French Language Blog

Requirements, Language and Currency

Any tourist will need a passport to visit Nice, but you won’t need a visa if you will be staying there less than 90 days. French is of course the official language, but English is the universal second language spoken in many areas of the country. The city in itself is considered an attraction, You’ll find ancient Roman ruins, medieval buildings, Russian Cathedrals, beautiful beaches, really good food and lots more. US dollars and traveler’s checks are not accepted regularly in France and it would be wise to either have your funds exchanged into Euros or utilize any major credit card.

La Colline du Chateau

La Colline du Chateau, considered to be the origin of the town of Nice, is an old fortified site that was occupied by Celtic Ligurians. Later conquered by Romans in early Christian times, it developed into a medieval town and, eventually, the whole area became a stronghold with mighty walls surrounding it from what is now known as Vieux Nice. It gives a wonderful view overlooking the city. Not much is left of its ruined castle besides crumbling walls. There is an ascenseur which will take you three quarters of the way up, then you will need to walk the rest of the way up. Things close about 17.30. If you stay longer, you’ll be escorted outside.

Vieux Nice

You definitely can’t go to Nice and not visit Vieux Nice (the older section of the town). The region is filled with a maze of street side shops selling everything from souvenirs and wine to fashion attire and knickknacks. It is also a popular area of the city with both locals and tourists, offering more historic buildings and architecture, many home-made cuisine restaurants, lots of boutiques for shopping, as well as the flower and fruit market of the Cours Saleya.

Cours Saleya has a lot of small cafes and gift shops and is an exhibition of beautiful flowers and creepers that are very popular with tourists. The flower market operates from Tuesday to Sunday and transforms into an antiques market on Mondays.

Promenade d’Anglais

In the heart of the city, there is the Promenade d’Anglais, a beautiful snapshot of the famous French Riviera and active with tourists and holiday revelers perching themselves on its shore or biking around it. The beach side restaurants serve some of the most delicious food in the region and the crepes sold by roadside vendors are to die for. The Promenade also has a couple of museums you can visit.

If you like Indian, Chinese, Southeast Asianor just world art in general, there’s the Museum of Asian Art at, 405 Promenade des Anglais (Just across the street from the airport). Entry is free.

Also on the Promenade is Parc Phoenix. It has over 2,500 different plants in botanical garden and tropical glass house settings. Very beautiful. It costs €2 to get in.

If you want a taste of the rich life, try the Chaise Lounge where personal butlers pamper you with mouth-melting appetizers and cocktails.

Play it safe!

Just as any place where crowds and tourists gather, pickpockets are a constant and serious problem. They usually operate in teams and prey on travel-wary tourists. They may look like harmless fellow passengers but are extremely skilled and will lift your wallet from either your front or back pockets without your noticing. Do not carry anything valuable or difficult to replace in your pockets. Use pouches underneath your clothing for anything valuable, including cash. In restaurants and cafes opportunist theft of handbags is a constant risk – keep them close at hand. Do not go to the sea front at night after 22:00 unless you are a group of at least 5. It’s a dangerous area and you are likely to get in trouble.

If you do become a victim of any crime, the National Police Station is where you need to go to report problems. It’s at the junction of Ave Marechal Foch and Dubouchage, a few hundred yards east of the Nice Etoiles shopping centre. They will supply you with the necessary statements to support insurance claims, but you will find the station very busy with other victims towards the end of the evening.

Other Museums

The Matisse Museum is a tribute of the genius of Henri Matisse, a celebrated French artist. The center houses several exquisite pieces of the artist’s early and contemporary work. Don’t forget to take home a print of Matisse’s art at the gift shop.

Musee Chagall. Includes art from the artists, Marc Chagall, Eleger and even Picasso. It costs €9.50 to get in.

Musee Matisse. This museum has a collection of paintings, drawings and sculptures from 17th century Genoa (Italian). Entry is free.

Next to the Musee Matisse is the Musee et Site Archeologiques de Cimiez. Here you’ll find glimpses of the Gallo-Roman settlement in Cimiez. Things like the Roman bathhouses and vintage artifacts along with a potpourri of other memorabilia. Lots of documentation on Gallo-Roman life (mainly in French). Free to get in, but if you want a guided tour, you will need to pay €3. They even have some activities for children.

