Archive for 'Vocabulary'
Portable disasters Posted by Jennie on May 25, 2010
J’ai perdu mon portable ! I lost my cell phone ! I know, quel désastre. J’essayais des jean chez Levi’s (I was trying on jeans at Levi’s) et quand je suis sortie, je voulais appeler mon ami… et je fouillais dans mon sac et je n’ai rien trouvé ! (and when I left, I wanted to call my…
How to Make French Crepes Posted by Jennie on May 21, 2010
Ce soir, j’ai fait des crêpes! (Tonight, I made crêpes !) C’était délicieux. J’aimerais vous donnez une recette (I’d like to give you a recipe) but it’s not the precise measurements that matter. L’esprit de crêpe (that is a made-up expression) is more important than the crepes themselves! (There’s still a recipe here, quand même.)…
French Slang Expressions with the Letter C Posted by Hichem on May 20, 2010
We pick up our alphabet of French slang with the letter C! * * * C comme… (C, as in…) * Charier: Charier quelqu’un means to tease or to make fun of someone. Example: “Tu me charies, chérie?” (Are you kidding me, Darling?”) Obviously, “chérie” and “charies” here are phonetically closer in French than English.) * Chaud: Literally…
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…
Un conte de fée de l’adorable Capucine! (A Fairytale of the adorable Capucine!) Posted by Hichem on May 12, 2010
Here is une petite fille vraiment adorable (a really adorable little girl.) I don’t know if you had the chance to see this video before, but the way she tells her conte de fée (fairytale) is absolutely remarkable, especially with her unique expressions (for example at 0:28, when she goes: “Comment on dit là où on se protège…
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 (à tue-tête) if you like “le FRI€” the TTC way Posted by Hichem on May 11, 2010
Of course, this is un clin d’œil humouristique (a humorous wink or allusion) to Jennie’s previous post, “Yelle if you love Fridays!” Jennie is right, YELLE‘s songs were all of a sudden heard “all over” in France, and even reaching other European countries and the United-States: “Elle défrayait la chronique”, as the French expression goes. And like Jennie mentioned, she owed her succès…