France anywhere, everywhere or what to buy a Francophile wherever you are for wherever they are... for New Year's.
Here's a selection of four of my favorite "French" things in no particular order:
Paris dans un sacPick up "Paris in a bag" from the japanese store Muji. These cute wooden blocks lets you set up your own mini Paris.
La tour eiffel emporte-pièce Add a parisian flair to this year's seasonal cookies with theEiffel Tower cookie cutter from Sur la Table.
Coffret parfumé Let Estéban perfume your home with their scented boxes. Each box contain different scented materials (ceramic, glass, metal, cedar, stones) in beautiful shapes and colors. My favourite of the moments are Aube irisée and Esprit de thé.
Les premiers jours par Eglal Errera et Marjane Satrapi The Iranian and French graphic novelist of Persepolis fame, Marjane Satrapi is also an illustrator. Her illustrations drew me to Errera's book, The First Days. Errera's heroine Rebecca emigrates from Egypt to France as he did.
Au Revoir au Maroc -a guest post from Karen Kindler
The short line to the outbound Moroccan passport control booth stalled as I arrived. An official pointed a balding German with raised voice and arms to the outside of the security barrier. Case closed. Go. The tourist went.
"Was ist los?" What's up? I asked the couple in front of me.
No immigration form.
Immigration form?! You need one leaving?!
I glanced back toward the security point and the rapidly growing line where the exasperated German squeezed out to look for whatever office had the required forms.
I stayed put. They can't mean me. Then it was my turn. They meant me.
I raised my eyebrows – not my voice – in helplessness. He raised his arm; his head began to drop in dismissal.
"Mais, vous n'avez pas de …?" I asked, pointing to a stack of cards on the edge of his desk. He blinked, huffed, then shuffled through the stack I pointed to … and found a blank form.
"Which flight are you on?" he asked in French. Then came another grunt, a raised finger, and instructions to complete the form where I stood, then break back in line when I was finished.
Now, I'm not a cute little girl with ample bronzed cleavage or someone with a name and position. Middle-aged, rumpled after days on a cross-country bus, and puffy with allergies that had kicked in again on the drive through the oases, it wasn't my physical charm that got me by.
It was a handful of French 101 words that caught his attention. They opened a door that English and German wouldn't have.
"Je suis americaine …" I had frequently confessed to questions during the week-long tour of the back roads of Morocco, at first unsure of the reception that revelation would bring in a Moslem country.
"Los Angeles!" or "Chicago!" greeted me.
"Mais non … Florida," I responded. Smiles, chitchat, invitations followed.
I spoke my simple French a hundred times that week. It got me directions and e-mail addresses, and allowed for unique glimpses into the lives of local people. It warmed them to me. I could feel it.
And the Germans in my tour group – most of whom had been to the States and could communicate in basic English – were thrilled to stick to German with me. They sought me out. I spoke their language. I could be trusted. And I could ask the local people questions for them, intercede with the bus driver, and order mint tea without a pound of sugar in it.
There is power in cleavage and money – short-lived and perhaps insincere (though I have neither in ample supply to really be able to judge) – but, a common language offered with a smile (even a puffy one) creates a bond beyond sex and profit – at least the opportunity for one. It can overcome religious, cultural, and political differences, and, even – sometimes – an overworked bureaucrat's first impulse to send a hapless foreigner to the back of the line. Cool! N'est-ce pas?!
Il y a beaucoup de règles de grammaire en français. Il y a beaucoup d'utilisations de "de" aussi.
I haven't yet mastered the many rules for the usage of "de". I'd been actually forgetting to use it at all in some situations: during my weekly lesson last week, for example.
Before last week I'd have said or written "Il y a beaucoup règles" or "Il y a beaucoup utilisations" to indicate that there are many rules or many uses. That would be a literal and wrong translation since "beaucoup" is always accompanied by "de" when talking about many things or people.
There is an upside to this rule- it's not very complicated. There are only two forms:
beaucoup de beaucoup d' (for words starting with vowels or vowel sounds like "h").
That's it.
A bit anti-climactic, huh? If you'd like to be more engaged with beaucoup you might want to check out the Forvo website with their many words! Their tagline reads "All the words in the world. Pronounced". This website lets you "add words, pronounce, listen & learn".
It's still the beta version and not all the words in the French world have been pronounced for our listening pleasure but you can already listen to over 1200 words. So go ahead, say it (actually record it, too) and let your French be heard: Beaucoup de mots!
