Archive by Author
Innovations in Public Transportation: The Navya Arma Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Sep 6, 2016
The French are known for their innovations in public transportation, particularly the TGV (train à grande vitesse), which set the record for the fasted wheeled train in the world. More recently, France’s capital city has adopted driverless trams on two of its metro lines. Now, the French are again experimenting with driverless public transportation. This…
French Compound Prepositions: Part 2 Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Aug 29, 2016
Last week, we went over some common compound prepositions in French that situate people or objects in relation to one another (particularly in regard to place/location). This week, let’s focus on compound prepositions that create a different link between nouns. As described last week, some prepositions directly situate one object compared to the location of…
French Compound Prepositions: Part 1 Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Aug 22, 2016
In previous posts, the French team has explored different kinds of French prepositions, including a basic overview of prepositions and proper preposition use with different countries. Prepositions (prépositions) are words or groups of words that show a relationship between one thing and another in a sentence. For example, a preposition might link the location of one…
Large–And Extra-Large–French Numbers Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Aug 15, 2016
Some of the most popular posts on this site are those that involve French numbers. There is good reason for this–French numbers are known for being somewhat tricky. In what other language, for example, would you have to say “four twenties [and] ten” to mean ninety? (In French, ninety is quatre-vingt-dix.) If you are interested in…
My Favorite French Recipe Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Aug 8, 2016
My favorite French recipe, the one I use every week–if not every day–is deceptively simple. But once you begin using it, you’ll never be able to go back. There aren’t any precise measurements, but that’s what makes it special: add a little bit of this, a pinch of that, to adjust the recipe to your…
Littérature de Gare: Les Polars Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Aug 1, 2016
I love detective novels–and especially literary page-turners that I can easily read while at the beach during the summer. Everyone knows of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christine, two British authors who revolutionized the genre, but do you know of any great French detective or crime novels? In French, the term for such…
Rastignac Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Jul 25, 2016
In French culture, intellectualism runs deep. It’s not uncommon to have feuds by contemporary philosophers or scholars followed by the media and even become front page news. Recently, I was reading about a feud between two French scholars engaged in a public feud. They threw insults at each other through opinion pieces printed in newspapers…