Posts under Vocabulary

French Vocabulary in Context IV

Posted by Chanda
Oct
15
2009

Today, I’ll give you another very short vocabulary activity to work on.  French teachers can use this exercise as a quick warm-up activity.  I will provide the answers in a later post (in a few days) so you have plenty of time to get to it.

I thought of this word this afternoon when I had to get after my 3 year-old daughter. (Hint, hint..)

admonester (verb)

Context: Julie a admonesté son petit chien pour avoir jappé quand quelqu’un a frappé à la porte.

Create three synonyms for admonester?
_ e_ m_ _ _ _ _
_r_ _ _ _ _

r_ _ _ _ _ _ _ r

Write a sentence of your own using the word admonester.

Vous pouvez partager vos phrases avec nous dans un commentaire !

 
Posted under Vocabulary
Tagged with , , , 		0 Comments | Post a Comment

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
Tagged with , 		4 Comments | Post a Comment

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!

 
Posted under Culture, Grammar, Vocabulary
Tagged with , , , 		1 Comment | Post a Comment

French Numbers 1-100

Posted by Chanda
Sep
15
2009

This is a post for all of you who are just beginning to learn French.

0 zéro [zay-ro]
1 un [uh]
2 deux [duhr]
3 trois [twa]
4 quatre [katr]
5 cinq [sank]
6 six [sees]
7 sept [set]
8 huit [weet]
9 neuf [nurf]
10 dix [dees]
11 onze [onz]
12 douze [dooz]
13 treize [trez]
14 quatorze [katorz]
15 quinze [kanz]
16 seize [sez]
17 dix-sept [dee-set]
18 dix-huit [dees-weet]
19 dix-neuf [dees-nurf]
20 vingt [van]
21 vingt et un [vant-ay-uh]
22 vingt-deux [van-duhr]
30 trente [tront]
40 quarante [karont]
50 cinquante [sank-ont]
60 soixante [swa-sont]
70 soixante-dix [swa-son-dees]
71 soixante et onze [swa-sont-ay-onz]
79 soixante-dix-neuf [swa-son-dees-nurf]
80 quatre-vingts [kat-ra-van]
81 quatre-vingt-un [kat-ra-vant-uh]
89 quatre-vingt-neuf [kat-ra-van-nurf]
90 quatre-vingt-dix [kat-ra-van-dees]
91 quatre-vingt-onze [kat-ra-vant-onz]
99 quatre-vingt-dix-neuf [kat-ra-van-dees-nurf]
100 cent [son]

When giving a telephone number, for example, the French usually do so in two’s.  In other words, a French phone number would be written like this: 11.55.63.92 and they would say it like this: onze … cinquante-cinq…soixante-trois…quatre-vingt-douze.

When talking about money,  the French would usually say soixante douze euros et vingt centimes (72,20€).  Yes, that’s right, they use commas instead of decimal points between the whole euros and the cents.

And remember, the final consonants in cinq, six, huit, and dix are pronounced at the end of a sentence or in front of a vowel.  But, they are silent when followed by another word that begins with a consonant.

 
Posted under Vocabulary
Tagged with , , 		20 Comments | Post a Comment

French Phrases - Idioms For Work II

Posted by Chanda
Sep
12
2009

I love French idioms and expressions!  They can be so challenging to a language learner, yet so empowering once mastered.  Today, we’re going to talk about some idioms and phrases you can use in any setting including at work when chatting to friends or colleagues.

Let’s imagine you’re not feeling very well.  Maybe you need an excuse to go home or an excuse not to go to that after-work event.  Well, if you are talking to French colleagues, you could say: “Je ne suis pas en forme.”

And what if you’re talking to a colleague about your boss or someone else and suddenly that person shows up…well, when in English we would say “Talk of the devil!” in French you could say: “Quand on parle du loup on en voit la queue“.

And how many of you have at least once stuck your foot in your mouth?  Well, if you are explaining to a French friend or colleague how you did this, you could say: “J’ai fait une gaffe” or “J’ai mis les pieds dans le plat“.

Have you ever wanted to celebrate that new raise or a new job within your company or anything else with your friends or colleagues?  Well, if they are French, you could tell them on such an occasion: “On va faire la fête!”

Or actually, perhaps you are the person getting invited to that party and you wish to politely turn down the invitation.  After telling them you can’t go, just say: “Merci quand même” and you won’t seem rude at all for rejecting the invite.

Maybe you went to the party and your colleague is boring you because he/she won’t stop talking shop (parler du boulot).  What a drag! (Quelle barbe!)

 
Posted under Vocabulary
Tagged with , , , , 		1 Comment | Post a Comment