Devoirs- If you'd like homework, ahem, I mean to know more about beaucoup de and other expressions of quantity and do a quick exercise check out this website: Tex's French Grammar.
La photo: Many bottles of organically produced wine from le vignoble des hautes collines de la côte d'azur (on the Chemin des Sausses) St. Jeannet, France. Juin, 2008. More Information on this website- - register so that you can get the free sample PDF of their Wine Travel Guide for the Inland Provence where more information on this winery is available: Wine Travel Guides
En moment, jesuis à New York. In the past weeks that I've been in la grandepomme I've heard a lot of French. En fait, du moment jesuisarrivée. In the airport, while waiting in line for a ride to my final destination in the city, a Swiss woman is in front of me. The dispatcher is calling for help; he needs a French translator. I wondered how long it would take to find someone and before I could finish my thoughts I heard the woman say "Bonjour..." and begin to explain her problème. Someone French speaking had been found- maiscen'est pas moi.
I haven't been yet bold enough to engage in conversation with the various French speakers I've heard. I smiled at the nanny commanding her toddler charge to "viensici" repeatedly though he didn't come nearer. I looked on as a threesome of French speakers ordered different varieties of croissants. My ears perked up with recognition everytime I heard French being spoken but my tongue went to the cat.
I decided the cat wouldn't nip my mind- specifically my aural comprehension. It seems that listening would be what I would be doing for the meantime (with the exception of my weekly French conversation class).
Off I went to the local library and checked out three dvds at random and watched (with sous-titres) and listened to them in this order:
This week I reached my milestone 100th lesson in French.
Cent jours des leçons du français avec mes professeurs patients et encouragers: Céline A, Stephanie, Jan, Esteban, Céline F, Virginie et bientôt Audrey!
Soixante treize posts sur ma blog et innombrables lecteurs et nombreux sympathisants.
Merci à tous!
Bien sûr, il y a plus à venir car l'apprendre ne termine jamais... and there remains much to discover that is indeed intéressant.
What I wanted to say (corrections and comments welcome):
A Milestone: 100 100 days of French lessons with my patient and encouraging teachers... 73 posts on my blog, innumerable readers and numerous well-wishers. Thank you everyone! Of course, there is still more to come as learning never ends...
La photo: Un léopard sur les grouns du parc national de Kruger en Afrique du Sud.Octobre 2007.
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.
French soaps are renowned, lovely to use and make great presents.
So I'm always on the lookout for French soap wherever I go. A recent trip to Hamburg drew me once again to the Perle Shop (they carry some cute French products). So when I saw the colorfulbox with the big blue RIVALE written on it I thought "bonjour" and snapped it up!
Turns out Claus Porto was saying "bom dia" to me. The Grapefruit Fig bath soap which temptedme is in fact made by the oldest, family-owned soap manufacturer in Portugal. Oh, I thought- almost in disappointment until I turned over the brightly designed box and read the fine print: "Aromatic composition (made in France)".
Photo d'aujourd'hui: Les savons parfumés, trouvé à Hambourg en avril 2008.
In an effort to overcome my laziness and practice conjugating French verbs I revisited the verb2verbe website. This website quizzes you on over 4000 French verbs.
After doing a few of the conjugation quizzes I decided that yes I'd like to do a "random test"and learn 10 new verbs by translating them from French to English. My laziness picked the least number of questions (20) and the present tense and hit "GO". And that's when the verb2verbe test program went buffoon on me.
My first random test gave me this gem: nous bouffonnons. I had no clue so I just hit enter without actually entering anything. And it means we act the buffoon. I also learned another form: tu bouffonnes.
My second random test gave me an equally amusing gem: tu suces. This means "you suck". But you should be VERY careful when using this verb. If you mean to say you don't like someone you could use "tu es nul". But if you aren't referring to candy: "sucer un bonbon" then make sure you really like the person you say this to... because it's only used in a sexual way.
The quizzes are great because you can go back and correct your mistakes, helping you to remember the right conjugation form (instead of making the same mistakes over and over) and increasing recall on vocabulary words.
Unfortunately, the quiz has been programmed to count your translation a mistake if you enter the meaning in the wrong order.
And since French isn't a "see and say" language (at least in my book, authors of "See it and Say it in French" Margarita Madrigal and Colette Dulac obviously disagree) it would be great if you could actually hear the conjugations and French translations/questions. If anyone knows of a quiz that does this- please let me know!
