The French Journey

As much as I despise the use of the el-oh-el acronym, which seems to act as punctuation in some conversations I have with certain people, it is very much a part of everyday internet/mobile vocabulary. The French, being French, have unsurprisingly come up with their own alternative for this (highlight here: painfully ubiquitous throwaway pseudo-punctuation ) cheeky little word, and some other equivalents too… Continue Reading

Hi Luke,

Can I just check some French with you?

ne t’en fais pas – Does it mean “don’t worry”?

I noticed the similarity to: ça (ne) fait rien – it doesn’t matter, in the use of the verb faire

All the best,
James Continue Reading

This French blague is awful, but fortunately even the worst joke can help you to remember a word or two.

- Chef, chef ! Il y a eu un vol cette nuit au supermarché ! On a volé 2000 cartouches de cigarettes et 1500 laitues !
- Bien, et vous avez des soupçons ?
- Ben ouais, on recherche un lapin qui tousse ! Continue Reading

En grande distribution, qu’est devenu le budget consacré aux sacs plastique autrefois donnés gratuitement ?

Source: Anonyme Courageux (with kind permission) Continue Reading

The following excerpt is from a book called Jean de Florette by Marcel Pagnol. I have recommended this book in my booklist, accessed from the menu above, from where you can go ahead and order it if you feel brave enough to tackle the whole thing. Reading in French is one of the best ways to see how the language works, in your own time, and a great story helps it all move along nicely.

This post will guide you through the passage, highlighting a few general facts about how French literature is written.

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Soudain, la figure du Papet se pencha au bord de la barre, et chuchota.
« Bouge plus ! J’ai entendu du bruit…
- Où ? Continue Reading

Another trailer, this one more serious than the last, for the new Vincent Cassel film called: L’instinct de mort.

You’ll find the key phrases below in French and English, listen out for them in the trailer (bande annonce) and try to copy how they’re pronounced.

Ferme ta gueule!
Shut your mouth! (Gueule being slang for bouche)

Qu’est-ce que tu faisait en France?
Je braquais les banques.
What did you do in France?
I robbed banks.
(sounds like keske - that’s also how kids write it in sms messages – also, bonus points for noticing the guy asking the question having a Canadian/Quebecois accent)

Le jury réunie condamne Jacques Mesrine à la peine de 20 années de réclusion criminelle
The jury condemns JM to the sentence of (think, ‘on pain of’)20 years of criminal reclusion

Vous voulez m’enfermer?
(Tu me manques)
Allez-y enfermez moi.
Mais sachez que je m’évaderai. (Future tense ending ai)
(Je t’aime papa.)
Et ca vous pouvez compter sur moi.
You want to lock me up?
(I miss you)
Go on then, lock me up.
But know that I’ll escape.
(I love you dad)
And you can count on me for that.

C’est quoi ces conneries, Jacques?
What’s all this BS, Jacques?

Tu veux toujours avoir le dernier mot tu te retrouves toujours tout seul.
Et c’est comme ça que tu finiras, Mesrine, tout seul.
You always want to have the last word and you always end up alone.
And that’s how you’ll end up, Mesrine, alone.

Moi?! Moi!?
Me?! Me?!

Police, rendez vous! (Not rendezvous, rdv, like a meeting, but the verb ‘se rendre’)
Police! Surrender!

Personne ne me tue tant que j’ai pas décidé.
Nobody kills me until I say so (lit. nobody kills me for as long as I’ve not decided).

The French trailer, a bande annonce, for Ice Age 3 is pretty funny and brilliantly dubbed in French and English. This gives us the opportunity to use it to learn French and have a smile or two along the way.

I provide the English for the version française, as a more literal translation, the English version of the trailer, en V.O. (version originale), will include the original dialogue for comparison.

The idea again being just to hear French in context, copy the accent of this very standard French and learn some new expressions. I’ve made some useful common expressions bold.

