Archive for the year 2009
French Vocabulary – Word Building Posted by Transparent Language on Apr 19, 2009
Building funny French phrases is a way to learn more vocabulary and even improve your grammar. The challenge lies in finding a root word and then expressing the same word as a noun, adverb, verb and adjective all in the same sentence. Here are some examples: La commode commode a été accommodée commodément. Le commentateur…
French Music – Jean Jacques Goldman Posted by Transparent Language on Apr 15, 2009
Okay, so I’ve written many posts on my favorite French musicians and singers and repeatedly mentioned how much I believe music is one of the best and most interesting ways to learn a foreign language. When I was finally able to understand the lyrics written by Jean Jacques Goldman, I really felt like all the…
French Language – Body Slang Posted by Transparent Language on Apr 9, 2009
As I’ve written before, understanding and then being able to use expressions and slang in another language is a huge step forward in the language learning process. So, I’ll let you in on some more French slang. These expressions sound like they have something to do with the body, but in fact, do not. Be…
French Food – Entrecôte Posted by Transparent Language on Apr 6, 2009
I just finished eating a juicy entrecôte (rib steak) and am feeling thankful to the French for this delicious cut of meat…but, then again…is it really French? And come to think of it, the French fries…I don’t think they are really very French either. According to Wikipedia, ‘entrecôte‘ is a piece of meat (beef) cut…
French Language – Faux Amis Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 30, 2009
When you’re learning French and especially, when you’re trying to speak French, you can get easily confused or confuse others with these deceitful false friends or false cognates. Faux amis, as they are called in French, are pairs of words that seem to be similar in two different languages, but in fact, are not. I’ll…
French Language – Negation Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 28, 2009
In the French language, there are different ways to be negative…to express negativity. Perhaps the most common is when you want the sentence to be negative. In that case, you place ne before the main verb and pas after it. Or, if you want to say that you never do something, you place ne before…
French Language – Semi Auxiliaries Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 27, 2009
In the French language, semi-auxiliaries are the same as in the English language. They are multi-word verbs that occur before main verbs. In English, these semi-auxiliaries include: have to, get to, be about to, used to, mean to, be going to, etc. In French, many of the semi-auxiliaries are the same as the English ones…