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