Traveling France with Kids—Using Real French Along the Way with TalkBox.Mom

Last year during TalkBox.Mom Week, Kelley took our advice on how to quickly get lots of points for free travel without spending any money outside your regular budget—and her family of four flew to France for free, just small fees, with some hotels covered too. Which means that her family got to use more of their budget on fun.

This year, she came back and shared what surprised her most: how different the trip felt using her French in real life now that they’re a Fluency Family.

I’m going to give you access to part of her TalkBox.Mom Week Spotlight where she talks through the trip, how much French she could really use, and one thing you need to hear to plan an amazing trip with your kids that they’ll actually enjoy.

As you read, add your comments! I love reading them and replying back. Let’s jump in. 

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Adelaide: So you might know Kelley from hosting the Consistency Crew. Kelley, can you reveal where you went on your trip?

Kelley: Okay, so we started in Paris. We flew in from Chicago and we did a couple days there. And then we took a train about four hours west and we went to a place called Mont Saint-Michel, which is this like castle fortress church that is an island sometimes of the day, depending on whether the tide is in or not.

And then we started heading back east. We went to the Normandy beaches. We went to a place called Caen Castle, where there we went to William the Conqueror’s chateau there. And we went to a place called Chailloué. There was this medieval immersion park there. And then we went back to Paris for two more days before flying back home.

Adelaide: And what activities did you do in Paris?

Kelley: So in Paris we did a croissant making class. That was really cool. When we went to, we went to this immersion park where they give you a costume and then you have, they give you a quest and you go around the park and you have to like, interact with all of the actors there to solve your quest.

And it was super cool. So it was very like medieval. And we did an escape room. We actually got to meet up with Elissa, who is our voice artist for the French on the app. And we got to have dinner with her twice while we were in Paris, which was awesome. So lots of fun things. Eiffel Tower, of course, Seine River cruise. Yeah, lots of fun, super fun things.

Adelaide: Yeah, it’s not like you didn’t have fun. What was your kids’ favorite thing that they did?

Kelley: My son’s favorite thing was definitely the medieval immersion park because he got to do bow and arrow and they give you swords, you fight the characters and stuff. And he loved that. And then my daughter’s favorite thing was the croissant making class, definitely.

Adelaide: I love it. And I was greedy. I made Kelley send me photos from her trip. I was like, sending it. Okay, so now I wanna know, you went to France before and how was your French before you went the first time you went?

Kelley: The very first time I went, I had borrowed I think some like tourism thing from the library and so I like tried to learn some French, “where’s my train ticket? Or like, something like that. Like I looked up like a couple of things like that. And the people in France, contrary to popular opinion are, were very nice. So kind. We met like one rude person the whole time.

Adelaide: When you were using it with your French from TalkBox.Mom?

Kelley: Yeah. Even when we were, we’ve always had good experiences with French people.

Adelaide: Yeah. I have too. Okay. I have too.

Kelley: Yeah. So we went and I would use my French. And they would very nicely respond to me in English.

Adelaide: This was before TalkBox.Mom just to be clear.

Kelley: Right, right. This was in 2017. There was this one lady, she was so nice as she tried not to laugh at me as I was ordering a table for two. She was so nice. But they were responding to me in English. Whereas this time I was astonished, especially because we left Paris.

Pretty much everybody in Paris is going to speak English, too. It’s really not a problem. But once we left Paris, which was my goal, we got into places where they really don’t speak English. And there was only one instance where it was like, yeah, I need Google translate for this because I don’t, I mean, honestly, I didn’t even know how to say in English that the gasoline was squirting out of the car and we didn’t know how to fill it, you see?

So, like, I can’t explain that in English. I definitely couldn’t do it in French. But like people would respond to me easily and readily in French. It was kind of crazy and really exciting. And so we got to speak until I hit the invisible wall. Right. Where it’s like, okay. Yeah. I don’t, I don’t speak any more French.

Like we’ve, we’ve exhausted all of my French.

Adelaide: Yeah. How much did you practice before you went?

Kelley: We had been doing it for approximately a year, and we were on box- We would’ve been on box seven. We’re currently doing box seven. But we got through Box six and then we did a little bit of review in Box four, which is The Drinks & Dining Box.

Yeah. Because restaurants

Adelaide: I really love that. How did your kids feel about using their French?

Kelley: They were my, I mean, I’ve got like one who’s a little bit more reluctant, and I think that it was really good being in a situation where that was like like, you’re not gonna look foolish.

They can’t understand you unless you try, so you’re not gonna look foolish. They were just nothing but kind and appreciative. And so she was more than willing. And then of course, like my, my son who does the Crew with me who just enjoys language stuff more. Like he got to use it and it was really exciting for him.

And then I think that like encouraged it on our way, on our way back. And so interacting with locals all the time, because we would go to a farmer’s market, we would go to inside, we saw a gaming store. So, oh, let’s stop there. And we like talk to the guy about games and stuff, and people in stores, like they’re, they’re being paid to be there to talk to you.

And so that’s, that’s what my favorite free French practice.

Adelaide: That’s how I feel whenever I go to a store in another country, I’m like, oh, you have to practice language with me because you need to sell.

Kelley: Right.

Adelaide: I really love it. Were you surprised at what you could say when you needed to say it?

Kelley: Yeah. I, I like, there were some things where it’s like, okay, well I just need to learn because we’ve already learned how to say like, oh, where’s the bathroom?

And this is where I am in box two. Then it’s like, if I do need to ask like, oh, where, like, where’s the help station? Right. Then it’s like I can find a sign that says it and then I can just like ask, okay, like, where is this? And this is also in the boxes, so like I can just like ask for it. And so, yeah, like it just wasn’t, it just wasn’t embarrassing.

I think that’s what we’re afraid of. We’re afraid of being embarrassed. It just wasn’t embarrassing.

Adelaide: Ah, Kelley, this is so fun to hear. Do you have anything else that you, that you wanna share about your trip?

Kelley: I think that, I think one thing is that we planned the trips around the kids and I think it’s okay to say that my kids did not want to go to the Louvre and so we didn’t go to the Louvre and because we did it this way where it just wasn’t as big of a deal to go, it’s easy to say, you know, what, if later on you want to go to the Louvre, we could go back to Paris and we could go to the Louvre if you wanted to.

And so let’s just plan for the stuff that we want to do, like stuff that we are gonna do. You know, like, not, not museums, we’re not big museum people. And then also we kept our stuff to just one item a day. And so when Elisa told us about this there was a Studio Ghibli store that’s in Paris that we didn’t know about.

Like, great, we don’t have it planned out minute by minute we can go to the Studio Ghibli store. And that like, made her trip, you know? So

Adelaide: That is so fun. I love that you didn’t jam pack the schedule, so you could add in really fun things. Thank you so much, Kelley, for coming on and sharing your trip and your language on it and your points on it.

I think this was really inspiring for other families to see and I love that it was your first trip that you were, that you were trying out and you’re like, look at all the stuff we did. Like we just did our first trip, so very, very cool. Thank you so much, Kelley.