Posts under Culture

French Music - Vanessa Paradis

Posted by Chanda
Oct
18
2009

Possibly most famous in the US as Johnny Depp’s long-time love and mother of his two children, Vanessa Paradis was born on December 22, 1972 in a town near Paris where she took piano and dance lessons.  Now a successful singer, actress and Chanel model, she became a child star in 1987 at just 14 years of age after the release of her single Joe le taxi, which was #1 on the French charts for 11 weeks and rose to #3 on the UK charts.   In 1990, she won the Victoire de la Musique Female Performer of the Year award with her second album, Variations sur le même t’aime. In 1992, she moved to the US to work with Lenny Kravitz, who wrote and produced her English-language album “Vanessa Paradis”, the most successful single from which was entitled “Be My Baby”.  Bliss was released in 2000 and Divinidylle in 2007, with which she won several music awards and nominations in France.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBFna8sPpOg

She is rumored to currently be working on a Greatest Hits album.
She filmed her first movie as an actress, Noce blanche, in 1989, for which she received the 1990 César Award for Most Promising Actress despite her later claim that the filming process with the Director was not a good experience for her.  In 1994, she worked with Gérard Depardieu in the film Elisa.  Perhaps one of her most famous films in the US is the French movie La fille sur le pont (The Girl on the Bridge), released in 1999 in France and in 2000 abroad, and for which she was nominated for another César Award. Her official website is Vanessa Paradis de A à Z.

 
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French Slang - Argôt Français Contemporain

Posted by Chanda
Oct
9
2009

One of our readers asked if I would write an article on slang that young people use.  Although I’m not going to say I’m any kind of expert as my teenage days are long over,  this article is an attempt to find something for him.
Some young people, especially those in urban neighborhoods speak what is known as langue djeunz (as in langue des jeunes).  Some of this slang is also used among families and friends outside the big cities through the spread of hip hop culture and SMS language.  Much of modern French slang comes from the influence of foreign words (English, Arabic, etc.).  One form of this slang is what is called verlan, which some of my French friends introduced me to when I lived in Paris.  Verlan is all about reversing the syllables of a word, but not usually with words with more than three syllables.  And it has to sound cool, so sometimes the word is then changed a bit to be pleasing to the ear.  The word verlan actually comes from reversing the syllables of l’envers (reverse or back to front).
l’envers → ver
l’envers  → lan (although for phonological reasons, the e was changed to an a to make verlan)

Here are some French words in verlan:
femme - meuf (woman)
énervé - vénère (angry)
arabe - beur (Arab)
cigarette - garette-ci (which was later transformed to garo)
bizarre - zarbi (strange)
père - reup (father)

Finally, here’s a really interesting website in French on French slang.  There are even fables by Jean de La Fontaine in slang.  Le Dictionnaire Argôt Français

Et merci de nouveau Ryan pour ton commentaire!

 
Posted under Culture, Vocabulary
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Greetings in France

Posted by Chanda
Oct
3
2009

When living in a student dorm in Paris, there were a few chairs around a table topped with the day’s newspaper and some magazines in the entrance hall.  I would often hang out there for a couple of reasons.  One - so I could learn more French and stay informed of back-then President Bill Clinton’s political situation by reading the free newspaper that I wasn’t about to pay for on my student budget.  Two- so I could make French friends and see the ones I had already made as they came in after their classes.  At first, I was surprised at what an event greeting everyone would be each time someone came in.  It would go like this: male student number one would come in the door and immediately say “Bonsoir” and then proceed to shake hands with each guy gathered in the area and kiss each girl on both cheeks, saying “Bonsoir” individually to all of them as they each stood up to receive the greeting.  Then, male student number two would come in the door and immediately say “Bonsoir” and then proceed to shake hands with each guy gathered in the area and kiss each girl on both cheeks, saying “Bonsoir” individually to all of them as they each stood up to receive the greeting.  Then, female student number one would come in the door and immediately say “Bonsoir” and then proceed to kiss each person gathered in the area on both cheeks, saying “Bonsoir” individually to all of them as they each stood up to receive the greeting.  And this could go on for an hour or more.  Some people would stay and chat for a bit and others immediately went up to their rooms to get ready for dinner.  I remember that it felt nice to be greeted as in a similar situation in the US, for example, unless it is a good friend walking in, your presence could basically just be ignored.  These greeting sessions made it so much easier to feel included in a foreign country, make French friends and in turn, learn French.

So, this story leads me to a few basic rules of greeting etiquette in France:

1. When greeting someone or saying good-bye, always shake hands quickly with just a little pressure.  Children should shake hands too.

2. When you enter a room, greet everyone in it.

3. If you greet a man, say “Bonjour/Bonsoir Monsieur“, when greeting an older woman say “Bonjour/Bonsoir Madame” and when greeting a single young woman, say “Bonjour/Bonsoir Mademoiselle“.  Don’t use their first or their last names as it’s considered too informal.  If you’re close friends or among all young people, you can use their first names.  Children should not use first names with any adults, except their close relatives.

