Archive by Author
French Rules of Capitalization Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Sep 27, 2015
There are quite a few differences between capitalization in English and in French. You may have already noticed that the first person singular pronoun “I” is not capitalized in French except at the beginning of a sentence. For example, you would write: “Je t’aime,” but “Tu sais que je t’aime.” Ok, this seems pretty obvious, right?…
French Pronominal Verbs Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Sep 21, 2015
Pronominal verbs are verbs that require an extra pronoun and are also known as reflexive verbs. These kind of verbs can be especially tricky for English speaks because they are utilized in many common phrases in French that would not be reflexive in English. Actually, pronominal verbs (or reflexive verbs) aren’t used all that often…
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…
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…
French Back-to-School: La Rentrée (de réformes) Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Aug 31, 2015
Uh-oh — it’s already la rentrée! As the end of August approaches, students are getting ready to head back to school, people are returning back from vacation, and workers are heading back to work. In French, there’s an important word for all of this: la rentrée. Literally meaning “the return,” la rentrée refers to the…
French Singer-Songwriter Georges Brassens Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Aug 24, 2015
Georges Brassens is a French icon; a singer-songwriter and poet who rebelled against what he saw as upper-class and traditional values. His lyrics are poetry, but they are notoriously difficult to translate because he often used argot, puns, sarcasm and black humor. Oftentimes in translation, the real beauty of his lyrics are lost. The lyrics below…
French Actor: Lambert Wilson Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Aug 17, 2015
Have you ever heard of Lambert Wilson? He’s a well known and prolific French actor. While he appears mostly in French films today, you may have caught him in English-language productions as well. He has performed in Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions (2001), Catwoman (2004), and, most recently, Babylon A.D. (2007) with Vin Diesel and…