Archive for April, 2010
Travel and volcanoes! Posted by Jennie on Apr 20, 2010
Le volcan Eygalskjfksdfjncadufhaushdfsksjfaskjdfsjdsaa has really changed the game for le transport aérien (aerial transportation). It has directed traffic to other forms of travel, as well as to the pleasures of being cloué à Paris or wherever you are stranded (if you keep your bonne humeur!). For us, it’s a chance to brush up on some…
The (Broken) American Dream of a French Football Team Posted by Hichem on Apr 17, 2010
Today is vendredi. A long week has mercifully come to an end, Dieu merci (Thank God.) What do you les gars (guys) like to do in your fin de semaine (on the weekend) ? Personnellement (personally), one of my favorite passe-temps (hobbies) when I have du temps libre (free time) is to play le football. Let us then… “tackle” a bit the…
American-style coffee, en français Posted by Jennie on Apr 16, 2010
Merci, BfromWR, de votre question: thank you for your question! Le commentateur BfromWR asked a very useful question about the post on ordering coffee from le 5 avril (April 5): “…How would one go about ordering the equivalent of your standard “North American style” coffee with cream and sugar? Commonly referred to as a “double double”…
What is an “Énarque” ? (2ème partie) Posted by Hichem on Apr 14, 2010
We have seen, il y a deux jours (two days ago), a “special species” of people in France called “les énarques.” We found out that they in fact represent the French élite, the crème de la crème of the civil servants, a position in la société française (the French society) which naturally earns them both admiration and outrage. At the beginning, the É.N.A…
Sarrasine! Posted by Jennie on Apr 14, 2010
Félicitations, Bill Penn! Congratulations to our commentateur for guessing that l’écrivain I hinted at last week was Honoré de Balzac. Ce soir (this evening), we’ll discuss une petite nouvelle (a novella) by Balzac, qui s’appelle (which is called) Sarrasine. Links to the texte intégrale (full text ) in French and English can be found at…
What is an “Énarque”? (1ère partie) Posted by Hichem on Apr 12, 2010
Getting into the ÉNA is akin to taking on les Douzes Traveaux d’Hercule (The Twelve Labours of Hercules): Like any other Grande École (Polytechnique is another one, famed to be the “French MIT”), you first have to go through une classe préparatoire, where you are in for a little “avant-goût” (“foretaste”) for what is to…
Le cinéma français: Entre les Murs Posted by Jennie on Apr 9, 2010
Hier soir (last night), I stayed up till 2h du matin (2:00 in the morning!) to finish watching “Entre les murs,” a film released in the US as “The Class.” Normalement, je ne suis pas très fan du cinéma—normally, I’m not a big fan of cinema. I get scared easily (« Le Roi Lion » m’a fait…