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French Wit Posted by Tim Hildreth on Apr 23, 2019
When I was first living in France and learning French, understanding humour was one of things that took me the longest. As John discussed recently, a lot of this is due to the fact that so much humour depends on more than simply understanding the words. It’s also because, for the French, humour is an…
Notre-Dame de Paris avant le feu Posted by Tim Hildreth on Apr 16, 2019
Mon coeur est lourd aujourd’hui (My heart is heavy today). Unless you are on a 24×7 news blackout, I assume by now you’ve all seen the tragic news out of Paris hier (yesterday). In an absolutely shocking turn of events, one of the world’s most magnificent cathedrals and un vrai chef-d’oeuvre de l’architecture gothique (a true…
French Culture – Canadian Style Posted by Tim Hildreth on Apr 9, 2019
While my taste in all things French tends to run to the France French, if you’ve read me before you know that I have family in Québec and I go there from time to time. I also like to keep up when I can with how the culture is evolving up there. This week I…
French Vocabulary – Maps and Directions Posted by Tim Hildreth on Apr 2, 2019
While doing the research for my last post on le Grand Paris, I came across something that got me thinking about les points cardinaux (the cardinal points) and the words that we use in French to talk about north, south, east, and west. Le monde est grand / The world is big J’adore les cartes…
France and le Grand Paris Posted by Tim Hildreth on Mar 26, 2019
A few weeks ago as I was exploring the public opinion research from IFOP, one of the studies that caught my attention was an examination from last December of public perceptions of the ensemble d’initiatives connues sous le terme du Grand Paris (group of initiatives known as the Great / the Big Paris). Le Grand…
French Music – Spring is in the air Posted by Tim Hildreth on Mar 19, 2019
This year, here in the northern hemisphere, le mercredi 20 mars (Wednesday, March 20th), is le premier jour du printemps (the first day of spring)! What better time to share another fun French-language song, one that kicks off la nouvelle saison* (the new season) tout en joie (with joy). C’est l’printemps / It’s spring This…
French Culture – What do the French think Posted by Tim Hildreth on Mar 12, 2019
As I was recently following up on news about les Gilets jaunes I stumbled across a great resource for anyone interested in understanding what les français pensent (the French think) on any number of different topics. Qu’en pensez vous? / What do you think? There’s no better way to know what someone is thinking then…