A Week in France - part 3

Continuing from where we were last ...

She: "Que tu veux faire maintenant? What do you want to do now?" (Kuh tu vuh fair maN-tuh-nuN)
You: "D'abord, je veux boire quelque chose. J'ai soif. First, I would like to drink something. I am thirsty." (Daa-borr, juh vuh bwar kel-kuh shoes. Jay swaf.)
She: "Il y a un café là-bas. Allons-y.” There is a café over there. Let's go there." (Ill ee aa aN cafey luh-baa. Aallon-zee)

***

Important points:
1. Veux is a verb form of voulour, meaning ‘to want’.
2. The second verb in a sentence always takes the infinite form (the form it appears in the dictionary) – which is rather convenient. Hence, je veux boire (I want to drink). ‘I drink’ will translate to je bois.
3. In French, you are never hungry or thirsty. You always have hunger (J’ai faim) and thirst (J’ai soif). Note that J’ai => Je + ai. French has many such contractions. That's what makes the language flow so freely. The 'e' of the last word always disappears when followed by a word starting with a vowel.
ai is a verb form of avoir, meaning ‘to have’.
4. The tiny letter ‘y’ is perhaps one of the most used word in French. It mean ‘there’.
5. You will find the phrase ‘il y a’ very frequently used. Its literal translation is ‘he there has’, but it is always taken to mean ‘there is’ or ‘there are’.
6. Un stands for ‘a’, so does une. Un is used in front of masculine nouns, une in front of feminine: une maison (a house). There is no rhyme or reason why a word is masculine and another feminine.
7. Did you notice how the 's' of allons went and got attached to 'y'? This is another of that smooth-flowing language trick used by the French.

A Week in France - so far

Here's a quick recap of the first two episodes of the story.
***
You: « Bonjour!" »
She: « Bonjour!" »
You: « Comment allez vous? »

She: "I think we have known each other for some time now." She says smiling.

Wow! Ok ... rewind

You: « Ça va? »
She: « Ça va bien, merci! Et toi? »
You: « très bien, merci! »
She: « Comment était le vol? »
You: « Pas mal. »
She: « Tu es fatigué? »
You (male ego in place): « Pas du tout! »
She: « Combien de temps et-tu à Paris? »
You: « Une semaine seulement. »
She: « C'est génial! Je peux te montrer Paris le week-end. »
You: « Super! »
***
I bet you understood every word. No? Revisit the previous two posts.
And if you read it carefully, you will notice one additional dialog. Which one is it? And what does it mean?

A Week in France - part 2

All language learning books that I have come across, teach languages in slightly different order from how we would speak. This caused me lot of frustration because I could not begin to speak soon enough.

You see, the books first address the present tense completely and then move on to the past tense and final to the 'future' tense. Unfortunately that is not how we speak.

When we speak we mix past and present. See below ...

The scene continues from where we left it last (see last lesson).
***

She: "Comment était le vol? How was the journey?" (kommoN ay-tay luh vole? )
You: "Pas mal. Not bad." (Paa maal)

She: "Tu es fatigué? Are you tired?" (tu ay faatigay)
You (male ego in place): "Pas du tout! Not at all!" (paas doo too)
She: "Combien de temps et-tu à Paris? How long are you here?" (kombee-aN duh toN ay-tu aa Paree?)

You: "Une semaine seulement. One week only." (oon suh-mayne seul-moN)

She: "C'est génial! Je peux te montrer Paris le week-end”. That is great. I can show you Paris over the week end." (Say jay-nee-aal. Zuh puh tuh moNtray Paree luh week-end.)

You: "Super! Great!" (Soopair)
***
As you can see, even in the first conversation we mix up the past and the present. It is a necessary part of any conversation. A delayed learning of the past tense prevents you from useful conversation.
Since you and the girl are using the ‘tu’ form, it is worthwhile noting what the formal form would be for the following:
Combien de temps et-tu à Paris ? => Combien de temps êtes-vous à Paris?
Je peux te montrer Paris le week-end. => Je peux vous montrer Paris le week-end.

A couple of pronunciation tips:
Whenever you encounter N, go nasal.
Keep your "t" and "d" soft. The trick is to keep your tongue at the base of upper set of incisor teeth. 

