...des histoires pour s'endormir

As I've failed at attaining and improving French grammar through osmosis, I've decided to accept the inevitability of learning French grammar. So I'm back to doing some self-study and homework "by the book".

This week started out with a bit of grammar ("de") and I've delved a little deeper. What I've come up with is that uses and rules of "de" and "des" feel very innumerable to me at the moment and sometimes incomprehensible still.

I'd love to explain what I've learned but although I have embraced learning French grammar-I am also still looking for the fun and excitement in it. Anything I post now is going to put us to sleep. Unintenionally. I'll save then my introductions to my grammar guides, Mr. Brown and Mr. Picard for a rainy day and introduce you today instead to Belgian writer Carl Norac and French illustrator Thomas Baas. It's their intention to put you to sleep- fast.

Petites histoires pour les enfants qui s'endorment très vite is a charming book of bedtime stories whimsically illustrated by Thomas Baas. It's for kids who want to fall asleep quickly but this adult French learner was much too captivated by the expressive words and drawings to close my eyes, much less sleep.

Carl Norac is also a poet and you can hear that in the rythmn and rhyme of his bedtime stories or rather sentences. the longest stories are three sentence long! The beginning is always the same and contains "de" (we just can't get enough):

C'est l'histoire de ...

C'est l'histoire d'un baleineau...

C'est l'histoire d'un robot...

C'est l'histoire d'un mille-pattes...

C'est l'histoire d'une petite larme...

Petites histoires pour les enfants qui s'endorment très vite

Description by the publisher: éditions Sarbacane

http://www.editions-sarbacane.com/catalogue.htm

La photo (m_ff) : I've never seen a fanciful chicken like this, not even in my dreams. I believe this chicken belongs to the breed known as "Polish" though they did not originate in Poland. The French name for this breed is "Padoue" after the Italian city "Padua". On the grounds of Avril Williams "Ocean Villas" Bed & Breakfast in Auchonvillers, France. Octubre 2010.

Bite-sized

My fellow francophiles, it does look like I'm gaining more knowledge about chocolates made by companies located in French-speaking countries more than the French language itself. Admittedly my tongue has been more busy with chocolate than French conjugations.

On my most recent trip to New York to visit my favorite nephew – fellow francophile and chocolate lover – we both could not resist stepping into "la maison du chocolat" located at the Rockefeller Plaza. Admittedly, he stepped out with his mother a bit earlier than I, overwhelmed at all the chocolate he just wanted to look at, touch and have.

This was actually my first time in the Parisian house of chocolates, anywhere - so I was eager to do a taste test with my nephew. I chose a beautifully boxed set of six different bite-sized creations. I think half of the price I paid for the chocolate was actually for the packaging... tres cher!

So... without further ado- my nephew's taste test results:

Here he's just put a piece of chocolate in his mouth. I imagined him thinking "Hmmm... never tasted something like this before..." but he didn't actually say a word at this point.

Now he's savoring the chocolate, letting it melt on his tongue and forming his opinion.

The critic finally looks at me solemnly and pronounces:

"It REALLY IS dark chocolate, Tita!"

I smiled and ask "shall we have another piece?" A rhetorical question that we both answered by reaching for another piece of yummy chocolate.

Last but not least- Bitesize French lessons: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/french/

"Come and get them!"

Always on the look out for tasty chocolate even when I should actually be looking out for Balkavas or Kataefi. I am in Greece after all.

In Athens, against the backdrop of the Acropolis, I spot a chocolaterie: Leonidas. Aha, I thought, time to check out Greek chocolate. I'm in the middle of picking out an assortment to fill a little golden box when I notice "Fresh Belgian Chocolates" written on it in fine script. The first time I ever groaned at discovering Belgian chocolates. I quickly recovered from the disappointment of not having found Greek chocolate and finished filling my box.

I have spartan knowledge of Leonidas so I decided to find out more. Leonidas was a Spartan King. Leonidas Kestekides was a Greek confectioner who immigrated from Anatolia to America in the late 1800s. In 1910, at the World Fair in Brussels he was already winning awards for his chocolates. Belgium has a reputation for producing the world's finest chocolates but it was a young woman in Brussels that he fell in love with and later married that kept him there permanently. Alors, c'est le meilleur de mondes possibles: bonjour chocolat multiculturel!

Alors, c'est le meilleur de mondes possibles: bonjour chocolat multiculturel! So, it's the best of all possible worlds: hello multicultural chocolate

The title of today's post is a quote found under the bronz statue of Leonidas at the site of the Battle of Thermopylae. "Come and get them!" refers to what the Spartans said when the Persians asked them to put down their weapons. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonidas_I)

La photo: The three surviving chocolates jostled around in their golden box in my suitcase. Right after this photo was taken there were no more survivors. Octobre 2009.

