This poem by Angie Andrews is to help students with French vocab on outings.

Here’s one of the poems I had written to help students with vocabulary appertaining to outings. Look up all the nouns you come across in this on-line dictionary: http://www.larousse.com/en/dictionaries/french

Hours of work

Notes

• ‘de’ means from so can you used to describe the hour one works from or, e.g. from

What is your occupation?

Note: there is no ‘a’ or ‘an’ in the sentence describing one’s occupation when speaking in French.  One just says “je suis + occupation”, i.e. “I am + occupation”.

So what do you do?

Well, time has passed and my lovely student has continued to make me chuckle daily with her creative interpretation of le vocabulaire !

Check out her humorous illustrations of:

“un/une colocataire“

(aka: a roommate)!

“un sbire“

(aka: a henchman)

“un sans domicile fixe (un SDF)“

(aka: a homeless individual)

“un double/un sosie“

(aka: a lookalike or doppelganger)

“un enquiquineur“

(aka: an extremely boring person)

How great are these?! This student is AWESOME!

Clara had to work again, which meant I was left to turn more strangers into good acquaintances. At that point I was a pro and went forward with my day in complete confidence. The three folks I met from the previous day scuba diving, Natalie, Alex and Pascaline picked me up at around 9:30AM. Since I’m in a constant state of confusion in Martinique due to language barriers, I had only half a clue on what was going on. All I know was that I needed a hat, water bottle, good walking shoes, and my toe condom.

Natalie and Alex had proficient English so I was able to converse with them beyond the standard small talk. Pasceline’s English was about the same level of my French, but she was super sweet and tried to talk with me when she could – which I appreciated. Natalie and Pascaline where general practitioners and Alex worked in film as an editor. They all looked about 10 years younger than they actually were so I was rather surprised when I learned  of their occupations. We summed it up to their Asian skin.

Turns out the agenda for the day was a hefty walk. I believe Clara knew all of this before I left, but kept it from me out of fear that I would wuss out. Fancy that. We were to take a 6 kilometer hike along forest, white sand beaches, and humble hills. In my maturity I’ve grown to actually like hiking. I used to always dread my parents’ forced outdoorsyness when we moved to Colorado. I hated when the sun would beat down on my porcelain skin and dirt would smudge my clothes. Now I love it.

Speaking wasn’t necessary as we trekked across the muddy path. They would stop often to look at scurrying crabs and fallen fruit. Since Natalie grew up in Martinique she was able to provide insight on much of the wildlife. She would explain it to Alex and Pascaline in French, then do a thorough translation in French. The double explanation helped me piece together my spotty French vocab. I also appreciated their desire to stop and take many photos – always offering to snap a pic of me.

After what seemed like ages of walking under the noon sun, we finally arrived at the beach. We whipped out sandwichs and picnicked to the sounds of splashing waves and rustling palm trees. Natalie ventured off to meet up with some family while the rest of us took a nap. I woke up to Alex and Pascaline getting ready to dive into the ocean. I rearranged my towel bed on the sand and found another comfy napping position. Ah. Heaven. Let the video diary ensue:

That night Clara cooked me a glorious meal. Her porch was perfectly conducive for home cooked meals and a bottle of wine. When Clara and I were roomies, I’ll always remember our Sunday brunches that we cooked together in our communal kitchen. We would bring my iPod and speakers to set the mood, and spend hours cooking, eating, and laughing. I obviously love food and I love eating, but what I really love about it is the social aspect. Taking the time to sit down and enjoy good food and good company. Which the thick Caribbean air leads to quite well.