A Week in France - part 1

I think the best way to teach and learn French is by story-telling. So here goes an effort. Let me know if you like it.
***
You have been corresponding with this French girl for over a year. She writes and speaks excellent English and of course French. You are on your way to meet her for the first time. You are flying to Paris. You land and there she is waiting for you ...

You: "Bonjour!"
She: "Bonjour!"

You: "Comment allez vous? How are you?" (Pronounced: kommoN tallay voo)
She: "I think we have known each other for some time now." She says smiling.

Wow! Ok ... rewind

You: "Ça va?" (Suh vah)
She: "Ça va bien, merci! Et toi? Fine Thank you. And you?" (Suh vah bee-aN, mayor-si! Ay tuwah)

There! That was not difficult. Was it?
***
'Vous' and 'tu' are forms of 'you'. Use 'Vous' when you address elders and strangers. Use 'tu’ when you address friends and family. Here the variation of 'tu' used is 'toi', meaning 'to you'.
'Comment' is 'how'.
'allez' is a verb form (conjugation) of 'aller' meaning 'to go' – we will deal with this a bit more later on - so, what you asked was actually 'How goes it (to) you?' or 'How is it going?’
When, on her encouragement, you switched to the casual form Ça va? you are still saying the same thing: Ça means ‘that’, and ‘va’ is another verb form of ‘aller’ meaning to go: (How) is it going? The response to Ça va? is Ça va. This sounds a little bit strange till you realize that when some says ‘hello’ you respond with a ‘hello’.

The story will continue …

Weaving French into English

This is an extract from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes:

Lestrade laughed. “I am afraid that I am still a sceptic,” he said. “Theories are all very well but we have to deal with a hard-headed British jury.”
“Nous verrons,” answered Holmes calmly. “You work your own method, and I shall work mine. …”

And this is from Pride and Prejudice:

“Yes; these four evenings have enabled them to ascertain that they both like Vingt-un better than Commerce; but with respect to any other leading characteristics, I do not imagine that much has been unfolded.”

I am quite struck by the usage of French words in these classics. To quote in French is one thing (as shown in my previous post), but to weave French words in normal conversation as if it belongs is quite another. It is just like when we speak in India at present. English words come and go as we speak in Hindi or any other regional language. We know that the person we are talking to will understand.

Evidently, French was a world language once upon a time, just as English is. What happened? How did French go out of style? It should be interesting to trace the history of the decline of French as the world language.

By the way, vingt-un used by Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice is not exactly correct. I should be vignt-et-un (twenty and one), but you could drop the "et" while talking, I suppose.

Pronunciations:
Nous verrons [hear] = (We will see)
Vingt-et-un [hear] = (Twenty-one)

Sherlock Holmes Speaks French

No, I did not get that wrong. It is definitely Sherlock Holmes and not Poirot that I wish to refer to.

Towards the end of Adventure II - The Red-Headed League, Sherlock spews French: L'homme c'est rien - l'oeuvre c'est tout. ( = The man is nothing – it his (the collection of) work is all (that matters)).

I shouldn’t be surprised though. There was a time when every Englishman considered himself uneducated if he could not speak fluent French.

And here are the pronunciations:
L'homme [hear], c'est [hear], rien [hear], l'oeuvre [hear], tout [hear]

ça m'est égal

You want to sound cool. But you still do not know the hip ‘Street French’. Hmmm… try this: ça m'est égal [hear]. This is perhaps, the most refined way to sound cool. It could mean “It’s all the same to me”, or “I don’t care either way”, or “I don’t give a damn” depending on how you shrug your shoulders.

Quant à Vous

Tintin has just climbed up the ship Pachacamac. One of the crew hears something and calls out. As Tintin ducks into an alley, another door opens. Without any hesitation Tintin leaps into the nearest cabin. Fortunately, the crew think it is a cat (or so Tintin thinks). As he turns to leave, Tintin discovers that he has accidently entered the cabin where Professor Calculus is in a drug-induced sleep. As he tries to arouse the professor, Chiquito, the Indian comes in with a revolver in his hands. He explains why Professor Calculus is designated to die. And then he threateningly says, « Quant à vous, je n’ai pas décidé … » (How a South American Spanish-speaking Indian speaks fluent French, I will never know. I wish I could speak as fluently.)