Michel Cluizel

J'aime le chocolat mais je ne suis pas hanté par lui. Still, in almost every article or the one book (see how cursory my knowledge is) I've read about chocolate the French chocolatier Michel Cluizel is mentioned as producing one of the best chocolates in the world.

Today, my tastebuds know why: Grand Noir, 85% cocoa.

I didn't go to Paris to get the chocolate. I got it in Frankfurt at:
Bitter & Zart
Domstraße 4
Frankfurt/Main - Germany
www.bitterundzart.de/blog

In Paris and elsewhere the Michel Cluizel Website will tell you
where you can get luxury chocolate goodness:
www.cluizel.com

J'aime le chocolat mais... I love chocolate but am not chocolate obsessed.

La photo: Aujourd'hui en allemagne.

Comme le temps passe vite

How time flies! Especially now because I have two calendars to keep track, or lose track.

En fait, ces calendriers ne servent pas à mesurer le temps. These two calendars are to help me improve my French.

Deux calendriers ? Yes, this year I decided to compare the one for adults to the one for children. I couldn't decide if one would be too hard, the other too easy. When in doubt, get both.

My calendars are from Bertelsmann and are French/German. The calendars basically have the same look and philosophy. Mais, bien sûr ils sont différents.

The calendar for adult learners introduces a theme each week with each day introducing vocabulary through idioms, proverbs, cultural information, questions, puzzles and conversations- sometimes accompanied by photographs. The weekend is on one calendar page with a quiz about what I should have learned that week.

The calendar for children also works on a theme each week and the vocabulary is introduced through a sentence, a children's rhyme on Fridays and a simple quiz on the weekend (also one page)- always accompanied by a charming illustration. The calendar is designed so that the drawings can be cut out and used as flash cards: on one side the picture, on the other side word in French and German.

I've had calendars for learning vocabulary before. Even though the calendars for adults have an approximate reading time of only three minutes, I find that these three minutes are easy to forget by the end of February. By mid-March I usually have a pile of calendar pages that I've yet to read much less study. I invariably have days where the only minute I spend on the calendar is tearing off the sheets of days gone by too quickly.

So here I am with two calendars. The adult calendar is challenging in content and does present interesting facts. Did you know that the first Romanpolicier was set in Paris? Written in 1841 by Edgar Allan Poe! Intéressant! En fait, c'est intéressant, non? The children's calendar is chouette and the children's rhymes, too! At the moment I'm learning from both and still keeping up.

March is coming soon, though. And I wonder if I'll still be faithfully tearing off a page from each calendar every day. Will I still be reading all the words on the calendar page- especially the one for the adults? Will I still be diligently cutting out each illustration and writing the sample sentence on the back for a quick review every few days? Seul le temps nous le dira.


Learn French (and German) with your own calendar:
For adults from amazon.de
For children from amazon.de from amazon.com


En fait, ces calendriers ne servent pas à mesurer le temps. In fact, the calendars are not really for tracking time.

Mais, bien sûr ils sont différents. But, of course, they are different.

Romanpolicier detective story

Intéressant! En fait c'est intéressant, non?
(How) Interesting! In fact, it is interesting, no?

chouette cute

Seul le temps nous le dira. Only time will tell.


La photo: Up and Away over Taninges, France. Fevrier 2009.

La France quelque part, partout

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 sac Pick 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 the Eiffel 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.

Joyeux Noel! Hope you all have a Merry Christmas.
Sing-a-long: Vive le vent (Jingle Bells)



La photo: En route à Harlem, New York. Décembre 2008.

Smells like French Spirit

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 colorful box 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 tempted me 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.

Outlet

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.

Reine des limonades

When I think of having a French drink- it's usually champagne that comes to mind. But when my thirst hits me in Manufactum, a store that's still in love with the quality goods of the good old days, I'm not picky. Luckily, I don't have to settle for less than the queen of lemonades.

My first glance at the bottles had me erroneously reading rien instead of reine mistaking the queen for the "Nothing of Lemonades". Ouais- my thirst was definitely getting the better of me. I obey my thirst and grab two bottles: original lemon flavor and mandarine.

La Mortuacienne was created by Marcel Alcide Rième in 1921 in the French Jura where it's still being produced today. I'm curious to have a sip of something that's lasted this long. Both drinks are made of carbonated mineral water, sugar and citric acid. The mandarin flavor has color additives.

My first sip is "pur sucre" and reminds me of lollipops- especially the mandarin. There's no sugary aftertaste though. My thirst is quenched but I'm thinking la mortuacienne could use a little cîroc. But that's another taste test.


Ouais (marque l'accord) uh-huh (when you agree)
la mandarine mandarin
pur sucre pure sugar

La photo: Les boissons de Morteau, trouvé en Allemagne. En Juin, 2006.