Photo Duet: Chill

Last day of this week's Photo Friday Theme: Chill. Stepping out for a few quick errands today and "brrrr" - the weather in my corner of the world is in line with the theme.

I'm racing to get the photos (three in one) posted but wait- chill! Or rather du calme!

gauche Chill in the air, on the trees, on the rooftops...

A Taninges, France en fevrier 2009. Photo p_ff.

droite "Chillin under the gun"

In the waters of the Atlantic so it's "chilly chillin"

A Le Mans, France en août, 2002. Photo composé par KK.

chill - verbe transitif

mettre au frais make cold (food, wine)

vin blanc frais chilled white wine

frapper make cold (champagne)

glacer make cold (glass, person)

être glacé jusqu'aux os/jusqu'à la moelle

to be chilled to the bone/to the marrow

chill - verbe intransitif

se refroidir

rafraîchir chill out

chill - noun

la fraîchuer, la froideur coldness

il fait assez frais; un peu froid there's a chill in the air

son observation a jeté un froid dans l'assemblée

his remark cast a chill over the meeting

j'ai senti une certaine froideur dans son accueil

I sensed a certain chill in his welcome

chill out - verb intransitif

décompresser (familier)

du calme! chill out!

-- much, much more (definitions, audio for pronunciation, conjugation information) at www.larousse.com

Photo Duet: Warped

That KK and Petit Foufou happen to have children featured in this week's "Warped" theme of Photofriday.com is totally coincidental. KK chose her picture without seeing mine- and indeed, I took my picture earlier today without seeing hers.

Medieval Day Care - Octobre 2004 - Cathar Region, Languedoc

(Queribus castle ruin inserted into the background)

kk: Image portrays why my decision not to be a mother was a good one. This seems a great idea to me!

Quand je serai grande...

21 octobre 2010 - Nord-Pas-de-Calais

p_ff: This poster at a roadside bus stop catches my eye and I would see the poster again a few times in town. I have to wonder- is this poster really speaking to little girls playing with dolls?

"Quand je serai grande, j'allaiterai mon bébé" When I grow up, I will breast-feed my baby

déformé warped

se déformer literally to become warped

figuratively (mind, humour) tordu

(personality, sexuality) perverti

(account, judgement, view) faussé

-from wordreference.com/concise oxford-hachette French Dictionary ©2005 Oxford University Press

www.oxfordlanguagedictionaries.com

Photo Duet: Burgundy

Burgundy is a place, a wine and a color. For this week's Photofriday assignment, kk and I both go for bordeaux instead of the the place or wine: La Bourgogne and le bourgogne, respectively.

gauche - Pink to Burgundy

Dans un bureau de poste quelque part en le Lot, un département de la région Midi-Pyrénées. Mai, 2009 p_ff

droite - Mother and Child

Molded plastic chairs as seen in a shop window. Colmar, septembre 2010. kk

La Bourgogne (proper noun); en Bourgogne

Burgundy (region in France); in Burgundy

le bourgogne

Red wine from the French region of Burgundy

(le) bordeaux

refers to the color: a deep purplish red

noun (masc) and adjective

-via wordreference.com but actually an entry from the Concise Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary © 2005 Oxford University Press

Photo Duet: Daybreak

Before this week's photofriday.com theme changes- the photo duo strikes again.

Metz, Septembre 2010

p_ff: Yes, I snoozed through the official start of daybreak at 7:07 am last Sunday in France. I must admit, je n'ai jamais été une personne matinale. Still, morning person or not, I managed to catch some traces of daybreak: a vestige of warm sunrise colors in the clouds, the empty streets, the "night lights" spotlighting architectural features of the hotel still aglow. In the German Imperial District (city was ruled by Germany from 1871-1918) on our side of the Avenue Foch, from a fourth floor terrace: I was still enjoying the calm that is usually associated with the break of dawn.

Fain-lès-Montbard, Juin 2008

kk: An early morning peek through fogged windows at the rolling green lawn of the Château De Malaisy near Dijon suggests we are the only guests at this 17th century mansion turned hotel. June is still pre-tourist season in much of France, and the peace and quiet suits us just fine.

daybreak = die Morgendämmerung = l'aube (f), la pointe (f) du jour

-from the "Leo" online dictionary German to French (and English, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Russian)

dict.leo.org

Photo Duet: Chaud

For this week's photo duet - en fait, for all future photo duets: a photo taken/chosen by theme that relates to a Francophone country.

Haut: Punaise arlequin à Rocamadour, France. Mai 2009.

A striped shield bug basking in the sun of Rocamadour. Rocamadour was a popular destination for medieval pilgrims, more recently it's been reported to attract more than 1 million visitors a year. It's located in south-western France, about 100 miles north of Toulouse. You can't miss it: the town is partly built into a cliff. And the shield bug? It's actually a popular bug as well, originally from the Mediterranean and now commonly found in Central Europe, Southern Europe, Asia Minor and the Middle East. (p_ff)

Bas: Tafraout, Le Maroc. Mars 2008.