Fortunately, I recently purchased the Kindle version of French Key Words and Expressions by Saul H. Rosenthal. That helped me understand what « quant à [hear] vous [hear] » is. Turns out that this is a fairly common expression among the French and means “About you” or “as for you”.

So, « Quant à vous, je n’ai pas [hear] décidé [hear] … » means “As for you, I have not yet decided …”.
I wish I had written the book that Rosenthal has written.

And yes, you got that right! The scene is from Tintin and the Prisoners of Sun or, as per the French version, Le Temple [hear] Du [hear] Soleil [hear] (The temple of the Sun)

French Beans

Most French course books that I referred to so far explained how definite article behaves in front of vowels or words that sound like vowel (such as ‘y’ and ‘non-aspirated h’), and then proceeded to give examples of 'non-aspirated h words', such as, l’homme [hear] (the man), l'hôtel [hear] (the hotel), l'hiver [hear] (the winter).

But without exception these courses never ever follow this up with examples of ‘aspirated h’ (meaning those French words where ‘h’ is pronounced). I therefore assumed that these words were rare and not important. It was only when I looked up French Text Book for children that I got an example … French Beans. The ‘h’ is pronounced and so it is not l’haricot vert, but le haricot vert [hear]. Not that French Beans are important, but it is nice to have at least one example of aspirated ‘h’.

But here's what I find funny. When you hear the French speak haricot vert, you will still not hear the 'h'. So much for aspirated and non-aspirated (or unaspirated) sounds of 'h'. You will only hear the difference in the plural - les haricots verts. The 's' of 'les' does not get pronounced in front of non-vowel sounding words. And since the 'h' of haricot is supposed to be pronounced, the pronunciation goes 'lay-arico-ver'. Contrast this with les hôtel, which goes 'lay-zotel'.

About.com has the big list of French words that begins with 'aspirated h'.

Hammer Away!

I have been on the lookout, and I think I have finally got it. Henceforth, I shall claim that batterie [hear] is my favourite faux ami.

If you go to a French shop and ask for batterie, you will definitely be given a battery (cell), but I have a feeling batterie = battery in English is more of an afterthought. Originally, it must have been derived from battre which in French means ‘to beat’, and seems to be related to battery, as in ‘assault and battery’.

So, what does batterie mean? Well, it is also the French word for Percussion Drums. See any video clip of a rock concert, witness the battering these drums undergo, and you will totally agree that the French word, batterie, is a perfect fit.

Occasional Boost to your Ego

Independent Language Learners need a boost to their egos once in a while. It is necessary to feel that you have come a long way since you first started learning the language of your choice. Since most of us learn a language from books or courses aimed at adult learners (it is claimed that adults learn differently from children; I do not know how much truth is there in this), here’s what you need to do after, say, a year of learning.

Pick up a French text book recommended for, say, grade 5. If you breeze through it in style, you know you have accomplished a lot. It is with this intension that I attacked Encore Tricolore 1 (nouvelle édition) with vigour. So, far it has been a great ego trip. I think I will manage to finish the 10 chapters in two days (today is my second day), and get on to book 2 (there are 5 in total) of the series. In the process I picked up a few words that I otherwise wouldn’t have.

Examples:
Un cartable [hear] – schoolbag
Une trousse [hear] – pencil case
Un dépliant [hear] – leaflet

I do not have any reference point to evaluate how good the text books of the Encore Tricolore series are. But the contents are very well laid out and the text books are very colourful. There are plenty of exercises too. And at least one school in Bangalore uses it as their course book. However, as far as the boost your ego needs to ensure you stay the course, any good French text book should suffice.

Three Letter Words

One would expect that after having studied French for an year or so, I would at least know all the commonly used one-lettered, two-lettered and three-lettered French words. But no! Every once in a while I encounter a small word that has escaped my attention before.

Tas [hear] is one such word.

The following extract is from first chapter of Le Petit Prince:

J’ai ainsi eu, au cours de ma vie, des tas de contacts avec des tas de gens sérieux.