Rue de France Pedestrian Zone

This is the most bustling and lively section of the town with gourmet restaurants, high-fashion boutiques, cafes and bookstores and even fancy street entertainers.

Want to go to the beach?

The beaches of Nice consist entirely of large flat stones (“gallets”). A few private beaches have added a layer of sand. Besides towels or mats, you should definitely bring sandals as walking on the stones can be painful, and a cushion, if you want to sit. Showers are provided (for free) on all public beaches and there is a beach volleyball area that is netted off with white sand.

Although the beaches are mainly pebbles it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a good swim in the sea. And I do mean swimming as the beach drops quickly and the tidal pull can be very strong – not for beginners or playing to far out. Lying on the beach for a sun tan or relaxation is also manageable as long as you rearrange the rocks/pebbles to a comfy surface for sitting and lying. You can also bring a lounge chair or a towel to lay on. Private beaches give various services such as restaurants and bars.

Keeping the Faith

Even if you’re on vacation, and you want to attend a place of worship, here are some places you can go (not a complete listing)

Catholic
Notre-Dame Auxiliatrice, 36, Place Don Bosco.
St. Joseph, 21, Rue Smolett.
Saint Jean-Baptiste, Place du Voeu/Rue Alfrede Mortier.
St. Martin-St. Augustin, Place Saint-Augustin.
Cathédrale Sainte-Réparate, Place Rossetti.
Notre Dame du Port, 8, Place Ile de Beaute.
Basilique Notre Dame, 2, Rue d’Italie.

Protestant
Reformed temple, 21, blvd Victor Hugo.
Lutheran church, 4, Rue Melchior de Vogüé.
Baptist church, 32 rue de l’hôtel des postes.
Evangelical church, 51bis, avenue de Pessicart.
Anglican church Holy Trinity, 11, rue de la Buffa.

Jehovah’s Witnesses
(English) 35 rue Arson 06300
(French, Vietnamese, Chinese) 16 av. St-Joseph 06000
(French) 99 route de Canta Galet Espace Canta Galet 06200
(French, Tamil) 35 rue Arson 06300

Orthodox
Greek orthodox church Saint Spyridon, 2, Avenue Desambrois.
Russian orthodox cathedral Saint Nicolas, Avenue Nicolas II.
Apostolic Armenian church, 281 Boulevard de la Madeleine.

Mosques
(Sunni) Mosque in Rue de Suisse (in the city center, near the cathedral – open at prayer times only)

Synagogues
(Sephardic) Beit Yossef 16 rue Alexis Mossa 06000 Nice

That’s not all folks!

What I’ve posted here is just a little glimpse into the wonderful sights and things you can do in Nice. There’s more to do and explore so if you have the opportunity to go, then enjoy!

It’s now official, French people finally got to know the names of the new “A-Team” which will surround Monsieur François Hollande.

Until the official announcement, nobody knew anything about the group of les ministres who were to be picked by the newly-elected French President, except for the fact that it was promised to be “gender-balanced” entre les hommes et les femmes (between men and women.)

Indeed, the promise seems to have been kept: Among the 18 French ministers, there are 9 men and 9 women.

Until he was tapped as French PM, or Premier ministre, Jean-Marc Ayrault was mayor of Nantes, the sixth largest city in France after Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse and Nice.

One of his first actions as PM was to lower the salary of ministers by 30%, from 14,000 Euros to less than 10,000 Euros.

He’s very fluent en allemand (in German), and will therefore be the best link to act between the new French President and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor.

However, his meetings won’t be as smooth with Arab politicians and journalists as with the Germans, since his last name sounds just like an Arabic slang word (mostly Lebanese) for “phallus“—some French “humour noir” enthousiasts have already dubbed his appointment “une dyfonction électile” (“electile dysfunction.”)

The man who will be the face of France abroad is actually a familiar one—to the French people, at least!

Laurent Fabius, “un vieux routier“ (“an old vet”) of French politics is now France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.

He was already Prime Minister under “Tonton” (or “Uncle”, a nickname of ex-French President François Mitterrand, who was also sometimes called “Dieu“, meaning “God”), and was in fact the youngest French politician to have held this position in the history of la cinquième république (the Fifth Republic.)