4. When leaving a group, also shake hands and say “Au revoir Monsieur/Madame/Mademoiselle” to everyone in the group.  If you’re all friends and you’re a female, then do the cheek kissing thing and say “Au revoir/À plus tard/ À tout à l’heure” to everyone.

 
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French Music - Cleopâtre

Posted by Chanda
Sep
30
2009

One of the most popular musicals right now in France, Switzerland and Belgium is Cleopâtre: La Dernière Reine d’Egypte (Cleopatra: The Last Queen of Egypt).  Having opened at the Palais des Sports in Paris in January 2009, the show has been on tour throughout these three countries since May 2009 and will be returning to Paris at the beginning of 2010 for an extended showing.  Cleopatra is played by Sofia Essaidi who was a contestant and finalist on the highly successful Star Academy (France’s version of The One: Making a Music Star) back in 2003 when I was living in Paris.  She was born in Casablanca, Morocco and was considered by many to be the best singer and student on the show that year.  After releasing a well-received album Mon cabaret in 2005, she fought hard to get the role of Cleopatra and has since been touring with the musical produced by theater director and choreographer Kamel Ouali, who was also the head choreographer for Star Academy.  Cleopâtre is the biggest musical comedy that has ever been made in France.

Act I begins in 51 B.C. upon the death of Cleopatra’s father.  Cleopatra inherits a huge empire - the land of the Egyptian pharaohs.  Her brother does everything, including an attempted assassination, to take the throne away from her and succeeds; but she is determined to get it back.  The 17-year-old runs away with her most loyal priestess and with her charm, convinces Caesar, who was getting ready to invade her empire, to give her the throne of Egypt.  She stays in Rome, much to the dismay of the Roman senators who see her as a threat.  A few years later, Caesar is assassinated and Cleopatra immediately returns to Egypt.

With Caesar dead in Act II, Octavian and Marcus Antonius decide to split the world where one gets the West and the other the East.  As part of the agreement, Marcus Antonius takes Octavian’s sister as his wife.  At the same time, back in Egypt, Cleopatra gains the respect of her people after setting them free and is at the height of her glory.  She is a brilliant politician and demands an alliance with Marcus Antonius.  The two become involved in a passionate and very public romance which is not at all viewed well by the Romans.  Octavian demands that Marcus Antonius choose between his sister and Cleopatra.  Marcus Antonius chooses Cleopatra and war begins.  The two lovers try to fight Octavian’s warriors, but the story ends tragically.

The soundtrack album has been on sale since August 2008 and features 25 songs, short clips of which you can listen to on the official website. There are also links on the site to buy the album, which reached the 11th spot on the French music charts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy1NtK5ShrM

For more information on the show, tour dates and reservations, you can check out the official Cleopâtre website http://cleopatre.nrj.fr/index.html.

 
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Writing a Letter in French

Posted by Chanda
Sep
28
2009

Do you ever need to write a letter in French either for work, school or pleasure?  Well, today, I’m going to try to help you out a bit with this task.  First, let’s talk about a formal/business letter.  Let’s say you need to write a letter to a company asking for information.  You can put your company name and address in the top, left-hand corner.  You place the city you are writing from, a comma, and the current date in the top, right-hand corner.  About four lines down you write the name and address of the place you’re writing to again in the top, right-hand corner.  If you are writing in response or in relation to anything that has a reference number, place that reference number aligned to the left after the words “Ref.” or “Objet“.  Another four lines down, you write “Madame,” (if you’re writing to a woman) or “Monsieur,” (if you’re writing to a man) to the left.  You can write the name of the person before the comma if you know who you are writing to.  If you don’t know whether the person receiving the letter is a man or woman, you can write “Monsieur,Madame,”
Then, you indent once and begin the body of your letter.  After you finish the body of the letter, you write one of the ready-made long closings (formule de politesse) just like a paragraph.  Finally, you sign the letter aligned to the right.  If you’d like you can include your job position/written name aligned to the right just above your signature.   And that’s it!  Your letter might look something like this:

Club de Français
105, rue de la Gaité
75014 PARIS

Monsieur, Madame,

Voulez-vous avoir l’obligeance de m’envoyer une documentation sur votre club (cotisation, programme d’activités, etc.) à l’adresse suivante :

M. Sylvain BOUCHON
15, rue d’Espagne
34000 MONTPELLIER

Avec mes remerciements, veuillez agréer, Monsieur, Madame, l’expression de mes sentiments distingués.

Sylvain BOUCHON
Sylvain Bouchon

Here are some different closings you can use.  They pretty much just mean “Yours Faithfully” or “Sincerely”:
Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, l’expression de mes sentiments distingués (the most common)
Je vous prie de croire, Monsieur, à l’expression de ma vive sympathie.
(replace Monsieur with Madame in the above if writing to a woman instead of a man)

Do any of you know of another formule de politesse?  Please share with us in a comment!

 
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