The above sentence is not as difficult as it appears to be at first glance. ‘Eu’ [hear] is the participle of ‘avoir’[hear] (to be), ‘ainsi’ [hear] means ‘so’ or ‘therefore’, ‘vie’ [hear] means ‘life’, 'avec' [hear] mean with, ‘gens’ [hear] means ‘people’ and 'sérieux' [hear] is exactly what it sounds like - serious. Therefore, a word to word translation comes out to be:

I have therefore had, in the course of my life, lots of contact with lots of serious people.

Tas = lots.

Some more details on tas is available here.

I am glad I am reading books. I have noticed that French Teaching Courses tend to focus on similar topics and, therefore, on limited number of words. It’s only when you start looking beyond these courses that you learn more. Reading books, watching French movies, reading French newspapers is a great way to do that.

Le Petit Prince

If you are even a little bit serious about learning French, then you MUST buy and read Le Petit Prince [hear]. If you are an avid reader you would already have read this book in the translated version (The Little Prince. Have you read it?)

Wikipedia informs me that this has been translated into more than 250 languages. I didn’t even know there were 250+ languages!

I have just received the book (via Flipkart, and I would recommend Flipkart to all book lovers in India; their service is brilliant) and will be posting more about it soon. However, till then here’s something you might want to ponder: Do flyers make great authors? Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a flyer as is Richard Bach who stunned the world with Jonathan Livingston Seagull (though I like ‘Illusions’ better).

The Frustrating Artist

The Artist.
French.
Oscars.
But Silent.

What could be more frustrating for a French learner?

Transition

You know you have transited from being a beginner to a intermediate learner when you stop using the French – English dictionary and start using the French – French dictionary instead. And it feels good when that happens.

Or, the False Friend

French, like many other European Languages, has a fair share of faux amis [hear], meaning false friends. A classic example, of course, is Librairie [hear], which is not a library but a book store, and lit [hear], which is not the past tense of light but bed. There is a whole range of these, but the one that occurs most frequently and causes me to do a double take is the tiniest of all faux amis, or [hear]. It could mean ‘gold’ or – the one that occurs more frequently in text and gives me maximum headache – means ‘however’, ‘but’, etc. Every time I encounter this tiny word, my English educated mind almost always defaults to ‘either … or’ kind of translation.

Oh là là

No, this is not the song from Dirty Pictures … that goes Oo la la. Of course, you knew that! Oh là là could mean a variety of things but most common it is used to express surprise. Such as, Oh là là! C’est incroyable! (= Oh dear! It is amazing!) [Hear Oh là là, incroyable]

But did you know that Oh là là has a cousin in the form of Ah là là? This little variation expresses frustration; when you sort of give up and resign to what fate has in store for you, in a nice sort of way though. Like when you say, “Oh well!”
So be careful how you pucker up when you say Oh là là.

Talking Grammar

I don’t think I can praise the site Language Guide enough. In a previous post I had mentioned about the readings of Guy de Maupassant short stories. I do not know how many among you actually went to the site and explored it. If you have then you would know that they have an excellent coverage of the French Grammar. Not only is the grammar well presented, you can also listen to every example sentence used. You may listen to all the text in one go. Or, if you are not too sure of any particular statement, just place your cursor on that text and listen to it. Brilliant! Just brilliant!

By the way, their Vocabulary Section also works pretty much the same. It has an added aid to drill the words into your memory – images combined with sound. Try this one out. You won't regret it.

Language, the Gateway to Culture

Learning French has been rewarding in more ways than one. I hope all that learning strange (strange, as in ‘stranger’, not ‘weird’) words with strange accents (which I getting to like more and more) is activating the right side of my brain – not that I see any major breakthrough. But more than that, there are these tiny cultural aspects that I get to know in the process that makes language learning so much fun..

Take this for instance. When do you eat your salads? Before the main course! Of course you do. In Indian restaurants, they place a platter of raw onions even before you order for food. And if you order, salad will be served before the food. I eat my salad before, during and after the meal, depending on how much is served. Eating salad before food might be good for dieting, but, if you think about it, you get to eat less of what you actually like, the main course. By that logic some may demand the desserts first. But I am digressing. Back to the cultural point…

In France, traditionally, the order of food is as follows: appetizers/starters (les hors d'oeuvre [hear]/ les entrées [hear]), main course (le plat principal [hear]), lettuce (la laitue [hear]), cheese (le fromage [hear]) and/or desserts (les desserts [hear]). It is almost like lettuce is used to wipe off the traces of the main dish before gorging on the desserts.