Mud-plastered, mud-brick high rise dwellings bake in the afternoon sun south of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. The German tour group and I shoot snaps of crumbling windowns, peeling paint, black veil enschrouded women, and dozens of children. Teen boys chat us up and offer email addresses in the hope that one day they make the contact that gets them out into the modern world. Charmant, romantique, et triste... (kk)

www.tafraout.info

chaud, adjectif (adj): Il fait chaud aujourd'hui.

It's a warm day today

chaleureux, adj: Ils ont réservé un accueil chaleureux à Lucky Luke.

They gave Lucky Luke a warm reception.

chauffer, verbe transitif (vt) : Il s'est mis près de la cheminée pour se chauffer les mains.

He stood by the fireplace to warm his hands.

(faire) réchauffer, vt: Je vais faire réchauffer la soupe.

I'll warm the soup up.

se réchauffer, verbe intransitif: La pièce a enfin commencé à se réchauffer.

The room began to warm up at last.

-This and more from: Dictionnaire de Lucky Luke illustré; Editeur Fleurus

Ailleurs, this week's theme at the Anu Garg's English Word a Day website: Wordsmith.org is terms from French!

Photo duet: La Rue

La Rue est le theme de cette semaine sur Photo Friday and it's the theme of my photo duet with "KK" with one other criteria: our photo must be related to France.

We dug into our archive and selected our photos independently et voilá:

gauche- a street in Saint Paul de Vence, June 2008

An exceptionally empty street in Saint Paul de Vence where painters like Marc Chagall and writers like Jacques Prévert once lived. It's not the captive chair that makes this street of the medieval, fortified town exceptional nor is it that artists and painters and international stars might have once walked upon it. For me, what makes it exceptional is that it's quiet and empty. Saint Paul de Vence reportedly attracts over 2.5 million tourists every year- and those streets are narrow! To me, Saint Paul de Vence is like one of the most charming outdoor malls you'll ever encounter- and it's "real". If I don't think of it that way, I am overwhelmed and a little saddened by the commercialism. (petit_foufou)

droite - a street in a wine village near Strasbourg (probably Riquewihr), late Spring 2007

I'm not a big fan of busy urban cityscapes. This is more my version of a pleasant street. I spent a pleasant hour or so noshing on flammkuchen and watching a stork in its nest atop one of the old timber-framed houses. Then I marched off the beer calories in the climb up to the local castle ruin. (kk)

The photographic vocabulary list goes on... (see tag photo friday) so here's an example phrase with the plural of today's photo theme:

"Courir les rues" means to run along the street. It's also the name of a French chanson swing band. Here's a visual and auditory introduction of "courir les rues", the band, with Parisian street scenes.

If you want to join the weekly photo-taking fun: www.PhotoFriday.com

Autoportrait

Photo Friday's challenge this week is: Self-portrait. That's under A - as in autoportrait - in my French vocabulary list.

Autoportrait meaning that you draw, or since it it's a photo challenge, that you take a photo of yourself. Not the autoportrait where the robot draws you.

J'ai choisi d'aller au photomaton. Oh- not the one in the streets or in the corner of some supermarket. The one on the Mac. Oui, c'est moi avec mon cahier français.

Start your photographic vocabulary list today and join me on Photo Friday!

J'ai choisi d'aller au photomaton. I decided to go to the photo booth.
Oui, c'est moi avec mon cahier français. Yes, it's me with my French notebook.


Check out the robot that draws on robotlab.
If you're a photo booth fan or a fan of French faces check out
Aux origines du photomaton (via photobooth)

C'est moi- l'autre autoportaits:
Là j'étais
Heure d'été and the Learned
Beaty is in the Eye of the Beholder

La photo: août, 2008.

Best of 2006

Le Theme de cette semaine sur Photo Friday est "Best of 2006". The picture I've picked probably does not speak the same proverbial thousand words, especially French, to everyone so I'm going to just list some words (not a thousand and not all French!) that meant something to the Francophile in me in 2006.

Learn French at Home
Stéphanie et Céline
C'est intéressant That's interesting, It's interesting
Adieu farewell
Aimer to like, to love
Pourquoi pas? Why not?
essayer to try
c'est marrant it's fun
FrenchPodClass avec Sébastien
Mieux vaut tard que jamais (literally = Late is worth more than never)
Better late than never
voyager to travel
Nice, Cannes, L'Esterel, Theoule, Saint Raphael en France!
Merci por ton aide Thanks for your help

I would also love to add the names of the readers, commenters and those who've written to me per eMail- you know who you are! Merci! You've helped make my French Learning fun!


La photo: à Bali, en Indonésie. Septembre 2006.