Archive by Author
Revue littéraire no. 2 (bis) Posted by Jennie on May 14, 2010
Bonjour! Après avoir discuté (after having discussed) Aimé Césaire on Tuesday, allons explorer son livre (let’s explore his book) Discours sur le colonialisme. Though the discours (speech) first appeared in 1950, the publication by Éditions Présence Africaine dates from 1955. An English translation by Joan Pinkham was published in 1972. D’abord (first), two interesting notes from…
Revue littéraire no. 2 Posted by Jennie on May 12, 2010
After the fun of Balzac’s Sarrasine , it’s time for our deuxième revue littéraire! Aimé Césaire was un poète, un écrivain et un homme politique Martiniquais: a Martinican poet, writer and politician. Né en (born in) Martinique en 1913, Césaire a démenagé (moved) to Paris for high school. There, he began an academic career that included…
Yelle if you love Fridays! Posted by Jennie on May 9, 2010
Say it with me: Dieu merci, c’est vendredi! (Ou bien, c’était vendredi… Dieu merci, c’est le weekend!) If you’ve been in a European club in the last few years, or at 2008’s music festival Coachella, vous connaissez peut-être (you might know) YELLE. YELLE consists of a singer (named Yelle), a writer, and a producer who…
Work it! Posted by Jennie on May 6, 2010
Today we are going to aborder (discuss) a topic of which I have only une vague compréhension: l’exercice! En fait, j’aime bien faire de l’exercice (In fact, I like doing exercise). In Paris, my host sister introduced me to the local piscine municipale (city pool), which was conveniently on the way to the world’s finest boutique…
The Burqa Ban in Belgium Posted by Jennie on Apr 30, 2010
Aujourd’hui, on va aborder (today we’re going to tackle) un sujet assez chaud (a pretty hot subject). I know this blog is about la langue et la culture françaises, and I hope you’re learning both from reading it. Today’s topic is at the center of la discussion actuelle (the current discussion) on French culture and…
Ces petits riens Posted by Jennie on Apr 28, 2010
Il pleut (it’s raining) in New York, and all I want is to curl up with un verre de vin and …Serge. Serge Gainsbourg is un auteur-compositeur-interprète et cinéaste français: a French songwriter-composer-singer and filmmaker. I’ve mentioned him before, in a post about eating breakfast in the mornings in Paris and listening to the radio…
Putting Your French Face On: Makeup Vocab Posted by Jennie on Apr 23, 2010
Évidemment (obviously), le maquillage (makeup) n’est pas nécessaire. But it’s fun to play with, and it’s one of the places you’re most likely to see French every day: Check your lip gloss. Does it also say “gloss à lèvres”? I learned a lot of the vocabulaire de maquillage from reading les emballages (the packaging) des…