Free Flash Cards for Learning French Verbs

Here’s another free online site that teaches you French: Learn A Language.

Now, I do realize that my blog is becoming a sort of lists of free online French learning site, but then the intention is to share with you what I discover. In any case, all the sites have something unique to offer – that guarantees you that you will never become bored learning French.

So what is different about this site? Flash cards! You can learn as many as 350 French Verbs using flash cards. And there is a small game (called Lingo Dingo - a fairly unsophisticated name, if you ask me) associated with each set of verbs that makes you write the verbs that you have just learnt (there are 4 levels which makes you write faster and faster.) Try it out.

Stories by Guy de Maupassant

How would you like someone to read out a story for you? Well here’s a wonderful site for learning French and listening to (and simultaneously reading) French stories: Language Guide Français.

The site has three sections: French Vocabulary, French Grammar, and French Readings. It is the French Readings that interests me most. There are four Guy de Maupassant [hear] short stories narrated by – from the sound of it - native French speakers. This site is worth a visit just for that.

Have a blast

The selection of the Dassault’s Rafale for direct talks for induction into the Indian Air Force as the medium multi-role combat aircraft gives us one more opportunity to learn a new French word.

Rafale in French means gust or blast, and is generally associated with the phrase rafale de vent (= gust of wind). [Hear Dassault Rafale, vent]

I am sure the engineers at Dassault are celebrating. Have a blast!

Different, Not Better

The T-Shirt that I am wearing today quotes Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “If I am not better, at least I am different.” That in French would be: « Si je ne suis pas mieux, au moins je suis différent. » [Hear mieux, moins, différent]

I think this is the best lesson a parent can give to the child, a teacher can give to the students and an individual can give to him/herself.

Perhaps, someday someone will say the same about this blog. :)

Indian Names and French Accents

The name Anil Kumble always foxes me. We know how to pronounce his name the way he wants because he is famous. But cricket, unlike football, is not played all around the world. The Americans, for instance, or even the French will have difficulty in getting his name correct the first time. Here’s where the French Accents are so useful. All Kumble needs to do is to spell surname as Kumblé, and the pronunciation will be just right. Getting the world to accept Devanagri scripts is near impossible. The best we Indians can do to ensure our names are pronounced right is to adopt the French Accents.

By the way, ever wondered how Tintin is pronounced in French. Here listen. I bet you never guessed.

French Words of Exclamations!

Here’s an interesting list of French words that represent sounds.

Aïe!(hear) - Ouch !
Clac! – Clack ! or Bang!
Plouf! – Splash!
Boum! (hear) – Boom!
Chut! (hear) – Shhh!
Pan! – Bang! (from a gun fire)

Will add to the list as I find more.

You Already Know French

Grand (hear)
Commence (hear)
Bizarre (hear)
Souvenir (hear)
Impossible (hear)
Continue (hear)
Regard (hear)
Attention (hear)
Secret (hear)
Situation (hear)
Courage (hear)
Action (hear)
Instant (hear)
Certain (hear)
Impression (hear)

Did you say, “I don’t know French” ? Each of the above is a French word. With a French accent of course! That should catch your attention and give you enough courage to commence action this very instant.

Click on the (hear) next to the words to listen to the words being spoken in French.
Have fun!

Is your French better than a School Student?

Do you wish to test your knowledge of French? So what if you have just started learning? Or perhaps you are learning for some time now and you wish to know if you are better than Secondary School kids? Then this is the place to be.

Visit the BBC GCSE Bitsize French website for reviewing your knowledge and taking 5-minute (or less) on-line tests. And then there are games to enhance your French skills. It is called Destination Death. Cool!

I discovered this site just yesterday when I was not even looking. Talk of serendipity.

Party Held in the Evening

Parmeshwar Godrej to host a soiree for Oprah Winfrey screams the Times of India headlines. A must-read for the socially upwardly mobile people and those who aspire to be in those circles. But there is one more reason to pay attention to the headline – ‘soiree' or soirée (both spellings are acceptable in English). This word is taken directly from French and even spelt and pronounced (hear) as in French, though the meaning got distorted along the way.

