{"id":31234,"date":"2019-04-02T05:30:39","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T03:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=31234"},"modified":"2020-07-23T13:35:16","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T11:35:16","slug":"french-vocabulary-maps-and-directions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/french-vocabulary-maps-and-directions\/","title":{"rendered":"French Vocabulary – Maps and Directions"},"content":{"rendered":"

While doing the research for my last post on le Grand Paris<\/a>, I came across something that got me thinking about les points cardinaux<\/strong> (the cardinal points) <\/em>and the words that we use in French to talk about north, south, east, and west.<\/p>\n

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I still have the well-worn copy of A. Leconte’s Plan de Paris par Arrondissement<\/em> that got me around the city for years. You could look up any street and see where it was on the map, major intersections, and nearby metro stations.<\/p><\/div>\n

Le monde est grand<\/strong> \/ The world is big<\/em><\/p>\n

J\u2019adore les cartes<\/strong> (I love maps).<\/em> I don\u2019t have much call to use actual maps anymore, thanks to my trusty portable<\/strong> (cell phone<\/em>), but back in the day, getting around a new city pretty much required the use of a good plan<\/strong> (city map).<\/em> Today you can use the built-in map function on your phone or t\u00e9l\u00e9charger<\/strong> (download<\/em>) all sorts of apps to help you navigate.<\/p>\n

The word carte<\/em> shows up in lots of places. You can send someone une carte de voeux<\/em> for their birthday, or use un jeu de cartes<\/em> to play your favorite card game. Une carte bancaire<\/em> can help you get cash out of an ATM or you might receive une carte postale<\/em> from your friend who is away on holiday. What we call in English a smartphone<\/em> or cell phone<\/em> can be either un portable, un mobile, un telephone cellulaire.<\/em><\/div>\n

Les points cardinaux<\/strong> \/ The points of the compass<\/em><\/p>\n

Everyone knows to the<\/em> right<\/em> (\u00e0 droite<\/strong>) and to the left<\/em> (\u00e0 gauche<\/strong>), but less common are the words for north <\/em>(le nord<\/strong>), south <\/em>(le sud<\/strong>), east <\/em>(l\u2019est<\/strong>), and west <\/em>(l\u2019ouest<\/strong>). <\/em>Let\u2019s look at these terms in use:<\/p>\n

Le premier arrondissement est au centre de Paris.<\/strong> \/ The first arrondissement is in the center of Paris.<\/em><\/p>\n

Le jardin du Luxembourg est au sud du premier arrondissement, dans le sixi\u00e8me arrondissement.<\/strong> \/ The Luxembourg gardens are to the south of the first arrondissement, in the sixth.<\/em><\/p>\n

Le Bois de Boulogne<\/a> est \u00e0 l\u2019ouest de Paris et le Bois de Vincennes<\/a> est \u00e0 l\u2019est.<\/strong> \/ The Boulogne Park is to the west of Paris and the Vincennes Park is to the east.<\/em><\/p>\n

La ville de Gentilly est au sud de Paris.<\/strong> \/ The city of Gentilly is south of Paris.<\/em><\/p>\n

Le Sacr\u00e9-Coeur<\/a> est dans le nord de Paris.<\/strong> \/ The Sacr\u00e9-C\u0153ur is in the north of Paris.<\/em><\/p>\n

Click this link to see a Google Maps view<\/a> that corresponds to these directions.<\/p>\n

Note that, while they can sometimes feel like adjectives, les points cardinaux<\/strong> are nouns and therefore do not get modified to agree with associated nouns. Which was that thing that caught my attention when I was researching le Grand Paris. I saw a description of la banlieue ouest<\/strong> (the western suburbs)<\/em> and wondered for the first time in all these years I\u2019ve been speaking French why it wasn\u2019t la banlieue oueste<\/strong> \u2026 and now I \u2013 and you! \u2013 know.<\/p>\n

While these words can help us find our way, two of them (at least) show up in expression that mean just the opposite. Perdre le nord <\/strong>(to lose the north)<\/em> is an expression that means \u2018to get lost\u2019, \u2018to be confused\u2019, \u2018to not know which end is up\u2019. Etre \u00e0 l\u2019ouest <\/strong>(to be to the west)<\/em>, an expression that seems to have entered French from the English (as apparently did the words nord, sud, est, <\/strong>and ouest<\/strong> themselves!), means to be tired, out of things, wiped.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

While doing the research for my last post on le Grand Paris, I came across something that got me thinking about les points cardinaux (the cardinal points) and the words that we use in French to talk about north, south, east, and west. Le monde est grand \/ The world is big J\u2019adore les cartes…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":31238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2149,284,11656,346,357,432],"class_list":["post-31234","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vocabulary","tag-france","tag-free-french-lessons","tag-french-blog","tag-french-grammar","tag-french-language","tag-french-vocabulary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31234"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32166,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31234\/revisions\/32166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}