Occasionally I get into conversations with French teachers, and I'm amazed that quite a lot of them have never read one !!!!!!!
Crikey !!!!!!
When I was doing A-Level French I would have loved to get hold of them.
I was mooching about looking for more Semp - Goscinny stuff ... and remarkably another two I'd never seen before appeared.... see below ... ... and they are excellent .
Occasionally I get into conversations with French teachers, and I'm amazed that quite a lot of them have never read one !!!!!!! Crikey !!!!!! When I was doing A-Level French I would have loved to get hold of them.
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I have enjoyed reading this book ...the vast % of it is in English so I've picked out some of the trickier French usages ..... such as "baise-en-ville" which means " a screw in town" (!) â  ê Ê É È î Î ô Ô û Û Ŵ ŵ Ŷ ŷ ç í á à â ä œ ç é è ê ë ç í ì î ï ó ò ô ö ù ø ú Ú û ü û Ï Ç ß Ü Ä Ë Ï Öñÿ•‡¡÷°¼½¾œ ƶ π
[1] vache folle [2] prometteur [3] steaks hâches [4] crêtin dauphin [5] Une Leffe [6] merde générale [7] en greve [8] j'ai un petit ami [9] bourse ( informal) [10] pursé [11] Carte de sejóur [12] Bateau mouche [13] Chapeau melon et battes de cuire [14] Carte Orange [15] The " PARTICULIER á PARTICULIER " [16] ringard And as an extra bonus ... when does the French New Year start ? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Molesworth doesn't like French ... and his teacher doesn't like him either. Altho fr. masters canot keep order they stick grimly to their task nothing seme to discourage them. It is a good wheeze then if you have a real Fr. boy in the class. Then you sa innocently What is it like in France, sir ? France is quite exquisit molesworth the fine od wines of Burgundy the splendid food the gay wines of Champagne the cafes the railway stations the mice which love cheese and the trees which are pretty. Gosh sir really sir then it is just like the pictures in the fr. book? France molesowrth do not hav beetles drawn all over it. Get on with your ex. boy. This is the time when you stick your compass into the real Fr. boywho jaber like a bren gun maymsieuestcequejaituailaspaparat . ect. for 5 minits . Then there is silence you could here a piece of buble gum drop and fr master larff uneasily. Come again le crapaud he sa come again. well you kno what it is once a fr. boy start you canot stop them becos they hav so much on their mind. ( maw of this nonsunce layter) I've just worked my way through all the Roald Dahl stories .... in French. .. and what a brilliant and fun way learn French .... as Alice ( in Wonderland) once said ... " what is a story without pictures and conversation ?" And those R D stories certainly have plenty of that. Plus ... there's lots of poems/songs, to jolly it all along. And a the end of each book there's lots of interesting activities to have a go at. So, dear readers ..... off you go ! Meantime, a song ..... C'est Si Bon ..... Oh yes ... and there's lots of wacky stuff available ... here's a few examples...and this is an excellent one to start on ... .... and now .... "Elle me dit" .... maybe even wackier ... This is the notorious Plastique Bertrand and " Ca plane pour moi" I'm sure that some of my readers will know lots more ..... so why not send your choice in, and I'll add it to the collection.
Twenty of you searching will find them a lot faster than "only" me ! And I will find some more as well. Yep, I know that cover is a trifle "ordinary" but this is an evocative and fascinating book of his relentless exploration of the byways of the city. He is particularly keen on walking through the neglected areas , often in the darkness, and meandering through alleyways, hauling his way up all those seemingly endless stairways, walking through the lesser-known areas, watching the people as they go about their unremarkable journeys. PLUS ..and it is a big plus, is the facing-page French-English layout. You'll learn lots of useful French words whilst following in his footsteps. The Times Literary Supplement said .... " Truthful, unpretentious and haunting." He also has suggested that Paris looks like a giant brain if you hang one of your Paris maps on the wall and take a few paces back. " A force de songer à la capitale, je la reconstruisais en moi, et je remplaçais sa présence physique par autre chose de presque surnaturel à quoi je ne sais quel nom donner. Un plan de Paris fixé au mur retenait longuement mes regards et m'instruisait presque à mon insu. Je découvris que Paris aviat la forme d'un cerveau humain." Julian Green. Born in Paris 1900. Died in Paris 1998. I got this excellent book from my local Oxfam shop for the sum of £2.49 ..and I've been reading it ever since. I have been reading different memoirs about France and Paris for the past couple of months trying to find out from the memories of people that have lived there, what is it really like? I have read 3 books from an English lady who moved to the French countryside. One book from a lady from Australia that lived in Paris. One from a New Yorker who spent several years there. But THIS ONE IS THE ONE. I have tried to find out who said ... "we can't know where we are going unless we know where we have been." It seems the saying is a paraphrase of another saying and could not find it attributed to any particular person. So I feel safe using it here. It fits in finding out what makes the French and the Parisians tick, just as much as it fits any history in the world. I continually read how rude the Parisians are, from officials, to shop keepers, to people on the street. I really wanted to dig into this more, see if it was true, and if so why. Every country in the world, indeed even particular areas within a country have their own subtle differences in the ways they respond to or say and do certain things, or the way they don't respond, say or do things. This book is written by Lucy Wadham , whom at