Private French · before work · any time zone

French lessons before work — early morning, online, with a teacher in France

I teach from 7am to 9pm Paris time, seven days a week. Because France is ahead of the Americas and behind Asia, that lands on the hour most people are free and nobody offers: the one before work. Seven in the morning in New York is one in the afternoon for me — you are pre-coffee, I am mid-afternoon, and it is the quietest hour either of us will have all day.

Evening lessons are what everybody assumes they want and they are the worst hour to learn a language in. You arrive having already spent the day's concentration, and a lesson that needs you to produce sentences under mild pressure is exactly the wrong thing to hand somebody at nine at night. Mornings are not a compromise forced by geography. They are better, and the geography just makes them easy to book.

What my hours are, in your clock

Any hour between 7am and 9pm Paris is bookable, and the booking page converts every time into your own zone before you see it. Here is what that means in the places most of my students are.

Where you are	My hours, in your clock	What that is good for
New York	1am to 3pm	Before work and the whole lunch hour. Not the evening.
Chicago	12am to 2pm	Very early, or late morning through to lunch.
Los Angeles	10pm to 12pm	Early morning only — my evening is your dawn.
London	6am to 8pm	Almost the whole day, an hour behind me.
Dubai	9am to 11pm	Late morning to late evening.
Singapore	1pm to 3am	Afternoon and evening, into the small hours.
Tokyo	2pm to 4am	Your afternoon and evening — before work is the next morning.
Sydney	4pm to 6am	Your evening, and early morning the following day.

The honest part. If you are on the east coast of the United States, an evening lesson is not possible — six in the evening for you is midnight for me. Before work and your lunch hour both work well. If neither of those can ever work, tell me and I will say so rather than sell you a package you cannot use.

Eight in the morning. Your lesson has finished and the day has not started.

Why the early lesson is the one that sticks

A language lesson is a performance, not a lecture, and performances go badly when you are tired. The hour before work is the only one in most people's week that nothing else has a claim on — which is also why it is the one that survives a busy month.

Nothing has gone wrong yetAt seven in the morning no meeting has overrun and nobody has sent you anything. At seven in the evening three things have, and the lesson is what gets moved.
You speak more freely when you are slightly unguardedThe self-editing that stops people speaking is a daytime habit. Early on it has not switched on yet, and beginners in particular say noticeably more.
It is protected timeThe commonest reason lessons stop is not money or difficulty, it is a diary. An hour nobody else wants is an hour that keeps happening.
I am at my best then tooYour morning is my afternoon. You get me several hours into my day rather than at the end of it — which is not nothing, over ten lessons.

How booking works across a time difference

You never convert anything. The calendar reads your browser's time zone and shows every free hour in your own clock; the confirmation email and the calendar invitation do the same. If a slot appears on a different day in your zone than in mine, the page says so on the button.

Pick an hour that looks right to youBecause it is already your time. Nothing on that page is in Paris time unless it says so.
The invitation lands in your calendarWith the video link, at the hour your own calendar believes in — so daylight saving, which moves on different dates in Europe and the United States, is handled by Google rather than by either of us.
Move it up to 24 hours before, at no costTime zones make people nervous about getting it wrong. Getting it wrong is free.

What it costs

A first lesson is €20 for thirty minutes — the same price at seven in the morning as at seven at night, because an hour is an hour. After that an hour is €60, VAT included, nothing added at checkout.

Ten hours is €510, €51 each, and nothing expires — which matters more than usual on an early-morning routine, because the week you cannot face 7am is the week a package with a deadline would punish you for.

Book a first lesson — €20 Why a teacher in France

Every time shown in your own zone · Move it free up to 24 hours before

Questions people in other time zones ask

I'm in New York. Can this actually work?

Yes, in the morning and at lunchtime, not in the evening. My last hour is 9pm Paris, which is 3pm for you — so anything up to mid-afternoon your time is bookable, and after work is not. Most of my American students take 7am or 8am before they start their day.

Do I have to work out the time difference?

No, and you should not try. The booking calendar reads your browser's time zone and shows every hour in your own clock, and the confirmation and calendar invitation do the same. The only place you will see Paris time is where it is labelled Paris time.

What happens when the clocks change?

They change on different dates, which catches people out. The United States moves on the second Sunday in March and back on the first Sunday in November (Energy Policy Act of 2005); the European Union moves on the last Sunday of March and back on the last Sunday of October (Directive 2000/84/EC). So for about three weeks each spring and one each autumn the gap between us is an hour different from usual. Your calendar invitation is anchored to a real moment rather than to a wall clock, so it moves itself. If a lesson ever looks wrong to you, it is worth a message — but it has not happened yet.

Is 7am too early to learn anything?

It is the hour most of my long-running students settle on, which is the honest answer to that. The lesson is a conversation, not a lecture — you are not being asked to absorb anything, you are being asked to talk, and people talk more freely before the day has made them careful.

I'm in Asia or Australia. Where does that leave me?

Better than you would think, at the other end. My afternoon and evening are your following morning, so a lesson before work is bookable from Tokyo and Sydney too — it is the same hour of the day, just arrived at from the opposite direction. The calendar will show you exactly which of my hours land in yours.

Can I mix mornings and other times?

Of course. Nothing is a subscription and no two lessons have to be at the same hour. People often start with a fixed early slot because it is the one that survives a busy week, then move it around once the habit has taken.

“Everything is going well, and I really like the tutor. I'm happy with the results.”

Svetlana

“His teaching style makes learning so effective and enjoyable. Looking forward to continuing and improving my French level.”

Mustafa

“Interesting lessons, I really enjoyed everything. Good luck to everyone with their studies!”

Alyona

Next: why a teacher who actually lives in France, or business French if the reason is work. See the free hours in your own time zone.