If you want to see all the conjugation forms of bouffonner check out the le conjugeur website.
La photo (merci, m_ff) : Boule, St. Paul de Vence. Juin 2008.
No translations needed for "Outlet" and the rest of the fashion shopping vocabulary falls into place:
Oh, comme j'aimerais tellement être à Paris demain!
Wherever you are expand your vocabulary and maybe your closet. Check out the les petites eshop for robes de soir, jupes and more:www.eshop.lespetites.fr
More info in French and English about les petites at their website: www.lespetites.fr
Oh, comme j'aimerais tellement être à Paris demain! Oh, how I wish I were in Paris tomorrow. La photo: A window display in Nice, France. Juin 2006.
ps- link updated for j'attendrai le suivant because the other link stopped working but now you can watch the short film again.
Killing time in French doesn't have anything to do with murder.
My weekly French lesson usually start outs with or ends up with questions about the past. In the beginning it was an easy oui or non answer to the equally easy question: Tu as passé un bon week-end ? Now that I've had more than 80 lessons the questions are essay and I do essayer my best!
Qu'est-ce que tu as fait la semaine dernière ?
I want to answer that I spent time with some new acquaintances and begin saying "j'ai passé le temps avec"
"j'ai passé DU temps avec" my French teacher interrupts to correct me. "Du temps,to spend some time with" she clarifies. "Le temps in this case means to kill some time with".
'Oh,' I stand enlightened but not corrected. Thinking back to what I did that past weekend it is more truthful to say I killed time with my new acquaintances.
If you're interested in killing time and learning French: hang out with l'inspecteur Roger Duflair: www.polarfle.com
Tu as passé un bon week-end? Did you have a good weekend? essayer to try Qu'est-ce que tu as fait la semaine dernière? What did you do last weekend? J'ai passé le temps avec... I killed some time with... J'ai passé du temps avec... I spent some time with meurtre murder tuer to kill/murder le temps (concept) time inspecteur inspector
La photo: One of two figureheads from the French sailing barque Marie Elise, shipwrecked near Ryspunt, South Africa in 1877. Now located at Cape Agulhas, Africa's southernmost tip where the Indian and Atlantic Ocean meet. Octubre 2007.
Je suis de retour, never having really abandoned my French learning but skipping out on a month of blog posting.
What can I say? "Hi, again" for starters. En français it's a matter of "greetings reloaded" using the "re" at the beginning to get rid of the the "again" at the end: resalut, rebonjour, et rebonsoir.
Je suis de retour I am back again rebonjour good morning again resalut hi again rebonsoir good evening again encore again Be aware that the use of "re" and greetings is controversial- haven't found anyrules about it online but for an interesting discussion check out this thread at the word reference forum on the usage of "rebonsoir"
La photo: A female Impala saying hello on the grounds of Kruger National Parkin South Africa. Mi-octobre 2007.
My weekly French lesson is being thwarted by Skype audio dropping out. I let my fingers do the talking and tap, tap, taper a message suggesting to my teacher that we could continue silently like mimes: "on pourrait être comme les mimes".
Gesturing a conversation though wasn't possible because I don't have a videocam. We would have to continue to type- be typists instead of mimes. Knowing that "taper" means to type, I struggled to come up with the noun. Tapereur? Tapetrice? Taperette?
"Dactylographe" my French teacher tells me.
"Quoi? Sounds like a dinosaur," I say. I'm thinking of the pterodactylus (which I later find out is not a dinosaur although it did live in the Jurassic era).
"Le dactylo or la dactylo", she continues to explain, "is the short form depending on the gender of the typist".
Now it really sounds like a type of dinosaur and I go back in time thinking of the typing classes I took in highschool. Back then before computers, word processors and electric typewriters (now I'm sounding like a dinosaur)- typing was a job. It was a professional skill to type over 55 words a minute without looking at the "qwerty" ("azerty" for the French) keyboard.
Now computers are everywhere and for everyone. But who really learns how to type using the 10-finger-system nowadays when the hunt and peck, two-finger system of typing is fast enough for keyboards and a single thumb faster still for mobile phones and the authors of keitai shosetsu? Mais je digresse... back to the present time and back to French.
"Les dactylos sont dinosaures," I say snapping back to the present and back to French.
I've linked to a typing test before but this one is different- and you can test yourself on seven different keyboards including French! (via Kottke.com) : keybr.com
La photo du M_ff: Le camélón dans Le Parc National Kruger avec notre safari guide, Lawrence de l'Afrique du Sud. Octobre 2007.
