French lessons, events & trips
FRENCH LESSONS EVENTS & GIFTS
Une courte vidéo* to prove that the French struggle just as much as we do when they learn "the English". French Moroccan comedian Gad Elmaleh takes us through their equivalent of 'ouvrez la fenêtre*'.
PS C'est promis* - ask any French person who has learned English at school and they'll tell you all about the infamous Brian and his kitchen. Enjoy!
*a short video | *open the window | *It's a promise
We know, we know! When we first start teaching you here at Lingua Franca, we break the bad news that every single noun in French is either masculine or feminine (that’s why some words start with le* and others with la* and others with l’*…but that’s another story…).
We also tell you just to accept that there is no rhyme or reason as to which category they fall into. Now though, with possibly a bit more time on your hands than d’habitude*, we feel it’s time to let you in on a couple of little secrets as to how you can make an educated guess.
Bonus points for anyone who can identify the person in the background, going about her day at le nid*.
*the | *the | *the | *usual | *the nest
Negotiating la bise* in France is a trap for young players and is almost certain to cause some embarrassment as some time or another.
While Anglo-Saxons are more inclined to shake hands when greeting one another (or do we kiss, or hug or do nothing? See? C’est compliqué*!), the French are conditioned to faire la bise*.
A very instructive insight into this cultural norm is found in the video below. The part I love the best is the step-by-step instruction as to where to place your hand, what noise to make and the fact that la bise is really not a kiss at all.
At the end of the video, the presenter recommends another very funny video by English comedian Paul Taylor, who was the ambassador of Le Festival a couple of years back. You may have even seen him perform at Le Tivoli.
WARNING: While the video below is definitely safe for work, if you do go on to search out Paul Taylor’s take on the French and their salutations*, be aware the language is quite ripe. You were warned!
*the kiss | *It’s complicated! | *to kiss in greeting | *greetings
As you may know, Deborah is on lockdown in France, and while we’ve been in regular contact and I can tell you her physical and mental health is in tact, her comportement* has undergone a radical change. Oui, tout le monde, Deborah cuisine*.
To be fair to Deborah, she did have a foray into cooking last year with the help of Hello Fresh, and quite possibly she has kept it up since her return to France, but this goes above and beyond the call of duty: baking madeleines.
These little French cakes have a literary link, as it was in dipping a buttery madeleine into tea that the adult writer Proust was able to unlock childhood memories, as he evoked in “À la recherche du temps perdu” (“In Search of Lost Time”). He must have had quite some memories to draw upon, as the work runs to 4 215 pages over seven volumes and weighs 3.9kgs. Et voilà*, some light confinement* reading ideas. Don’t say we don’t look after you.
If you’re after a more modest challenge, try translating the ingredients below, and then, if you’re feeling confident, keep going with the instructions. If you need a good dictionary, we recommend www.wordreference.com.
By the way, head chef Deborah didn’t have a madeleine moule* so she just used a muffin tin instead and she reports they were nonetheless délicieux.
Bonne cuisine*!
*behaviour | *Yes, everybody, Deborah is cooking | *isolation | *And there you go | *mould | *delicious | *Happy cooking!
You know how some ads just work their way into popular culture? Think of the Yellow Pages ad (“Not happy, Jan!”) or G-O-G-G-O (the Goggomobil ad, again Yellow Pages). Or how about Mortein’s Louie the Fly?
France has its own classics and one of the best known is this ad for Milka, the confectionary company. The ad is self-explanatory, until we get to the strapline:
Man: Et alors la marmotte, elle met le petit chocolat dans le papier d'alu.
Woman: Mais, bien sûr!
Translation:
Man: And so the woodchuck puts the chocolate in the alfoil.
Woman: But, of course!
Ever since the ad’s appearance in France in the late 1990s, whenever someone says something outlandish or is seeming a bit crazy, one might hear: Et alors, la marmotte…
What would your vocabulary list look like to encapsulate the seasons? A fun exercise to while away le temps*.
*the time
Did you know that French is spoken in 30 countries across the globe by approximately 220 million people?
Can you figure out the six destinations below where le français* is spoken as an official language? The first person to send in the correct response will win a Lingua Franca En Voyage travel booklet (we can dream, can’t we?). We’ll accept cities or countries as answers.
Need some clues?
