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Another love story Posted by on Feb 27, 2018 in Culture, Vocabulary

It’s been almost a year since we last went to the store. Well Monoprix is back with another too-cute pub (short for pulicité / commercial) that we’ll look at this week.

Olympic update

But first, a look back at another topic we covered more recently, les JO. The 2018 Jeux olympique came to a close Sunday and les Bleus* (l’équipe française) (The Blues / the French team) won 15 médailles (medals) in events including biathlon, ski nordique, patinage artistique, ski acrobatique, ski alpin, et snowboard. French athletes brought home 5 médailles d’or (gold), 4 médailles d’argent (silver), and 6 médailles de bronze (bronze).

Pub Monoprix 2018

https://youtu.be/HbdYgkui450

 

  Un mardi soir à Paris dans un Monoprix. A Tuesday evening in a Paris Monoprix.
  Comme chaque semaine Alice croise le chemin de César au rayon salades. Like every (each) week, Alice runs into Cesar in the salad aisle.
  Il fait battre son cœur à chaque fois, mais elle ne sait vraiment pas comment l’aborder. He makes her heart beat faster each time, but she just doesn’t know how to approach him.
Alice : Il fait battre mon cœur à chaque fois, mais je ne sais vraiment pas comment l’aborder… He makes my heart beat each time, but I just don’t know how to approach him…
Alice : Salut ! Moi c’est Alice et toi t’es super craquant. Rohlala… Mais non, mais c’est la honte je peux pas lui dire ça… Hi ! I’m Alice and you are super cute. Oy… Oh no, but that’s so dumb I can’t say that to him…
  Alors pour la** Saint-Valentin Monoprix a pensé à Alice en créant Pack 06***, So for Valentine’s Day Monoprix thought to make Pack 06 for Alice,
  Une gamme de produits un peu particuliers pour dire à quelqu’un qu’il nous plaît. A range of special products for telling someone that we like them.
Alice : Wahou, mais quelle idée merveilleuse ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Wow, but what a wonderful ideas! Ha ha ha!
Alice : Oh là là! Oh la la !
  [Ça te dit un datte^ avec moi ?] [How about a date with me?]
Alice : Bravo Monoprix ! Bravo Monoprix !
  [Je ne peux pas te laisser filet^] [I can’t let you filet]
Alice : Tous ces Packs 06 sont hilarants ! These Pack 60s are hilarious!
  [Tu m’as trop fait crackers^] [You made me really crackers]
Alice : Mais comment font-ils pour être aussi drôles ? How ever do they make them so funny?
  [T’es dispo**** pour un petit vert^ ?] [Are you free for a little green?]
Alice : Han… Celui-ci exprime exactement ce que je ressens pour lui… Ha… This one expresses exactly what I feel for him…
  [J’ai eu un coup de poudre^ pour toi] [I was struck by powder for you]
  Après avoir choisi un Pack 06, Alice n’a plus qu’à écrire son numéro de téléphone dessus… After choosing a Pack 06, Alice just has to write her phone number on it…
  … Et le mettre discrètement dans le panier de César. … And slip it discreetly into Cesars basket.
Alice : Hiiii…. Hiiii….
  Quelques heures plus tard… A few hours later…
César : Slt !***** Merci pour ton Pack 06, c’est trop mignon. Je suis dispo ce soir si ça te dit ? [Visage heureux avec les mains ouverts pour un câlin / fourchette et couteau avec assiette] ‘sup ? Thanks for the Pack 06, it’s too cute. I’m free this evening if you’re interested? [Happy ‘hug me’ face / fork and knife with plate]
Alice : Génial ! On se rejoint à 20h alors, j’ai hâte. Great ! I’ll see you at 8:00 then, I can’t wait.
Alices/César : Blablabla Bliblou Hihahou Houhou Huhu moi aussi / tout pareil que toi. Yadda yadda yadda Blahblabla me too / just like you.
  Vivez vous aussi une jolie histoire d’amour grâce à un Pack 06. Live your own beautiful love story thanks to a Pack 06.
  Rendez-vous le 14 février dans nos magasins Paris Les Halles, Paris Saint-Paul et Lyon GBL. See you Frebruary 14th in our stores at Paris Les Halles, Paris Saint-Paul, and Lyon GBL.

^ Let’s break down the puns and word play: un datte in French is the fruit, this is a play on the English word date (which is both the fruit and a social event!); filer in French colloquially means to scoot, to flee – un filet is a cut of meat (in this case, fish); crackers is a play on the French craquer which means to crack, to crunch but also crack for, adore; un verre would be a glass – un petit vert here refers to peas (les petits pois); un coup de foudre is a lighting strke.

Lost in Paris

If you liked the story of Alice and Cesar, I recommend you check out a little independent film from Belgium called Lost in Paris (click to see the bande annonce / trailer). It’s almost impossible to describe, other than to say its quirky and very French. I discovered it complètement par hasard (completely by accident) au bibliothèque (at the library) last week and was really charmed by it.

 

* This term, which originally only refered to the French national soccer team, has come to represent many different teams representing France on the world stage.
** Like La Saint-Sylvestre, la Saint-Valentin uses the feminine definite article. The theory for why is that people are really saying “la fête du Saint-Valentin”
*** France has 5 phone regions. 01 represents the Ile-de-France region around Paris, 02 is Northwest France, 03 is Northeast France, 04 represents the southeast (including Corsica), and 05 is the southwest. 06 (and 07) are reserved for mobile phones. 08 is for free calls (also called numéro vert / green number), the equivalent of 800 (or 888) numbers in the United States.
**** dispo is short for disponible.
***** Short for salut / Hi!, or Hey! Salut can serve as a greeting and a goodbye.

Image Credits: Featured picture this week comes from the great free stock photo site https://www.pexels.com/

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About the Author: Tim Hildreth

Since my first trip to France at 16, I have been a passionate francophile. I love the language, food, music, art, people, and more that make France and la Francophonie in general such an amazing part of our global community. Having lived in France and studied the language and culture for over 35 years, it is my great pleasure to be able to share a little bit of my deep love with you through this blog.


Comments:

  1. Tim Hildreth:

    Justin,

    Thank you for all your recent comments. I’m not sure any of us here are experts in ancestry, but learning more about your family history is always exciting. The internet is a great source of information though and if you search using http://www.google.ca or http://www.google.fr you can often target searches to Canadian (.ca) and French (.fr) sources.