The next day was a quiet day at the beach with Clara. Just what I needed after the previous day’s 9 mile hike. We weren’t but 15 minutes into sunbathing when she proposed that we get ice cream. A favorite pastime of mine. We bopped over to the beach bar where she ordered a sensible scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream and I ordered an American proportioned banana split. Ah stereotypes, how glorious. Bites into our ice cream later, a drunk Martinique man was hitting on us. I sat paralyzed as he mumbled away in French. He started to catch on and spoke in English. Clara has admitted to me that she’s a afraid of crazy drunks. I for one, am not. He started to say that he has issues with women. So many issues because there are so many pretty ones, and these issues with women included his wife. I suggested he try men. He proceeded to tell me that he didn’t like men because he didn’t like *insert lewd comment here* in the *I’ll let you guess what body part.* My response was obviously, “That’s not what your wife told me.” This fired him up. At which point the waitress incessantly attempted to kick his dumb ass out. After my comment he described in detail about how he like to *sexual verb here* her *body part here* and lick *this and that.* Clara (bless her French little heart) goes, “Ok guy. You’re the type of man who never leave.” He quipped once more about “The problem with you English chicks, blah blah blah hooty ha….” And I sneered back with….”English??!!!! I’m American you dirty *curse word.*”

Phew. Sorry had to get that in there.

Back to the beach. I was content with working on my tan, but Clara – being the dare devil that she is, wanted to go look for turtles on an extremely inconvenient section of the beach. And I, being the wuss that I am (please reference previous post) didn’t want to. But always up for the adventure…I obliged. Let’s have the video diary do the talking from here:

Yup, officially double injured. Sweet man. Paradise is really kicking my ass.

Here’s to putting your less injured foot forward.

xx

-A

http://musique.ados.fr/Ilona-Mitrecey/C-Est-Les-Vacances-t2089.html

Look for the following vocabulary in the lyrics:
On a trip
A lot of luggage
Summer
An adventure
Towns
Holidays
In Italy
Noise
Ice-creams
Friends
Beach
Blue Sky
Holidays
Next Year

The answers will be given in the next blog.
In the meantime, here is some more vocabulary to do with food to support the lesson on the partitive articles which we covered recently.On holiday we might want to try different food. Sometimes, the dishes are just presented differently but the ingredients are ones we are already familiar with.
Look at the photo showing Spanish paella. Can you make out what the ingredients are? They are listed on the photo.
If you are intermediate level, you may wish to translate the phrases.
Answers in the next blog.

La coccinelle (f.)= The ladybird
Les coccinelles= The ladybirds

Indefinite articles:
Un chaton= A kitten
Des chatons=Some kittens

Une oie=A goose
Des oies=Some geese

When we wish to say ‘ there is’ or ‘there are’ we are either going to use ‘Voilà’ or ‘Il y a’ depending on whether we are pointing or stating.
There’s the horse!
Voilà le cheval (pointing)
Voilà les chevaux=There are the horses (pointing)
But
There is a guinea pig on the table=Il y a un cochon d’Inde sur la table( statement)
There are horses behind the gate=Il ya des chevaux derrière la barrière (statement)

La Douane= The Customs

It is important to learn how to answer basic questions.

Comment vous appelez-vous? means  ”What is your name?’

We answer by saying ‘Je m’appelle’ which means “My name is”.

We have already seen how ‘Je’ means ‘I’ and ‘ Vous’ means ‘ You’

‘Je m’appelle’ literally means ‘I call myself’=My name is…

‘Vous vous appelez’ means ‘You call yourself’=Your name is…

‘Je suis’ comes from the verb ETRE ‘To be’.

Je suis petit=I am small

Je suis grand=I am big

If Madame La Vache wanted to say “I am small’, she would have said ‘Je suis petite’

If Madame La Vache wanted to say ‘I am big’, she would have said ‘Je suis grande’

instead she wishes to say ‘I am old’.

‘Old’ in French is ‘ Vieux’ in front of masculine singular nouns and ‘vieille’ in front of feminine singular ouns.

‘Je suis vieille’=I am old

Madame La Vache gives other bits of information about herself using ‘Je suis’

Can you spot all the phrases where she uses’ Je suis’?

In turn the customs officer uses ‘You are’ ‘vous êtes’

You should really learn the first person singular ‘Je’ and the second person plural ‘vous’ of the verbs ETRE and AVOIR. They are very useful.

Also useful is the expression C’est= It is

‘Ce sont’ is the plural of ‘C’est’ and means ‘They are’.