L’évenement le plus énorme, depuis 2 millions d’années, va faire basculer le monde, dans une nouvelle dimension.
The biggest event in 2 million years will shake the world into another dimension.

Que personne ne bouge un poil.
Nobody move a hair.

Bientôt.
Soon.

Nous vivions au dessus d’un autre monde et nous ne savions pas.
We were living above another world and we didn’t know it.

Je me sens – tout petit.
I feel – so small.

Je suis trop jeune… pour… être mangé.
I’m too young… to… be eaten.

Aïe!
Ouch!

Je suis toujours aussi beau gosse.
I’m still as good looking as ever.

- Toi, tu rentres au village
- Parle à ma tronc!
- You’re going back to the village
- Talk to the trunk!

Pour la preimère fois à l’écran, Scrattina.
For the first time on the screen, Scrattina.

C’est la commencement d’un nouvelle ére.
It’s the dawning of a new era.

Tremblement de terre!
Earthquake!

C’est quand même mieux que rien.
It’s still better than nothing.

Sautez!
Jump!

Vous avez peut-être faim, je sais exactement ce qu’il vous faut.
Perhaps you’re hungry, I know exactly what you need.

Je croyais que t’étais une femelle!
I thought you were a female!

As promised, here’s the English, VO, version:

While viewing the video of French comedians Thomas and Jamel, listen out for the sentences I’ve written out below. This is full speed, comedy French, so only an advanced speaker would understand everything BUT that is not the goal here. The aim is to familiarise you with some great everyday French, how it sounds, when it’s said and how to say it.

TIP
Try to copy how the comedians talk, use the text below to put some words to their sounds and really try to mimic how they talk. Just copy them and see if anything sticks. It normally does. Don’t worry about remembering everything – you’ll pick up the important words as time goes on. Take your time and use the pause button.

What’s it all about?
Jamel is a famous (in France) French comedian who has started a comedy club, which includes the performer. Jamel is the seated man, Thomas is standing and performing. They exchange comedy insults and then promote Jamel’s new DVD. (Which I have nothing to do with – cela/ça ne me concerne pas!)

Pour ceux qui n’ont pas encore compris ce que c’est le Jamel Comedy Club, c’est un arabe qui fait bosser un noir pour faire rire des blancs. C’est l’intégration. Comme quoi ca avait un role vraiment positif, les colonies.
For those who haven’t yet understand what the Jamel Comedy Club is, it’s an arab making a black guy work to make white guys laugh. That’s integration for you. What a positive role the colonies had.

Je t’adore, toi.
I love you/think you’re great.

Je sais que tu m’adores.
I know you do.

Même si tu n’es pas le plus drôle de la bande.
Even if you’re not the funniest of the group.

Je vois, je vois, tu commences le clash, c’est ca?
I see, I see, you’re starting the clash/battle then, is that it?

Tu ne me respectes pas, en gros, c’est ca?
You don’t respect me, basically, is that it?

Je souviendrai toute ma vie de ses débuts, je lui découvrait en KFC et il jouait pour les chicken wings à l’époque.
I’ll always remember when he was starting out, I discovered him in KFC and he was performing for chicken wings at the time.

D’autant plus, t’es le seul carambar géant que je connaisse.
What’s more, you’re the only giant carambar I know.
(Carambar the sweet, which is brown, a cheap reference to Thomas’ skin colour – racial issues are sometimes dealt with in a more open manner in French).

Je te kiffe.
I dig you. (Slang)

Comme par hasard, le top 5 d’aujourd’hui…
As if by chance, today’s top 5 happens to be about reasons to buy Jamel’s DVD.

Roule ma poule.
Hit it, man. (Literally: roll it, my chicken)

Poule is only used because it rhymes. You can say: ça roule? (are you well/is it rolling/going well) and the reply can be “ça roule ma poule” (slang).
Likewise:
“Ci-mer Homer” means thanks, in backslang with a rhyme.
“Fonce Alphonse” means get out of here (Foncer – to leave quickly)
etc.