Le Bébête Show: A French pardoy of “The Muppet Show” featuring “Tonton” François Mitterrand as “Kermitterrand the Frog.” It ran non-stop during the Mitterrand presidency, spanning the years 1982 to 1995

It has then been replaced by a similar French show: “Les Guignols de l’Info“

A son of well-known Parisian antique dealer, Laurent Fabius joined the famous French politician-making machine, l’ÉNA (Read more about it in the French Blogs’s post “What is an Énarque?“)

He voted non in the 2005 French referendum on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.

Although his name is a French anagram of “naturel abusif“, and despite his now famous “responsable mais non coupable” (“responsible but not guilty”) uttered during l’affaire du sang contaminé (contaminated blood affaire) which broke open in the early 1990s, he usually maintains a reputation of a clean politician.

Sadly, “not so much” can be said of his businessman son, Thomas Fabius, who was recently condamned by a French court for abus de confiance (breach of trust.) Some even see a highly unusual traitement de faveur (special treatment) awarded to le fils à Papa by the French justice, since he only had to pay back 5,000 Euros out of the 90,000 Euros he was convicted of pocketing for no good reason.

Liberté, Égalité,…?

À Suivre (To Be Continued)

Coming up soon:”Les Femmes who ‘Make Up’ the New Face of French Politics”  (no big pun inteded.)

As an English speaker, you know more French than you realize. The French language is the great-great-great grandchild of Latin. And after the year 1066 the English language has borrowed hundreds and hundreds of words from Latin (through French). So believe it or not, French and English share literally thousands of cognates (words that are shared by two languages that are identical or similar in form and meaning).

This will definitely make learning French a lot easier. French cognates are formed by learning a few simple rules and applying them to many of the English words without a problem.

One thing to keep in mind though is although these French words may look similar to the English words, the pronunciation is different. Always try to watch for the differences. You’ll see that many cognates are formed by changing just one or two letters at the end of the word:

secret, médecine, information, direction, adresse, client, destin, professeur, distance, littérature, famille

Nouns

Originally, the Latin word for noun was the same as the Latin word for name – nominum. A noun is a name of a person, place, thing or abstract quality. French speakers like to use the word nom (notice it’s a shortened form of nominum?)

Take a look at the following nouns. Safe to say, almost anyone with the most basic knowledge of French can see what they mean. And that’s the beauty of it – you don”t have to learn them, you already know them!

art, brave, bureau, client, concert, condition, content, courage, cousin, culture, différent, excellent, garage, guide, important, journal, machine, message, moment, nation, nièce, orange, parent, possible, principal, probable, question, radio, restaurant, rose, rouge, route, science, secret, service, signal, silence, solitude, sport, station, statue, suggestion, surprise, table, taxi, tennis, train, urgent, violet, voyage, zoo

Nouns – Feminine gender

Trying to remember the gender of a noun may seem almost impossible with the rules and exceptions to the rule, grammar needs, etc. But if you look closely, you will see that French actually tells you what gender is used for each noun, pronoun or adjective. The end of a word is a great way to find out what gender you need.

Here are some words that are of the feminine gender. I have highlighted the endings that commonly indicate the feminine gender: promenade, lemonade, naissance, difference, mémoire, victoire, impression, condition, saison, maison, liberté, idée

Here are some masculine nouns with the gender endings highlighted: fromage, auteur, capitalisme, féminisme, appartement, cinema*, bureau*.

If you keep these in mind (feel free to print this out if you need), you’ll see that memorizing every word’s gender the traditional way is too much work. You can pretty much guess the gender and correctly use il and elle. Of course, you will find exceptions to this rule. You will see nouns that end in -e that are not feminine, but masculine, and take a different type of definite article. Let’s take a look at this now.

*Note: if a noun ends in a vowel other than –e, it is masculine

The Articles

All French nouns are preceded by either definite or indefinite articles. The definite articles are equivalent to the English word the. This means the noun you’re speaking about is a definite item you’re indicating. For example, if I need a hammer and I ask you to reach into the toolbox to hand it to me, I will say “Please hand me the hammer” (as opposed to the screwdriver, wrench or any other tool).