C’est un enfant=It is a child

Ce sont des enfants=They children

C’est une vache=It is a cow

Ce sont des veaux=They are calves

We will learn more next lesson.

alarm set for: 9.00 am

be up at the latest by: 10.00 am (2 to 3 hours earlier than usual)

Since I’m German, I’m translating the french into german and english as well.

1. oser – wagen – to dare, to venture  –
2. l’outil (m.) – Werkzeug (n.) – tool
3. la paire – Paar (n.) – a pair / deux paires de chaussures – zwei Paar Schuhe – two pair of shoes
4. pâle – blass, bleich – pale / la pâleur – Blässe (f.)- paleness
5. le panier – Korb (m.) – basket
6. la panne – Panne (f.) – breakdown   – je suis tombé en panne
7. paresseux, paresseuse – faul – lazy / la paresse – Faulheit (f.) – lazyness
8. s’entraîner – trainieren – to train/practise
9. l’entreprise (f.) – Unternehmen (n.) – enterprise
10. en avoir marre de (qn/qc) – (jmd/etw.) leid sein – to be weary of someone/sth. / j’en ai marre! – mir reicht’s! – I’ve had enough
11. l’environnement – Umwelt (f.) – environment / la protection de l’environnement – Umweltschutz (m.) – protection of the environment
12. ramasser (des champignons) – aufheben, sammeln – to collect
13. le peigne – Kamm (m.) – comb
14. le cercle – Kreis – circle
15. embarrassé, embarrasser, l’embarras (m.) – verlegen, verlegen machen, Verlegenheit (f.) – embarrassed, to embarrass, embarrassment
16. contesté, contester, contester une loi – umstritten, bestreiten, gegen ein Gesetz protestieren – controversial, to contest, to protest a law :-/
17. le désordre – Unordnung (f.) – disorder
18. le dessin, dessiner – Zeichnung (f.), zeichnen – (to) design
19. entier/entière – vollständig, ganz – wholly, entire / le monde entier – die ganze Welt – the whole world
20. le détail, en détail – Einzelheit (f.)/ Detail (n.), in allen Einzelheiten – detail, in all detail
21. le contenu, contenir – Inhalt, enthalten – content, to contain
22. se moquer (de) – sich lustig machen (über) – to mock, to poke fun at
23. (donner) la parole (à qn) – (jmd) das Wort (erteilen), Rede (f.) – give the floor to sb. / speech
24. justifier, la justification – rechtfertigen, Rechtfertigung (f.) – to justify
25. appartenir (à qn) – (jmd.) gehören – to belong to (sb.)
26. tonner, le tonnerre – donnern, Donner (m.) – (to) thunder
27. désavantageux, désavantageuse – benachteiligt – disadvantaged
28. exposer – ausstellen – expose
29. la quantité – Menge – quantity, amount

• ni … ni – weder noch – neither … nor
• ni l’un ni l’autre – keiner von beiden – neither one of them (m.)
• ni plus ni moins – nicht mehr und nicht weniger – no more  and no less
• ne … ni … ni – weder noch – neither … nor
• ne dire ni oui ni non – nicht/weder Ja und nicht/noch Nein sagen- say neither yes nor no

14 yes, 16 nos

A head-start on posting the misc. stuff found on the intertubes.

Too smart for most, but unable to accomplish anything above average

For example, I was out the other night with a group of old friends. We were sitting in a bar deciding what to order when Anna’s gaze wandered over to the next table. Two young men in the first flush of romance were sucking a raspberry pink cocktail through two straws from an improbably large glass. “That looks good!” she said. “Why don’t we have one of those?”

To me that was your quintessential fausse bonne idée. Indeed, when we all thought about it we knew instinctively that what we were looking at was a bad idea disguised as a good one and so we all ordered Mojitos.

2) Une cochonne. This is a useful term used to describe an adult woman (any age) who seems openly to like sex. Even though the English translation for this word would probably be “a filthy or loose woman” it is important to point out that in French Cochonne is not a term of abuse even though a cochonne is obviously a female pig (the proper French word for sow is Truie). NB: The masculine version, cochon, is a term of abuse.

It can also be used as an adjective:

a) une sieste cochonne (a dirty afternoon nap)

b) une robe cochonne (a revealing, or rude dress)