In English, soiree means, “a party or reception held in the evening”.The French word soirée means evening, but not in the sense of ‘good evening’, bonsoir (hear), rather in the sense of ‘have a great evening’ (bonne soirée). It is as if soirée denotes the duration of the evening while soir denotes a point in evening. Subtle difference!

Now we understand why soiree, in English, means a party held in the evening. The party is expected to last the duration of the evening! (Unless you decide to invite both Shah Rukh and Salman (or their supporters) to the party).

Notice that soir is masculine while soirée is feminine.
The pairs jour – journée, an – année are similar in nature to soir – soirée.
Bonjour (hear) – Good morning ; bonne journée (hear) – Have a great day.
And of course, bonne année (hear) – Happy new year (the whole year, not just a moment in the year).

Hmmm… I should of thought of this post about a month ago, on the 31st of December. But I guess Oprah didn’t want to spend the New Year’s Eve in India. So, no Oprah, no soiree thrown by Parmeshwar Godrej and hence no timely post – thus goes the logic.

Van Gogh, Picasso and French Cuisine

Here’s an extract of news from the Indian press and a chance to learn a bit of French.

First, the news: “Indians have always loved phoren brands but when it comes to art, they have shown a preference for homegrown artists. That looks to change as an Indian auction house announced the first-ever sale of western art which will include names likeVan Gogh and Picasso. The Van Gogh landscape "L'Alee aux deux promeneurs" and the 1953 Picasso oil "Le Transformateur" are highlights of a Saffronart online auction in February.”

Note that Van Gogh’s painting is incorrectly spelt. It should have been L'allée aux deux promeneurs.

Second, to understand the meaning of L'allée aux deux promeneurs you need to get a taste of French cuisine. The word 'aux' is generally used to mean 'to' or 'in' for plural nouns, as in Je vais (hear) aux (hear) États-Unis (hear) (I go / am going to United States). But it also has a meaning of 'with' as in Soupe de poulet (hear) aux pommes de terre(hear) (chicken soup with potatoes). See how delicious the French version sounds.

Now let’s decipher L'allée aux deux promeneurs.
L'allée (hear allée) = the lane / path
aux (hear) = with
deux (hear) = two
promeneurs (hear) = walkers

Click here to see the painting.

Picasso’s painting is easier to understand, at least the title. It almost sounds English with a French accent, Le Transformateur (= The Tranformer). An excellent reproduction and vivid details of the painting with some explanation is available here. You can see the details of the painting as you move your cursor on it. I urge you to spend some time with the painting to understand the genius of Picasso.

Be Cunning, Be Smart

The word, malin (hear), has a negative connotation. According to the dictionary it means shrewd or cunning. In fact, the phrase malin plaisir (hear) means malicious pleasure, and attributed to devil himself.
I am sure you must have figured this out even without my referring to the dictionary because of the use of the prefix ‘mal’. This is true not only in English but also in French: malheureusement  (hear) is opposite of heureusement (hear) and means unfortunately.
It therefore took me a while and a little help from Google Translate to understand what the following meant: Une carte pour voyager malin. (hear une, carte, pour, voyager) 
It certainly could not be a malicious travel card. Turns out that it means ‘a smart card for travel’.
I guess that there is a very thin line between being smart and being cunning. And to be smart one needs to be cunning too.

No Person

Here are two sentences …

Il y a trois personne ici. (hear Il y a, trois, personne, ici)
Il n'y a personne ici.(hear Il n'y a)

Personne sounds like 'person' with a French accent, and means 'person'. Well, most of the time. Except, when it doesn’t.

Here’s what these sentence translate into …

There are three people here.
There is no one here.

Personne on its own means, no body.

You will find this in Tintin comics a lot. Something will happen, Tintin will go to investigate, and “Personne” – no body.

