After our miscellaneous March and April news round up, we’re back with the monthly news and some fun vocabulary updates for mai divers¹A play on fait divers / anecdotes.

Photo CC0 from Werner Pfennig at www.pexels.com

Eurovision

As was widely anticipated, Ukraine won the most recent edition of the Eurovision Song Contest this past weekend. “Le Kalush Orchestra, dont la chanson Stefania mêle hip-hop et musique traditionnelle, a recueilli 631 points.”²The group Kalush Orchestra, whose song Stefania mixes hip-hop with traditional music, received 631 points.

The results for France, unfortunately, were not as good. Despite a strong performance, Alban & Alex, the French group signing in Breton, where avant-dernière au classement³second-to-last. “Seuls les jurés internationaux de l’Arménie, de l’Azerbaïdjan et de la Géorgie leur ont accordé quelques points. Quant aux téléspectateurs, ils n’ont distribué que 8 points à la France.”⁴Only the international juries from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia gave them any points. As for the tv viewers, they attributed 8 points to France.

You can find the lyrics of the group’s song, Fulenn, as well as its translation into French here. As the article says, la chanson “s’inspire de la légende de Katell Gollet (Catherine la perdue, en breton), une jeune femme qui préférait danser autour du feu plutôt que de se soumettre à un mariage imposé”⁵the song “is inspired by the legend of Katell Gollet (Catherine the lost, in Breton), a young woman who preferred to dance around the fire than to submit to a forced marriage”.

La meilleure pizzeria d’Europe

Pizza, while not French, is one of my go to foods when I’m in France. While I can never really get my fill of soupe à l’oignon, foie gras, and galettes or a good jambon baguette with a diabolo menthe, when I want something different, I know I can always find a good pizza in Paris.

And now, apparently, next time I’m in Paris, I will be able to get the best pizza … not just in Paris, but in all of Europe! A recent round up of the 50 best pizzerias in Europe named Giuseppe Cutraro’s restaurant Peppe (rue Saint-Blaise) as the best of the best! Cutraro has a second restaurant, Casa di Peppe, 222, rue Saint-Jacques if you can’t find a spot at Pepe’s.

So many colors

I came across a fun report this week from RTL.fr about “[l]es couleurs disparues de la langue française”⁶the colors that have disappeared from the French language. You can read or listent to it here⁷In fact, a great way to practice your skills is to first listen to the recording, then read the article, then listen again. See how your understanding changes through each phase!

I quite like the sound of zinzolin (a reddish purple) and smaragdin (a green tint, from the Greek for emerald (the stone)) but my favorite is gludure … a made up word that, according to its creator, was “[l]a plus envoûtante, la plus belle de toutes [les couleurs]”⁸the most enchanting, the most beautiful of all [the colors] (Note: I’ve translated envoûtante as enchanting, however bewitching might be more appropriate, as it comes from the French envoûter-to put a spell on, to control as through magic.) (even if it only appeared in a black and white comic that left it up to you to imagine just what gludure looked like!)

Rainbows

• 1
  A play on fait divers / anecdotes
• 2
  The group Kalush Orchestra, whose song Stefania mixes hip-hop with traditional music, received 631 points
• 3
  second-to-last
• 4
  Only the international juries from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia gave them any points. As for the tv viewers, they attributed 8 points to France
• 5
  the song “is inspired by the legend of Katell Gollet (Catherine the lost, in Breton), a young woman who preferred to dance around the fire than to submit to a forced marriage”
• 6
  the colors that have disappeared from the French language
• 7
  In fact, a great way to practice your skills is to first listen to the recording, then read the article, then listen again. See how your understanding changes through each phase!
• 8
  the most enchanting, the most beautiful of all [the colors] (Note: I’ve translated envoûtante as enchanting, however bewitching might be more appropriate, as it comes from the French envoûter-to put a spell on, to control as through magic.)