This destination is one of seven ex-French colonies in a very populous country.
This country’s national basketball team is called Les Panthères*.
The name of the city and the province, this destination is famed for its speciality poutine*.
You’ll never be late in this country.
Much of “Mutiny on the Bounty” was filmed here in 1962.
A regular destination for Lingua Franca.
Bonne chance*!
*French | *The Panthers | *chips, cheese curds and gravy | *Good luck!
“La pensée voyage à la vitesse du désir.” - Thought travels at the speed of desire.
Malcolm de Chazal, Mauritian philosopher.
Here, les plus beaux paysages de France* as presented by Geo.
PS Make sure you disable your ad blocker to watch this gorgeous video.
*the most beautiful landscapes of France.
You've probably worked out by now that the 2020 Brisbane French Film Festival is just around the corner (18th March - 14th April).
We have two tickets to give away to the first reader who can name all six of the French acteurs/actrices* above. Simply fill in the form below et tentez votre chance!*
And if you miss out, don't forget Lingua Franca has organised a film event for Sunday, 22nd March.
More details here.
*male actors/female actors | *and try your luck!
Looking to take on un projet personnel*? How about methodically watching your way through this list of well-known French films? You may have already seen #2 without realising it. Simply called "Amélie" in foreign cinemas, many of us longed to inhabit the quirky world of the adorable* Amélie Poulain.
*a personal project | *adorable
If you find the 'r' difficult in French, this video of an adorable young girl called Capucine will provide plenty of inspiration. Her énorme* imagination is quite something as well!
I used to think students could either make this sound or not, however over the years I've been proven very wrong. I now believe everybody can do it, you just have to know how. I'll put together a video to explain the technique soon, so keep an eye out in future Le Chouchou News.
*enormous
If you didn't know better, you could be thinking that life in France for Deborah is just one long fête*. In our last édition* of Le Chouchou News, Deborah explained la galette des rois*, and how this delicious 'kings' cake' is traditionally eaten on Epiphany Day.
This month, she's off to Pau's Carnaval Biarné. Pourquoi*? Glad you asked...
Quoi de mieux pour le moral qu’une vraie fête populaire ? Une fête gratuite, ouverte, qui vous aspire ! Carnaval, c’est une bouffée d’air pur dans un monde où l’on suffoque, un monde de plus en plus aseptisé et violent. Carnaval, c’est l’antidote à tous les maux, le plaisir de se laisser porter par une histoire fantastique qui mobilise tout le Béarn : celle du retour d’exil de sa Majesté Sent Pançard et de sa cour!
What better for the spirits than a true party for the people? A party that's free, open to all and lifts you up! Carnaval is a breath of fresh air in a world where we're suffocating, a world ever more sterile and violent. Carnaval is the antidote to all the bad. Let yourself be swept away by a fantastic story that brings together all of Béarn: that of the return from exile of His Majesty Sent Pançard and his court!
*party | *edition | *cake of the kings | *Why?
At Lingua Franca we're always encouraging you to take risks with your French. You'll often hear us saying "Just have a guess!" when you're stuck for a word, since we know there's a fairly good chance you'll get it right. French and English share at least 10 000 words, so it's not a bad stratégie* (see?), except when you get it wrong...
The culprit in these instances is usually a faux ami, or a false friend. These are words that look the same or similar in both languages, but have différent* meanings.The naughty Chouchous amongst you will already know to avoid excité* and préservatifs*, but there are many more seemingly innocuous words that can trip you up on your way to conquering la langue française*.
un bouton ≠ a button.
Well, it does actually but it also means a pimple, so attention*.
la monnaie ≠ money.
La monnaie actually means change, so if you hear someone saying "Je n'ai pas la monnaie." it doesn't mean they're broke, just that they might need to break a fifty.
la déception ≠ deception.
We nearly didn't employ someone once when he told us that since he'd worked in sales, he was very familiar with deception. Déception means disappointment, not being untruthful.
la location ≠ the location.
Have you ever seen a sign at a French airport indicating 'location de voitures'? I always assumed it meant the place where the cars were located (and it was never clear to me which cars, by the way), but it made a lot more sense when I finally realised location means 'rental'.
le pain ≠ the pain.
In fact it's the opposite. In France, le pain (bread) is usually synonymous with a whole lot of pleasure.
un tissu ≠ a tissue.