More on ne ... que and ne ... pas

My regular readers would know the confusion caused by ne … que, when you are more used to a negative in the form of ne … pas or ne … jamais. (see more at ‘about ne … que’)

Well, from what I read so far, turns out that the French may have the same problem. They therefore devised a wonderful solution round it.
Ask yourself: what causes the confusion?
The answer: the ‘ne’ that precedes a verb, that brings on the anticipation of a ‘pas’ after the verb.
So, what is the ‘ne’ is got rid of. After all, the ‘ne’ doesn’t seem to add any apparent value. And that’s exactly what the French have done, at least in the spoken form of the language.

The following extract is from the book I have grown to love, Complete French.

The structure is: ne + avoi + que + à but in everyday language the ne disappears …
Ils n’ont qu’à … all they need to do … becomes ils ont qu’a … [pronounced isonka]
Tu n’as qu’à … all you need to do … becomes t’as qu’à … [pronounced taka]
Il n’y a qu’à … all that’s needed … becomes y a qu’à … [yaka]

So, to take the sentences I originally used in the previous blog post:

Je parle (hear) français (hear) = I speak French
Je ne parle pas français (hear) = I don’t speak French … becomes Je parle pas français
Je ne parle plus français = I don’t speak French anymore … becomes Je parle plus français
Je ne parle jamais français = I never speak French … becomes Je parle jamais français (hear jamais)
but
Je ne parle que français = I speak only French … becomes Je parle que français.

Hmm… nice solution.

Food, French and Language

No other culture takes food as seriously as the French do. Take the humble potato, for instance. The French do not think there is anything humble about potato. They call it the apple of the earth, la pomme de terre (hear). I am not surprised that their love for food has found its way into colourful French expressions.

Il a (hear) la pêche (hear) – he is in great form
Je suis (hear) bonne (hear) poire (hear), moi! – I am too good!
Elle est (hear) tombée dans les pommes – She fainted
Quelle salade ! – What a mess !

In fact the last one reminds me of an expression used very commonly in middle India, around Gwalior. You may not find it in the text books: क्या रायता फैलाया है! ((pronounced, kyaa raita phai-laya hai) Meaning, what a mess! Literally, what a spread of raita; raita = a yogurt-based vegetable salad).

Anything that a book can do, the internet can do better. A search has revealed a wonderful site that is full of French idioms. If you a foodie and want to learn the French language, this is a great place to be: Chocolate and Zucchini.

My Favourite Quote in French

I can’t believe it. It has been a while since I am learning French and I haven’t tried to translate my favourite quote into French yet. Sacrilege. Especially when René Descartes was French.
Time for quick remedial action.
Here goes …

Cogito, ergo sum => Je pense, donc je suis => I think, therefore I am.

Now, that feels nice.

ça par exemple!

Use of par exemple! in Tintin comics really foxed me. The literal meaning of par exemple is for example. But from the context (and my memory of the English version) I could see that this phrase is being used as an expression of surprise. Till I noticed that the phrase almost always took the form ça par exemple! This, indeed, turns out to be an exclamation of surprise: ça par exemple! = how about that!

These small bits are what makes learning language all the more challenging and interesting!

A wasted opportunity

When my wife asked me to talk to her colleague who teaches French in school, I was thrilled. Another chance to practice!
Here’s how it went …

She: « Allô! Bonjour! »
Me: « Bonjour! Comment allez vous? »
She : « Bien ! Merci et vous ? »
Me : « Moi, très bien, merci. »

Then she said something so rapidly that I couldn’t catch it. And my brain just froze. All I needed to say was: « Je ne comprends pas. Parler un peu lentement S'il vous plaît » But no ! My brain refused to work. I quickly switched over to English and completed rest of the conversation, all the while mentally kicking myself for not talking in French. I felt so stupid.

What a shame! I get this opportunity to speak in French in Bangalore and I let go of it. On the positive side, she is likely to be in Bangalore for some more time – I hope – so, need another excuse to talk to her. This time I will try to do so in person. Talking over phone in a foreign language can be a bit demanding.

It is about s'agir de

After encountering il sgit de many times (and each time avoiding the pain to find its exact meaning) I decided to do what I haven’t done for some time now – use the dictionary.

As per the Oxford Starter French Dictionary, s’agir de = to be about. This is as confusing as the meaning given in the book, Complete French: s’agir de = to be a matter of. Fortunately, good dictionaries throw in example sentences. And this Oxford dictionary is a good one, though very basic.