My French teacher burst out with a good-natured laugh and proceeded to explainthe difference between using bon and bien with the verb sentir.
Thankfully, she realized I was mistaken when I had said, "When, I don't smell good..."
I knew that bon and bien both mean essentially the same thing: good. Sentir, I know from when I am feeling sick: je me sens malade. What I didn't know was that sentir canalso mean to smell.
So unless you want to tell the world you smell- use bien with sentir!
sentir présent: je sens,tu sens, il sent, nous sentons, vous sentez, ils sentent Quand, je me sens pas bon When I don't smell good Quand, je me sens pas bien When I don't feel good
La photo: A Jackass penguin during molting season. Without his feathers he still looks good but he does stink! At Boulders Beach in Cape Town, South Africa. Novembre 2007.
One of the English language's greatest bards, Shakespeare, once wrote (Act II, Scene II, Romeo and Juliet):
What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
And indeed, the poetry of the French language is not lost in the English translations. Oddly enough, the English translations not only attracted me to the culture, the cities and the French way of life but also to that certain indescribable "je ne sais quoi" that is at the heart of "Frenchiness".
And at the heart of that Frenchiness is almost some story of love. Even, or most poignantly, when it boils down to only one brief meeting after an exchange of letters for Mitsou and her "blue lieutenant".
I just finished reading the novel Mitsou by the famous French writer Colette. In German. German is not my native language. It's not a language that I've learned because I'm enamored of it (but I'm certainly enamored of a certain "normal German boy"). If someone's going to be taking poetic licenses I imagine them to be speaking in French, Spanish, Italian but not German.
So it was with a bit of surprise that I found that "je ne sais quoi" of Colette's writing very understandable and giving my heart a good shaking- even in German:
"Er streicht ganz zart eine Haarsträhne aus Mitsous Gesicht und versucht seinen Vorwurf in Worte zu fassen: 'Ihr großer Fehler besteht darin, daß sie einen zwingt, an sie zu denken, während man selbst versucht ist, ihr zu sagen: Du kleiner Kummer, du – du hast nicht das Zeug, zu einer großen Liebesqual zu werden!"
Now, I can't wait to someday be able to read the original and truly know the difference in meaning between Kummer (heartache) and Liebesqual (Qual is literally torture, agony; Liebe is love), let alone the proper French words for that!
je ne sais quoi a quality that cannot be described or named easily; literally "I do not know what"
It's been a waiting game for the last few weeks. Faithful readers have been waiting for a blog post. I'd been waiting to go on vacation (Afrique du Sud!) and admittedly procrastinating posting. Gasp!
I wanted to wait until my African Safari was over to surprise you all with pictures of lions, leopards, herds of elephants- OH MY! I did see the "big five" and more and have the pictures to prove it but we all have to wait a little bit longer as sorting through deux mille cinq cents quatre-ving-quatre photos is a bit time-consuming.
The wait for a blog post is over though! Enjoy this short film (only quatre minutes et trente-sept secondes): "I'll wait for the next one".
deux mille cinq cents quatre-ving-quatre 2584 literally two thousand five hundred four (times) twenty (and) four
quatre minutes et trente-sept seconds 4 minutes and 37 seconds
What's new? Well to follow the old saying, "pas de nouvelles, bonne nouvelle", you'd have to assume good news since I haven't posted for more than a month. In any case - j'étais trés occupée.
Part of what's keeping me busy is what's helping me keep sane when I am too busy: beaucoup de chocolat! I might be slipping with mes devoirs de français but I'm still enriching my French vocabulaire and satisfying my discerning sweet tooth thanks to the Belgian chocolatiers les frères Poncelet.
chocolat au lait chocolat au lait aux amandes grillées chocolate noir aux écorces d'orange confites milk chocolate
Délicieux! You can find the complete vocabulary list (in French, Flemish, English and German) to tantalize your tastebuds at the Dolfin website. Better yet, find a store near you that carries the chocolate bars.
And if you aren't interested in chocolate- elsewhere in the world there's news to be read and seen on Newsmap (Merci mon ami Mike pour le lien). Check out the French version to see which news items take up the most space- in Google's world at least!
pas de nouvelles, bonne nouvelle no news is good news j'étais trés occupée I was very busy beaucoup de chocolat a lot of chocolate les frères the brothers délicieux delicious, yummy
La photo: Chocolaterie Walder à Neuchâtel. Août 2007.