A tissue is un mouchoir, whereas tissu simply means fabric. By the way, for a vrai ami (true friend), you can always say 'un Kleenex' instead of un mouchoir for tissue. The glory of la globalisation*, non?
une prune ≠ a prune. How is that possible? How could it not mean prune? Because une prune is a plum and a prune is un pruneau. Tu piges*?
un slip ≠ a slip. In fact, un slip refers to a pair of men's undies. Not boxers but briefs. Which reminds me, les culottes does not refer to a wide-legged pair of pants. Les culottes is a slang word for women's knickers. Mignon, non*?
By the way, we're not immune to falling into the faux ami trap here at the office either. We're all second-language learners, like you, and have had our share of embarrassing language-related incidents over the years. For example:
Katrina recently responded to a text of Myriam's thanking her for something by saying "Ça me donne beaucoup de plaisir". She thought she was saying “it gives me a lot of pleasure”, meaning, you're welcome. Apparently not. Phrased that way, it means it gives me a lot of physical, even erotic, pleasure, which was really not her intention! She’s since been told the correct phrase is "Ça me fait très plaisir."
Myriam's own slip-up was more a question of pronunciation. When she first arrived in Australia and was setting up the house and buying bed linen, she went shopping for 'shits'. Oops.
The first time someone told Deborah they worked in hospitality, she assumed they worked in a hospital. Tellement mignon*!
Josephine was trying to explain her physique to someone and wanted to talk about her 'measurements' which in French is 'les mensurations'. Translating (almost) directly from French to English she ended up saying that her menstruations were not standard. La honte!*
*strategy | *different | *sexually excited | *condoms | *the French language | *be careful | *globalisation | *Get it? | *Cute, isn't it? | *So cute! *How embarrassing!
I absolutely love teaching about the acute accent (accent aigu in French). I find it really interesting.
Firstly, it's a sound we're relatively familiar with even before we come to learn French, since it appears in some very common words we've borrowed: café, risqué, touché, for example.
Secondly, there is a really neat trick I was taught by my French teacher which I now love to pass on. It goes like this: if ever you're faced with a French word that starts with an 'é' and you're having trouble deciphering it, try dropping the 'é' and replacing it with an 's' instead.
For example:
étranger = stranger
état = state
Écosse = Scotland
Pourquoi? Well, the history of language is a long and complicated one, but this is my simple (and by no means authoritative) take on it. Modern French is derived from Latin via Old French. Several other modern languages are also based on Latin, for example Italian, Spanish, Portugese and Romanian. These are often called western Romance languages. If we take an example of the evolution of the word 'study' from Latin to Old French to Modern French, you may start to see an interesting pattern.
Latin: studium
Old French: estude
Modern French: étude
Can you see how when the 's' dropped out of use in the transition between Old and Modern French, the acute accent makes an appearance? It seems English borrowed many words from Old French, and just removed the 'e' over time, leaving us, in this example at least, with 'stude' which is quite close to the Modern English word 'study'. Interestingly, Spanish also borrowed many words at this stage, and yet they chose to keep the 'es' (their word for study is 'estudio').
For those of you who are new to Lingua Franca, you may not have noticed a basket of groceries as you enter the office.
We're putting it in a more prominent place in the coming weeks in case any of you are interested in contributing to the collection of goods for our friends, the World Wellness Group, a not-for-profit organisation located in Stones Corner who provide medical care for some of our most at-risk fellow Brisbanites. Helping to keep their community pantry with staples such as rice, pasta, canned beans and UHT milk allows the WWG to maintain their high levels of care.
All contributions gratefully accepted, none expected.
A French film that could very well make you feel better about your skills…
Do you ever go to see a French film and walk away completely discouraged because you understand so little? This has always been my experience, even after studying French for over 35 years and having lived in France.
As a part-time maso*, I like to test myself to see how long I can stare at the screen and just listen to the dialogue without resorting to reading the subtitles. I usually last about three changes of text before lowering my gaze (and with it, my self-esteem).
So why are French movies so hard to understand? Oftentimes, the scenes depicted are of daily life, so the language used is quite familiar and includes a lot of slang, which we don't necessarily know. Movies also need a conflict for their dramatic arc, so you'll often have people screaming at each other which makes understanding them almost impossible.