De quoi s’agit il? = what’s it about?

Ah! I got it. But then I could make this much simpler: De quoi est il?

Laissez-moi penser à un autre exemple. Let me think of another example.

It is about a woman. (Don't ask me why this sentence came to my mind!). Using s'agir de the translation goes as follows: Il s'agit d'une femme. This definitely sounds better than Il est sujet d'une femme.

I hope I have understood the usage.
Hmmm… time to buy a better French dictionary. One that has lots of example sentences.

soit ... ou bien

Today I learned the use of soit … ou bien.
It means either … or.

For example: Nous allons soit manger dehors, ou bien avoir une pizza livrée à la maison. Pas de cuisine d'aujourd'hui.
We will either eat out or get a pizza delivered at home. No cooking today.

Another one: Soit jouer avec Cube de Rubik, ou bien d'étude. Vous ne pouvez pas regarder la télé.
Either play with the Rubik's Cube or study. You cannot watch TV.

So far so good, but this sentence from Complete French is ridiculous :

Alors, soit on va à la plage et à marée basse on peut aller visiter la tombe de Chateaubriand sur le Grand Bé, ou bien on fait une excursion en bateau sur la Rance jusqu'à Dinan ...
So, either we will go to the beach and at low tide we can go visit the grave of Chateaubriand on the Grand Bé, or we make a boat trip on the Rance to Dinan ...

Excellent sentence to get you used to long French sentences, but a lousy introduction to soit … ou bien.

Tant Pis

Some words just latch on to your memory. The sounds of it just resonates in your brain, and try as hard as you will, you find it difficult to dislodge it. Just as well. These words add colour to the language. Like tant pis.

Tant pis means too bad. It the sense of regret. But at times, with a little twist in your tone, it could also mean, ‘hard luck, go jump.’

Scene 1:
“She can’t come to the party. Elle ne peut pas venir à la fête. ”
“Tant pis.Too bad. I don’t want to come too. Je ne veux pas venir aussi.”

Scene 2 :
“My boss is mad at me. My wife nags. My dog barks. My tooth hurts. My shoe bites …”
“Tant pis. Hard luck. Get a life.”

Get the difference?

The opposite of tant pis is tant mieux. It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but its use will help you show off your my-French-is-not-bad-either skills.

"Hey! I have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for promoting French as the world language."
"Pourquoi? Why?"
"Pourquoi pas? Why not?"
"Tant mieux pour toi. Good for you."

Mastering French Numbers

This is a time tested two-step method of mastering numbers. The kids do this all the time.

Step 1: Count (aloud) de un à cent (one to hundred).
Step 2: Count down (aloud) de cent à un.

Do this until you can count both ways fluently. Announcements at the train stations will never be a problem again. Be careful after the magic number 69! The pattern changes.

You can get the complete listing of numbers in French and the associated quizzes here.

Note: The picture used here belongs to Valeria Moreiro.

Satyajit Ray Interviewed with French Subtitles

To be able to listen to a master and learn French at the same time is an opportunity that you should not let go easily. Satyajit Ray was undoubtedly a genius. He was interviewed by Pierre-André Boutang and some good soul who calls himself/herself Calicocentric decided to place the interview on Youtube, and another good soul told me about it (Time on Facebook is not all wasteful, you know).
The interview is in 6 parts. The first one is here:

My recommendation … first see and hear the entire interview to get a flavor of the master, and then replay the whole episode on mute. The subtitles are in French.

Learn French from Tintin

Here are some of the recurring phrases in adventures of Tintin, when you read it in French …

Le lendemain … The next day

Chut … hush

Mille sabords! … Thousand potholes (Capitaine Haddock’s favourite phrase)

Tonnerre de Brest! … Thunder of Brest (Another one of Haddock’s favourote phrases, and if Wikipedia is to believe, The term comes from the thunder of Brest cannon which announced the daily opening and closing of the gates of the arsenal at 6 hours and 19 hours at the foot of the castle of Brest.)

Sapristi! … Damn! (This is as abusive as Tintin can get)

Pan! … sound of gunfire in French (Bang!)

And as all Tintin adventures end: "Tout est bien qui finit bien!" (All's well that ends well!)

Have a great 2012!