Posts in February 2009

French César Awards 2009

Posted by Chanda
Feb
28
2009

Last night, the 34th annual César Awards were handed out in Paris at the Theatre du Chatelet.  These are the French equivalent of the Oscars.  The major winner of the night was the film Séraphine, which took away seven awards including best film.  Yolande Moreau won best actress for her role in that film and Vincent Cassel won the best actor award for his role in Mesrine, despite a posthumous nomination in the same category for Guillaume Depardieu for his role in Versailles.  Laurent Cantet won for Best Screenplay Adaption for Entre les murs, the movie I told you about in a recent article which was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Film category.  Sean Penn’s Into the Wild was up for Best Foreign Film at the Césars, but it did not receive the award.  The winner in that category was Israel’s Waltz with Bashir about the horrors of the 1982 Lebanon war.

If you’re looking for a good French film to watch, besides those mentioned above, you might want to check out one of these since they were also the focus of the 2009 Césars:
Il y a longtemps que je t’aime
Paris
Le premier jour du reste de ta vie
Coluche, l’histoire d’un mec
2 jours à tuer
Un conte de Noël
La Fille de Monaco 

Here’s a link to an article in Le Monde about last night’s ceremony if you want to see a photo presentation and read about it in French:

“Séraphine” grande gagnante des Césars 2009
LEMONDE.FR | 28.02.09                  

© Le Monde.fr
 
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French Phrases - More Expressions and Idioms

Posted by Chanda
Feb
28
2009

Because I love idioms since they are like locks on doors to language fluency, I’ll provide you with some more.  These all have to do with agreeing and having knowledge about things.  Use them wisely! ;)

Voyons les choses du même œil.

We agree.

Nous somme sur la même longueur d’onde.

We’re on the same wavelength.

Je le connais comme le fond de ma poche.

I know the place extremely well.

C’est un bruit qui court.

I heard it on the grapevine.

C’est aussi sûr que deux et deux font quatre.

You just have to put two and two together.

Il connaît les ficelles.

He knows the ropes. (He knows how everything works.)

Tu m’as sorti les mots de la bouche.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Ça me dit quelque chose.

It sounds familiar.
 
Posted under Vocabulary
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French Language - Gender of Inanimate Nouns

Posted by Chanda
Feb
25
2009

We’ve talked about gender before and today we’ll discuss it some more as it can be difficult for English speakers when learning French because we don’t really have these issues in our language.  Many nouns have a fixed gender.  The suffixes can indicate the gender of these nouns, but there are many, many exceptions.  Some of the most frequent suffixes include:

Masculine

Feminine
-isme (le journalisme, le pessimisme) -té (la qualité, la pauvreté)
-ment (le mouvement, le vêtement) -ion (la question, une clarification)
-age (le voyage, le bagage)
Exceptions: une page, une image, une plage, une cage, la nage, la rage)		 -eur (la fleur, la saveur)
 Exception: le bonheur
-oi (la loi, la foi)
-ie (la sociologie, la magie)
-(e)au (le bureau, le noyau) -ure (la fermeture, la panure)
-phone (le téléphone, le microphone) -esse (la richesse, la tendresse)
-oir (le soir, le noir) -ette (la raquette, la claquette)
-et (le paquet, le bidet) -ence/-ance (l’expérience, la balance)

Some nouns take on a different meaning if you change the gender.  For example,

un livre de grammaire (a grammar book)     une livre de tomates (a pound of tomatoes)
un voile de mariée (veil)                                une voile de bateau (a sail)
le mode subjonctif (mood)                            la mode des années 80 (fashion)
le poste de police (the police station)          la poste (mail)

GEOGRAPHIC NOUNS
As we’ve touched on before, in general, nouns that end in -e are feminine like la France, l’Italie, la Normandie.  All others are usually masculine as in: le Japon, le Canada, le Languedoc.  But, be careful because there are exceptions of course: le Mexique, le Cambodge, le Zaïre…

CITIES
The gender for cities is not fixed.  When the noun ends in -e, they are usually considered to be feminine.  For example:
Toulouse est grande.
However, all other cities are considered to be masculine.  For example,
Paris est grand

The gender for MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS is not set in stone.  For example: la Seine, but, le Nil; le Jura, but, les Alpes (fem.plural)

So, in the end, it’s really all about memorization.  Surprise!

 
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French Holidays - Mardi Gras

Posted by Chanda
Feb
24
2009

Today is the French holiday Mardi Gras which literally means ‘Fat Tuesday’.  It is the last day of Carnival celebrations before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Catholic fasting season of Lent.  It is celebrated in many countries with lavish parades, music, dancing, costumes, parties, craziness and more.  The French-speaking countries that celebrate it include Belgium where the Carnival of Binche has been proclaimed one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.  In France, the Nice Carnival and Mardi Gras are particularly impressive with balls, masquerades, bonfires, jugglers, mimes, flower-covered floats and night-time light displays.  Mardi Gras is also celebrated in Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyane.  And the Carnival of Paris has inspired music, operas, theater productions, books, films and works of art including Carnaval boulevard des Capucines by Claude Monet.

www.flickr.com/photos/tchetao/sets/72157614360919936/show/with/3304679685/

 
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Entre les murs (The Class)

Posted by Chanda
Feb
23
2009

Although it did not receive the Oscar last night that it was nominated for in the Best Foreign Language Film category, I thought it was worth writing about this French movie which is up for five French César awards (the French equivalent of the Oscars) on the 27th of this month.  Based on a book by François Bégaudeau, Entre les murs is a drama/somewhat documentary directed by Laurent Cantet about the writer himself.  François is a teacher at a working-class, Parisian junior high school in a racially-mixed, troublesome neighborhood.  He and his colleagues, although often discouraged because most of the students just don’t care about learning, try their best to makes sure they are providing the best education possible.  The classrooms in this movie represent today’s France which is a hodgepodge of cultures and races that often clash.  Teachers may particularly like this film as many of them will be able to identify with François’ frustrations and motivation.
This was the first French film to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival since 1987.
Here’s the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUqRkbvnX_E

 
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