Archive for September, 2015
Past Participle Agreement with the Verb Avoir Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Sep 14, 2015
Today we are going to look at the verbs avoir and être — the most common verbs in French, which are used to form the simple past tense. As you know, different verbs in the past tense take either avoir or être. While most past participles take the verb avoir, there are some very common verbs that take être. You may have learned the…
The Dog Days Are Over – French Expressions with Chien Posted by Josh Dougherty on Sep 11, 2015
Earlier this summer (mais où est donc passé l’été? – where has summer gone?), I wrote a post with expressions and proverbs using the word chat. Whether you’re a cat person or a dog person, it’s not fair to exclude the dogs of their own post 😉 So, for all my fellow dog lovers, let’s…
Aéroports And Avions – Taking A Plane in French Posted by John Bauer on Sep 9, 2015
Je viens d’arriver aux USA (I just arrived in the USA) and after le long vol (the long flight) from France, with une escale courte (a short layover) in Spain, all I wanted to do was sleep. I’m back to my home state for the first time in a very long time. Before I got…
Borges, en français! Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Sep 7, 2015
In my “other” life, I teach college classes in literature. And this week I’m teaching about Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine short story master and the grandfather of magical realism. I have to say that Borges is one of my favorite authors and his stories, such as “The Aleph,” “The Zahir,” “The Garden of Forking…
Which State/Province Are You From? Expressing Location in French Posted by Josh Dougherty on Sep 3, 2015
I’ve been writing about prepositions with certain verbs lately, but today I’d like to discuss prepositions referring to American states and Canadian provinces (still worth reading if you’re not from those places – can never have too much grammar 😉 ) A while back, we wrote a post on how to say you’re from, living…
Keyboard Clash! Typing in French – AZERTY Posted by John Bauer on Sep 2, 2015
After all my hardware problems in the summer heat, I finally had to go out and buy a new computer. Qfter thqt; there zqs q proble, – After that, there was a problem. Le clavier (the keyboard) was in French, and Le clavier français is a bit different from le clavier anglais. Le clavier has…