Tag Archives: French vocabulary
Describing people in French Posted by Tim Hildreth on Jul 25, 2017
In a previous post, I talked about the irregular French adjectives beau, vieux, and nouveau, useful for describing the relative age and attractiveness of people and things*. This week we’ll talk about ways to describe some of the physical characteristics of people. Voilà Sophie / This is Sophie. Sophie est blonde. Elle a les cheveux…
Almost Août! Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Jul 24, 2017
Today, as I was standing à la caisse (at the checkout/cashier) to pay for my groceries, la cassière (the cashier) mentioned that she couldn’t believe all the back-to-school ads she saw all over the place. “Summer isn’t over!” she opined. I agreed heartily with her…but then I realized that next week will already be August. How…
A Revolutionary Calendar Posted by Tim Hildreth on Jul 18, 2017
Before we leave juillet (July) and our observances of the French Revolution* behind for another year, I thought it might be fun to explore briefly one of the odder ‘inventions’ of the First French Republic. The French Revolution and France’s First Republic which it led to gave us many enduring ideals including the Déclaration…
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…
In the eye of the beholder Posted by Tim Hildreth on Jun 20, 2017
Belle isn’t just the name of the main character in Disney’s latest film. Belle is also a French adjective that means beautiful, lovely, pleasant, or agreable (unlike joli/jolie – pretty, belle doesn’t only pertain to appearances). Ok, so that’s not entirely true. In another oddity of the French language, belle is technically not its own…
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…