Tag Archives: free French lessons
French holidays: Bastille Day Posted by Tim Hildreth on Jul 11, 2017
This Friday (vendredi), le quatorze juillet (July 14), is la fête nationale française, known in the United States and many parts of the world as Bastille Day. And if you’re like many francophiles, you may think this day celebrates the storming of the royal prison of la Bastille on July 14, 1789 … and you’d…
Comme d’habitude Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Jul 8, 2017
Claude François is one of the most iconic of French singer-songwriters of the 1960s. Emerging in the heyday of French rock and roll, François gained popularity from performing popular American songs in French during his early career. He was known for his fluffy blonde hair, long eyelashes..and for his somewhat difficult personality. One of François’s early…
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…
Back to the store . . . Posted by Tim Hildreth on May 30, 2017
… For a love story! Between the world wars (la grande et la deuxieme*), France saw the creation of three stores dedicated to providing convenience and savings to urban shoppers. All three offered products “for a single price” and their names played on that concept. While all three evolved over the years, Monoprix (Mono-price), Uniprix…
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’…
Back to the Basics: French Articles Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on May 15, 2017
Today we will be going back to the basics of French grammar. The very building blocks of the French language require articles. What are they? Well, in English, they would be words like the or a. In any language, articles are used to show whether a noun is specific or unspecific. For example, in English, you could say “After the…
A question of size Posted by Tim Hildreth on May 9, 2017
The results are in! I’m sure you all have heard, but as discussed last week, France held the second tour of the presidential elections dimanche (Sunday). And dimanche prochain (next Sunday) Emmanuel Macron will be sworn in as the youngest French president. There has been so much coverage of the topic, I didn’t think it worth…