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.