Tag Archives: chanson française
Vacation has arrived Posted by Tim Hildreth on Aug 1, 2017
August 1 (le premier août) is the traditional start of France’s grandes vacances (big vacation). For decades, the month of August has seen literally millions of French take to the roads to escape the office, city, and home to find un peu de repos (a little rest) à la campagnes, dans les montagnes (in the…
Marianne Posted by Tim Hildreth on Jul 4, 2017
Le 14 juillet (July 14th), Bastille Day, is the French national holiday commemorating the start of the French revolution in 1789. The end of the French revolution led to a series of Republics (more below) one of the symbols of which is la Marianne. Named for the two most common woman’s names at the…
She’s a beauty Posted by Tim Hildreth on Jun 13, 2017
As one of my fellow bloggers said, Claude François was “an iconic French singer who died at 39 years old, and who even [more than] 30 years after his death still fascinates people in France and abroad…”. I suspect that fascination is due in equal parts to his great songs, his tragic death…
French pronunciation basics part 3 Posted by Tim Hildreth on May 16, 2017
Many words in French end in ‘e’. And while the final ‘e’ can make us pronounce other letters (think ‘petit‘ vs. ‘petite‘ or ‘français‘ vs. ‘française‘), it is, in itself, usually silent. Usually, but not always! In poetry, and often in songs (which are, after all, just poems set to music), a final silent ‘e’…
What would you do? Posted by Tim Hildreth on Apr 25, 2017
Last summer I asked ‘what I did‘ and ‘what you are going to do‘ (looking at the past and future tenses in song). This week, a look at another French tense – and a new song – to learn about le conditionelle (the conditional). Le conditionelle is not actually a tense, but a mood…
A real star Posted by Tim Hildreth on Mar 28, 2017
Céline Dion is surely one of the world’s most successful and well-known French-language singers. Born in the Canadian province of Québec and singing originally exclusively in French, Céline has gone on to international stardom in English and in French, selling over 200 million albums worldwide (making her the best-selling Canadian artist of all time). Céline’s…
Love and animals? Posted by Tim Hildreth on Feb 14, 2017
Happy Valentine’s Day! C’est le 14 février*. Le jour des amoureux ! (It’s the 14th of February. The day of lovers!) In honor of the day, I thought a little song about love was in order. Malheureusement (Sadly), l’amour n’est pas toujours facile ! (love isn’t always easy!) So while today’s song is about love…