The definite article for masculine nouns is le: le bureau, le client, le concert, le courage, le cousin, le garage, le guide, le journal, le message, le moment, le parent, le restaurant, le secret, le service, le signal, le silence, le sport, le taxi, le tennis, le train, le voyage, le zoo

For feminine nouns we have la: la condition, la culture, la machine, la nation, la nièce, la question, la radio, la rose, la route, la science, la solitude, la station, la statue, la suggestion, la surprise, la table

Check Yourself – Put the correct article on the following words:

______ brave, ______ bureau, ______ client, ______ concert, ______ condition, ______ content, ______ courage, ______ cousin, ______ culture, ______ différent, ______ excellent, ______ garage, ______ guide, ______ important, ______ journal, ______ machine, ______ message, ______ moment, ______ nation, ______ nièce, ______ parent, ______ possible, ______ principal, ______ probable, ______ question, ______ radio, ______ restaurant, ______ rose, ______ rouge, ______ route, ______ science, ______ secret, ______ service, ______ signal, ______ silence, ______ solitude, ______ sport, ______ station, ______ statue, ______ suggestion, ______ surprise, ______ table, ______ taxi, ______ tennis, ______ train, ______ urgent, ______ violet, ______ voyage, ______ zoo

The Indefinite Article

The indefinite article does not refer to any specific object or person. As an example in English, we have: A cat ran across the road; A woman called this morning. In these sentences, there is not specific cat or woman identified. The English indefinite article is represented by the words ‘a’ and ‘an’.

The indefinite articles in French are un (masculine) and une (feminine); these are all equivalent to the English words a, an, or some.

Let’s take the same list, and put in the correct indefinite article:

______ brave, ______ bureau, ______ client, ______ concert, ______ condition, ______ content, ______ courage, ______ cousin, ______ culture, ______ différent, ______ excellent, ______ garage, ______ guide, ______ important, ______ journal, ______ machine, ______ message, ______ moment, ______ nation, ______ nièce, ______ parent, ______ possible, ______ principal, ______ probable, ______ question, ______ radio, ______ restaurant, ______ rose, ______ rouge, ______ route, ______ science, ______ secret, ______ service, ______ signal, ______ silence, ______ solitude, ______ sport, ______ station, ______ statue, ______ suggestion, ______ surprise, ______ table, ______ taxi, ______ tennis, ______ train, ______ urgent, ______ violet, ______ voyage, ______ zoo

Plural Nouns

How did you do? Pretty easy so far, isn’t it? But we’re not done yet. Let’s look at talking about more than one item – plural nouns. In English, we have all kinds of rules to form a plural word: add an -s, add an -es, change -f- to -v- and add -es, change the vowel in the middle of a word…..that’s enough to give you a headache if you think about it. The good news is, forming a plural noun in French is very easy. For most (not all) nouns you simply put an -s on the end. That’s it, nothing more to do. Let me show you how it’s done.

garcon – garcons
fille – filles

Words that end in s, x and z don’t change:
prix – prix
fils – fils

Plural Articles

Hold on, plural articles? The words ‘the’, ‘a’ and ‘an’ can be made plural in French? That’s right. French has a rule that if the noun is in the plural form, then the article is also in the plural form – this is what’s called “agreement”. For the definite article, it is les: les garcons, les filles, les prix, les fils

For the indefinite article, it’s des: des garcons, des filles, des prix, des fils

Easy Translation Work

Would you like to try out some very easy translating work? You’ll find that English has many hundreds of words that are practically the same in French! So translating these should be a piece of cake

calcular la distance.
participer en classe avec enthousiasme.
séparer la classe en deux groups (deux = two)
cultiver la plante.
accentuer le positif, éliminer le négatif
estimer le coût.
tolérer l’insulte.
évaluer la situation
négocier le contrat
accélérer l’automobile.
déléguer la responsabilité à la police.
des études de sociologie à l’Université
déclarer la possibilité de progrès dans la communauté.
identifier la nationalité d’une personne.
éliminer la difficulté.
célébrer la liberté
participer à une activité
aggraver la situation.
voter à une élection
commémorer l’occasion.
capter l’attention de l’auditoire
la résistance à l’attaque
participer à une conférence.
condamner la violence
célébrer l’anniversaire de l’indépendance

Always keep an eye out for these words that don’t require a lot of learning. It will help to speed up your French learning tactics.