Ma maman est en Amèrique, elle a rencontré Buffalo Bill. Yes, my mother is in America but she's got no interest in Buffalo Bill. This is a band dessinée about somebody else's mother: the author's. It's a story about a part of Jean Regnaud's childhood wonderfully illustrated by Émile Bravo.
I was browsing the Children's section of Payot Libraire with my adorable, book-loving, seven-year old French guide/expert, Alexandra when I began to judge the book by its charming cover. I showed it to Alexandra. We thumbed through the pages together. I looked at her questioningly: Que penses tu? She smiled and nodded her approval.
I've tried to read other French children's books before but they were woefully still too advanced for moi. So it was with pleasure that I read and looked at it (it is after all a comic) AND understood Jean! It's my favorite French book of all time, so far. And not because I understood more than half the French and all the illustrations but because the story is touching and that paired with the endearing illustrations make this book lovely to read and look at again and again, with a big knowing smile.
La photo: les koalas chez Hartleys Creek Crocodile Farm, à Cairns. Novembre 2004 en Australie.
Thanks to Tower of Confusion for putting me on his blogroll which means I've been tagged with a meme. So without further ado- the facts about 8 Facts and then my facts à français*
les règles
We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged need to write in their own blog about their eight things and include these rules in the post.
At the end of your post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
Sébastien recites my facts:
une: Je n'ai jamais était marquée par le phénomène internet
deux: Une bonne journée est celle où, je peux taper 67 mots à minute.
quatre: J'ai beaucoup des livres que je voudreais lire mais je lis Alice au pays des merveilles par courriel, un peu de littérature chaque jour. Je ne suis jamais très ocupée pour lire des livres.
cinq: Mes prenoms préférés à ce jour sont Madeline et Maxence.
six: Cette fois-ci, c'est ma troisième tentative pour apprendre le française. Et non, ce n'est pas un tentative provisoire! Je suis sérieuse! Je veux apprendre!
sept: J'aime le chocolat! Est-ce que c'est un vrai fait aléatoire parce que - qui n'aime pas le chocolat?
huit: J'aime les singes aussi. Particulièrement, "monkey" et sa poésie. Je suis une fan et j'attends avec impatience ses leçons français pour le singe international!
Well, if you've made it this far, consider yourself tagged! Leave a link to your French answers or leave them directly in the comment box.
Bonne chance!
La Photo: Sur les rues de Neuchâtel, en Suisse. Août 2007. *English translation of my answers in comments
Monsieur Parfait, one of my French teachers, asks me if I'm already familiar with the comparatifs et superlatifs. A simple oui from moi (to avoid a grammar reminder) and we get right down to a few practice sentences.
He asks me to say "his leg is less long than mine". Sa jambe est moins longue que la mienne. Obviously Mr. Parfait thinks that detailed sentence is also much more of a challenge than just saying Il est plus grand que moi. N'importe quoi.
Both sentences are true. I am truly shorter than the average male in the world's tallest countries. 1.7 inches shorter than the average Frenchman! Ah- but a whopping 3.2 inches taller than the average Frenchwoman.
I need some eggs so I drop by the neighborhood whole food store. I spy some potatoes and rocket greens and grab those as well. I'm at the checkout, located next to the cheese counter. I can't help but look. And what do I see? Since I'm in Germany: deutscher Käse.
But at the edge, almost hiding, were it not blushing so to speak, was L'amour rouge d'Antoine. How can I, a French student in earnest, pass up Antoine's red-hot love? The name is French but I see that the cheese is indeed made in Germany. "Ich nehme Antoine," I say and add Anton's (as the Germans actually do call him) love to my purchases.
The smiling cashier looks at me and asks if I'm French. Hmm, I wonder to myself, is THAT cheese French? I nod no but smile back pretty pleased that at least he's mistaken me for a Französin. Is it because of my Japanese Onitsuka Tiger shoes that I got in Nice? Because that's the only remotely "French" thing I'm wearing or have on me at that moment. I'll never know the reason because he's suddenly speechless and blushing himself when I ask, "Why, are the French really loyal to their cheeses?"
"Tschüss," he says his polite goodbye and I happily skip out the door with my French goodbye, "Au revoir!"
Maybe I make a better French impression the less I say in Français?
La photo: Merci monsieur_foufou. À Ubud, Indonésie. Septembre 2006.
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