When Jim Mair decided to revisit his French language education, he first went to a community college. But when that program closed, he remembered a sign on Sixth Avenue urging people to learn French.
Four years later, Mair has fallen in love with French language and culture — even though he jokes that he’s regressing — thanks to , a French cultural center and one of the city’s oldest nonprofit organizations.
Alliance Française is a worldwide entity that has more than 800 locations in 137 countries. Just over 100 of those are located in the United States.
“I would underline that Colorado is extremely lucky to have one,” Honorary Consul of France Jeffrey Richards said. “They’re not everywhere, and it’s been here a long time.”
Alliance Française de Denver can be traced to 1897 and has ties to Molly Brown. She was at least a board member and hosted classes at her house; she might have been a founder.
Alliance Française is supported by the French government and run by the local French community. The center at 571 Galapago St. offers French language classes as well as other cultural activities, children’s classes and a French library for books and magazines.
“It’s a cultural organization, but I would add to that art, science and language classes. It’s a good resource to have,” said Chris Poulet, board member with Alliance Française de Denver.
Director Philippe Marsé is appointed by the and has been in Denver since 2011. He said the only downside of his job is that he’ll have to leave in August at the behest of the ministry. He previously ran an Alliance Française center in Australia.
Marsé said his biggest goal is to increase the nonprofit’s outreach this year and grow the membership and student numbers.
“It’s so electrically different than other places,” marketing and development manager Laura Berman said. “It’s linguistically diverse and a really warm place to be.”
Last year, about 670 students took classes at Alliance Française de Denver. Marsé said in other countries it may be more common to have students who have to learn French for work or if they are moving to a French-speaking country. In the United States, it’s more learning for travel and pleasure.
“Here, it’s more about cultural things,” Marsé said. “People like to travel and would love to be able to communicate with people and have tools to appreciate (the culture) better.”
Richards said there are about 4,000 French citizens in Denver. While not all are members of Alliance Française, many of them at least know about it as a cultural facility.
In the fee-based French language classes, students can start at the very beginning and continue for as long as they like. Alliance Française also offers French conversation classes for advanced students. Each class typically meets once a week for 11 weeks for 2.5 hours each session. Fast-track classes meet twice a week.
French teacher Emmanuelle Pourroy said it’s refreshing to work with students who are eager to learn and not getting college credit.
“I think it’s tremendously beneficial due to fact that there are lot of people interested in learning French,” said Pourroy, who taught at an Alliance Française branch in St. Louis prior to moving to Denver. “It’s perfect for them.”
Joe Vaccarelli: 303-954-2396, jvaccarelli@denverpost.com or twitter.com/joe_vacc
