Archive for February, 2015
15 Interesting Facts about the Pope’s Palace Posted by Josh Dougherty on Feb 26, 2015
No, we’re not talking about the Vatican. For about 70 years, 7 successive popes ruled from Provence in the south of France. The history is very long and interesting, and si vous voulez connaitre l’histoire à fond (if you want to learn about it in depth), I’ve included 2 YouTube documentaries at the bottom. This post is…
French Youtube Stars: Norman Thavaud Posted by John Bauer on Feb 25, 2015
In the modern era of content creation there are many new names coming out of the Internet. A big platform for these new stars is Youtube with many people now creating leurs propres séries (their own shows) on the website. En France many of these youtubeurs have strated breaking into the mainstream. One of the…
Vocab for Surviving a French Winter Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Feb 23, 2015
En écrivant ce poste à New York pendant un hiver particulièrement brutale, je me suis dit « Allez, je vais faire un poste sur la neige, la froideur, et tout le reste. » Looking out my window today, I see about two feet of snow on the ground and frozen branches on bare trees. My car thermometer…
Tout sur Tout: Everything You Need to Know about Tout Posted by Josh Dougherty on Feb 20, 2015
Tout is a very versatile word in French — you’ll generally find it means “all,” but you’ll notice different meanings when you see all its forms. This little word can be used as an adjective, an adverb, a noun, and a pronoun, and all with varying forms. We’ll go over all of those separately. I…
French Jokes: “Where is Brian?” Posted by John Bauer on Feb 18, 2015
Having a good private joke (inside joke) is a great way to open the door to a new culture. For many learners humor isn’t always the easiest thing to understand in a new language, and can be a rather large cultural hurdle. In my personal experiences, I found it rather difficult to capter des blagues…
How to Avoid the French Subjunctive Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Feb 16, 2015
This is my fourth and final post in the series on forming and using the subjunctive mood in French. If you haven’t guessed already based, the subjunctive is vital to speaking (and writing) French like a native — that’s why I’ve dedicated so much time to it. However, many students are still quite intimidated by…
Do You Know How To Toast in French? Posted by John Bauer on Feb 11, 2015
You’re out with some friends about to take your first drink and everyone raises their glasses to toast. Qu’est-ce que tu fais ensuite ? (What do you do next?) En France, you have to regarder dans les yeux (look in the eyes) of the person you’re clanking glasses with. Ce qui est important (what’s important)…