Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow, bestselling authors of Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong, 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, Julie and Jean-Benoit chronicle the lessons they learned after they returned to France to live, for a year, with their twin daughters. In a book as fizzy as a bottle of the finest French champagne, they explain 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.
Jean-Benoit and Julie explain why, culturally and historically, conversation with the French is not about communicating or being nice. It's about being interesting. After reading The Bonjour Effect, even readers with a modicum of French language ability will be able to hold their own the next time they step into a bistro on the Left Bank.
