HELEN FRYER is a student from Covingham who is spending a year in the French city of Lille, working at the Pasteur Institute. Helen, 21, is a student at Keele University, where she is studying French and Biology.

Last Saturday night, babysitting for friends, I had a perfect opportunity to do some research for you all on the delights of French TV. First of all, thanks to the god-like figure who presides over the France 2 station. They have 'Who wants to be a millionaire?' (a millionaire in euros, not in francs, so it's worth applying).

The presenter has just a hint of the orange tan about him, unlike our dear old Chris Tarrant.

Secondly, they have 'Friends'.

It was torture being told this in the first week and not having access to a telly, but when I finally got to see it, dubbed into the French equivalent of New York slang, it was impossible to understand weeks of emotional turmoil for nothing.

But at least there was the Cartoon Channel to cheer me up. Daffy Duck still has his lisp in the dubbed version, although I didn't notice any equivalent of "Sufferin' succotash" but then my French to English dictionary doesn't do words like that, so I wouldn't know. Anyway, it beat the ballroom dancing on Canal.

Sunday took on a decidedly surreal feel when I was asked to a friend's house for Thai food & Ferraro Rocher with several international students. I can now count up to ten in Dutch, greet people politely in Thai and say I promise in Japanese.

Not incredibly useful for surviving in France, but it might come in handy one day.

There was much discussion about the differences between American, British and Australian accents, which led inevitably to a sofa-full of people endlessly repeating "tomato, tom-ade-o, potato, pod-ade-o" while correcting each others' pronunciation.

Somebody claimed that French schoolchildren learning how to pronounce the English "h" had to repeat it into a candle.

If the candle blew out, they'd said it properly. Something to try at home, perhaps.

Of course my new mates rose to the challenge and spent the next ten minutes breathing my conveniently difficult name into an advent candle one by one.

Very odd having your name used as a linguistic exercise. It's not something that happens a lot at home.