5. …fera plaisir au Melissa Theriau – A famous French newsreader, famed mainly for her appearance. Plenty of examples are available on youtube
4. Profits will be given to… us.
3. Not one gag by Laurent Gerra (must be a “bad” comedian)
2. In the hidden bonus’ is the 4th season of prison break.
1. If you don’t do it we’ll all be kicked out.

Learning to speak another language as an adult with a method that teaches you like parents teach toddlers (such as the Rosetta Stone/phrase book/Michel Thomas/Pimsleur methods) is quite possibly the slowest and least motivating method available.

Using this method you can, at best, learn to speak another language like a toddler speaks his mother tongue; repeating single words to convey a whole sentence and using verbs incorrectly with no understanding of cultural context (manners, customs and norms) or how to be eloquent in that language.

People choose this method because it gives immediate results (feedback on how well you can say one particular word) and gives the feeling that you’re on the road to full bilingual communication. But this is false, and the end result is likely to be as stated above.

They also choose this method over grammar books and emmigrating to the language’s country. This is understandable – grammar books are dry, they cannot be read from cover to cover and emmigrating can cost jobs, family ties, social ties and financial ruin if unsuccessful. So the current barriers to the two most efficient ways of learning another language are boredom and risk. Boredom is the easiest of these two barriers to break down.

Grammar books are dry because they show systems and rules, things people generally hate.  But the information they contain is everything required to start learning words to place in those systems and rules and quickly become a proficient speaker of the target language. If that stage can be reached, accessing the culture and sounds of the foreign language becomes a lot easier and progress can really be made in double the time a child takes to learn a language.

In order to make grammar books less boring, they need bringing to life. Easy to remember diagrams of rules, comparisons with rules in the native language, music even; anything that can be used as a memory aid that require as little text as possible.

The French Journey will try to focus on providing the following in as entertaining a manner as possible:
First grammar (the bones), then the vocab (the muscles and skin), expressions (movements and gestures), phonetics (perfecting the sound of communications) and finally the culture so that any communication made is correct for the speakers receiving the communication.

EDIT: This post is now available as a free download – see the sidebar >>>

This is simple, very similar to English but there are some differences.

- A French sentence is called a phrase and it is made up of words that form a meaning; it always starts with a majuscule and ends with a point.

There are four kinds of sentence:
- Those that finish with a point and express a fact are called phrases déclaratives,
- Those ending with a point d’interrogation (?) that ask a question are phrases interrogatives,
- Those ending with a point d’exclamation (!) that express emotion or feeling: phrases exclamatives,
- Those ending with a point, or a point d’exclamation that express an order are phrases injonctives.

- When denying or negating a fact, French uses a phrase négative which can be recognised by the use of words like “ne (n’)… pas, plus, jamais, guère…” (not, no more, never, hardly).
When using sentence builders like the semi-colon (point-virgule ; ), the colon (deux-points : ), the exclamation and question marks (!?) and also speech marks (guillemets « ») or brackets/parentheses (paranthèses ( ) ) you must remember to place a space before and after the mark.

(EDIT: in the case of parantheses, we mean a space before and after the pair, not individually – (comme ça) )

Il a dit : « Bonjour ; je ne veux pas vous déranger ! Mais, bonjour ! Vous comprenez ? »

Finally, in French, like in British English, and opposite to American English, the point/full-stop/period goes outside the speech marks, unless the quotation originally contained a point or the quotation is complete. There are no spaces before point (.), virgule (,), trait d’union (-), points de suspension (…), paranthèse fermante ( ) ) or the crochet fermant ( ] ) but there is a space after all of those except the trait d’union.

Hopefully this post contains all the information required for correct French punctuation, further information can be found (in French) from the recommended French site http://www.la-ponctuation.com/

Happy punctuating!