the age of 18 moved to Paris, married a Frenchman, had four children with him, put those children through the French education system, became well acquainted with the medical system, the ins and outs of any paper work. Went through a divorce in the French courts, and still decided to stay in France after her children were grown. The author has thoroughly studied the history of France and gives us a big picture of what France has been through as a nation, her sins, her triumphs, her tragedies. The end result is I had all my questions answered as to why the Parisians do what they do, say what they say, and act the way they do. In some ways they are ahead of many nations, in some ways they are way behind. I would think this could be said of most nations . Beliefs long held and passed down through many generations make us who we are, it is up to the would be visitor , armchair or otherwise to do the history search to find out why? Saying Parisians are snobs and look down their noses at other countries or visitors does not let us know if we are perceiving correctly, if we are doing or saying something that is considered inappropriate in their culture. NO--- we owe it to our own intelligence to get the correct reasons and revise our opinions where needed. Do our perceptions come from a lack of knowledge or some other wrong reasoning? Like all countries France has some very beautiful beliefs and customs, some things not to be proud of , and some that are just plain contradictory ,sounds like America and every other country I have been in. Keep in mind that some of the early chapters of the book are written in the 1980's, she writes from the viewpoint of discovering France its ways and its people as she raises her children, over 20 + years integrating into the French way of life as she learns it from first hand experiences. It is a fair, clear and wonderfully revealing book written by someone who truly became part of the fabric of the country especially Paris. The author tells us ,"French culture comes from "rigid founding myths" and has an "obession for nobility and status,", It is from the reading of this book, 'Who The French Really Are' I finally gained the insight and understanding I was seeking. If you really want to know about these complicated people this book will get you there. Finally the mysteries are dispelled. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ OK folks .... outside my "study" window the ferocious wind and torrential rain of STORM EUNICE is battering the windows and making a right racket ! So ...let's have a song to cheer us all up ... .... Problems with the blog ... I'm having a lot of trouble over the last month to put stuff on here ...I've just been doing ..or trying to do... that very thing, and I don't quite know how, but at last I've "done" it .... but I'm not quite sure what my "working" sequence of "piddling about" was.
Any ideas ? You know what " Lost Consonants" is all about. Graham Rawle has produced whole books of them. My dear and helpful "Significant Other" isn't available at the moment, so I can't get her to photograph some of them for me. So ...here's a few examples. The picture shows a Horse looking at the Mona Lisa. And the caption below it says .. PUTTING THE ART BEFORE THE HORSE ( In case you don't get it yet, it should be Cart not Art) But it has lost a consonant ..... C in this case. Another one of his pictured some schoolboys tilting sideways. The caption was " These pupils suffer from Leaning Difficulties" ( And amazingly, I recently found a dinky article in the local paper which made the same misprint, I sent it to Mr. Rawle and he was wonderfully chuffed !) Here's another example .... An elephant is watching a monkey who is forging banknotes. And the elephant wants nothing to do with such mischief. The caption is ... "An Elephant never forges" They are excellent are they not !!??? So .... Having just thought about trying it with French , I haven't got round to actually creating any just yet.... but I'm going to have a go. And I would appreciate any of my readers to try to create some .... and then you could put them on here in the "comment" section" .... but I do have a suspicion that it might not be so easy with French. So, it is now music time....... Yes, it would. Just saying ! I'm not sure what the French equivalent of "Just Saying" is. I've looked in my BIGGEST FRENCH DICTIONARY but I couldn't find it there. It might be in The complete MERDE somewhere .... .. but it would be hard to find it without the aforementioned index. So .... let's have some beautiful music ..... I love that phrase .... " à perte de vue"
â  ê Ê É È î Î ô Ô û Û Ŵ ŵ Ŷ ŷ ç í á à â ä œ ç é è ê ë ç í ì î ï ó ò ô ö ù ø ú Ú û ü û Ï Ç ß Ü Ä Ë Ï Öñÿ•‡¡÷°¼½¾œ ƶ π Way way back when I was just starting to learn French ( having been totally crap at it in my grammar-school French lessons) one of the first books I got was that up there ..... it cost a quid ... and what an excellent little book it is. (Even the introduction is good !) It consists of 8 short plays, then a vocabulary at the back. The vocabulary ,very sensibly, gives the gender of all the nouns.... which doesn't happen very often in my experience. The plays are funny and engaging, and I've read them ( often out loud)(the way plays should be) many times since. Before writing this I looked it up on Amazon, not expecting it to be there, but it is ! .. Not only that, the paperback is selling at around £30 !! Well worth it I say. And now .... a lovely song ! |
AuthorLearn French in 88 years .. well, it's a long time, so you might as well enjoy yourself on the way. I hope you are enjoying all the sensible bits as well as the music, the games, challenges, odd diversions, rants, the roads less travelled and so on. I'm on the same road as well. Good luck to all of us. Archives ... monthly listing
September 2021
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