Imagine my delight, then, when I went to see Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune femme en feu) last weekend and in the first scene I understood every single word. I was giggling away to myself, thinking that I could report back to our students that there is a film out there that is easy to understand...finally!
A mild disclaimer: after the first scene, the language changed a little and therefore became a bit trickier to understand without consulting les sous-titres*, but en gros* it was the clearest and most easy to understand French film I have seen in a while. And did I mention it is a breathtakingly beautiful film? Please go and see it.
Finally, more than one morale de l'histoire*:
1) don't judge your French ability by French films - it'll be one of the later things you conquer
2) try for period pieces (such as the above) - the French they use is more formal and therefore easier to understand.
3) do not be like me and turn watching French films into a blood sport. Go and enjoy the sheer beauty of letting the French language wash over you. You'll never regret it.
*masochist *subtitles *in the main *moral of the story
Over the Christmas break, we set to work on a new range of videos designed to help French learners improve their spoken French. I'd say 95% percent of our students at one point or another will complain that although they are able to read and write quite well, they just cannot get the words out when it comes time to speak. Many of us can formulate perfect French sentences when we're in the shower or walking the dog, but under pressure all those words just seem to evaporate dans la nature*.
As clichéd as it may sound, the key is to practise, practise, practise to the point where you're boring yourself. This serves two ends: 1) the repetition will embed the sentence in your head and 2) you'll naturally lose some of your inhibitions by dint of having repeated the same thing so many times. So have a play around with our new videos. Play, pause and replay them as many times as you like, and just when you're starting to feel the ennui*, put yourself under a bit of pressure by letting them run straight through. If you fold under pressure? Just recommencez*...
*into thin air *boredom *start again
And for those of you who are not quite absolute beginners, here is a slightly more difficult version:
And if you're feeling a bit more daring...
Et pour les experts...
We all miss Deborah, but luckily for us she's going to be checking in via the Chouchou News each month. Being janvier*, it's all about la galette des rois* and who gets to be king for a day and wear the crown.
For those of you who don't know Deborah...well, you missed out! Deborah worked at Lingua Franca in Brisbane for 7 years as a tutor and also took over the design from me (Katrina) in the early years of Lingua Franca (trust me, you should be thankful for that). In December 2019, Deborah and her family moved back to France but Deborah continues to be a very valuable member of the Lingua Franca family, taking care of all our graphic design work à distance.*
*January *Epiphany cake *remotely
As If Bradley Cooper isn’t talented enough, did you know he also speaks fluent French? Here is an example of his skill:
I think we’d all agree now that Bradley is fairly ‘cool’, but as a child he claims he most certainly was not. In fact, it was this belief that prompted him to take up French. According to People Magazine, Bradley was first inspired to learn French as a child after watching Chariots Of Fire. As he said, “There’s a scene where a guy was speaking French and I thought, ‘Man, that sounds so cool.’ ”
Many of us, I’m sure, can relate to that feeling: wanting to speak French because it’s beautiful and sexy and cool. We all know, though, that it’s a difficult road to speaking in a way that is even remotely attractive, as we stumble and crank our way through the basics of French. Bradley speaks so well (okay, he makes little errors here and there but his accent is sublime) that for a long time, the jealous part of me assumed he was Canadian and had grown up speaking it. “Easy for him…”, I’d say to myself.
But in fact, no. The star of the Hangover franchise and the director of A Star is Born has put in the hard yards. Despite growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and not being “the smartest person”, he went on to do a Bachelor of Arts in English at Georgetown University, with a French minor. He then took advantage of an exchange program through his university, spending six months with a host family in Aix-en-Provence.
It’s clear from watching the clip that Bradley has a passion for French and of course, as an actor, he is undoubtedly gifted at the art of mimicry. However, I believe he touches on the secret to his success when he says “I’m not afraid to make mistakes.” So please, in watching this video, be inspired, not discouraged. You may not be able to speak as well as Bradley right now, but with consistent effort and a bit of daring, you will get there.
With the French Film Festival coming up in March/April, this article in the Guardian caught my eye.
We once ran a workshop on French film, and I remember coming across this woman when we were doing the research for the course. Many of us may associate the Lumière Brothers with the movies, but Frenchwoman Alice Guy-Blaché, who made over 1000 films in Hollywood? Probablement pas*.
*Probably not
