I Do

I did take a break from French lessons, but as evidenced by the past posts- not from chocolat.

I'm back now and restarting my efforts to go beyond the level of debutante and reach intermédiare: j'ai recommencé à prendre des leçons de français et à regarder des films en français.

I'm back to weekly lessons albeit sans devoirs. I'd love to view French movies in lieu of the weekly homework so I made a start, or more aptly recommencer with Prête-moi ta main. The English title is I Do - How to Get Married and Stay Single.

It stars acteur/réalisateur Alain Chabat and actrice/chanteuse Charlotte Gainsbourg and was directed by Eric Lartigau. I found it to be an entertaining romantic comedy with a cute twist. Few of the romantic comedies I've watched have been able to balance realism and imagination and be funny.

There are a lot of comedies that I've seen that were funny because they were also incredibly unrealistic or not funny because they were too realistic. I think this comedy does a great job with "real" characters in an imaginative situation where the pressures are real enough though one might not try out the solution posed in this movie. What am I referring to exactly? A trailer or the three-minute review by ecran total podcast can best explain the charm of this comédie romantique and help you to decide whether you say "I do" to seeing the fillm.

Ecran total podcasts - radio reviews of films in French but not necessarily French films.

Review of Prêt-moi ta main (numéro 166) released July 10, 2010 - free download on Apple Itunes.

For francocinemaphiles: Francofille

Follow Londoner Rachel Malcolm as she documents her mission to watch 52 French Films in 2010

francofille.com

recommencer to begin again

Attention: recommencer à + verbe à l'infinitif

Les photos: Having a snack of foie Gras at the Galeries Lafayette Berlin. The French Boucher can advise you in German, English and bien sûr en français! Mai 2010.

Many!

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

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.

J'attendrai le suivant

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

Listen and learn your French numbers at:
http://french.about.com/library/begin/bl-numbers.htm

Internet meme - you're it!

Phénomène internet - t'y es !

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

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write in their own blog about their eight things and include these rules in the post.
4. At the end of your post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. 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.
• trois: J'ai appris comment jongler avec un livre.
• 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

It's a date!

A perfect intro to award-winning French director Claude Lelouch, the streets of Paris and the petit_foufou road to learning français: C'était un rendez-vous.

Let Lelouch take you on a non-stop 8-minute drive through 1976 Paris and then decide if you want to take a seat on the couch and spend more than an hour on him and his movies.

You can also, as I did, find it a metaphor for your learning style. I've been on the road to French since last year. While it hasn't gotten me to parler couramment le français à dans grandiose Paris (Nice was a "nice" start, though) and the road has definitely been bumpy, I've realized that it's been great fun so far. Sometimes I'm going full speed ahead and I feel the exhilaration of comprehension only to realize in hmmm, less than 8 minutes that, uh, hm, ah... Non! Je ne comprends pas plus. Somebody (m_ff?) hug and console me!

Like Lelouch's wild unstoppable ride, even the red lights of mastering conjugation (stop to learn them before going on) are blown at the expense of sounding like I am speaking a foreign language- only it's not French.

I am still watching French movies with the subtitles on, still conversing partly in English with my French teacher, still can barely manage simple dictation but I AM still having an amusing, entertaining and dare I say - educational - ride! Paris, me voila!



C'était un rendez-vous It was a date

parler couramment le français dans la grandiose ville de Paris
to speaking fluent French in the great city of Paris

Non! Je ne comprends plus No, I don't understand anymore

Paris, me voila literally "Paris, here I am"
but can be used to express Paris, here I come!