Gainsbourg & Bardot: Bonnie and Clyde

People tend to have strong feelings about this video, or at least that’s been my experience. They either love it or they hate it. Needless to say, I’m in the former group. As a foreigner something about it is very “French” to me, though the song is about two Americans and that strange instrument is Brazilian. At the same time the song doesn’t seem to me as old as it is, sounding like something much closer to our time, perhaps the 90s. It’s possible I like it because I heard it as a child. Listen for these lyrics, and how they play with the rhythm:

Il faut croire
Que c'est la société
Qui m'a définitivement abîmé

or these:

Dans les trois jours
Voilà le tac tac tac
Des mitraillettes
Qui reviennent à l'attaque

What do you think of it?

(Note that one of the Youtube commenters was kind enough to provide an English translation. )

Podcast: La danse des mots

From Radio France Internationale comes a half-hour program and podcast all about the French language: varieties spoken around the world and in history, the evolution of spelling, Francophone literature, and much more. Around 100 episodes are available to listen to on the RFI website or to download via iTunes. This is the sort of thing you should burn to a CD and listen to in the car on your commute, or put it onto your mp3 player for the bus or train ride. The more French you hear, the more you absorb!

Andie Duquette: On n’se dit pas qu’on aime, Pourquoi c’est toi

http://www.andieduquette.com/

Favorite French words

I know you have your favorites. We all do. Pass them along to me and I’ll credit you 🙂

clignoter vi	to flash, to blink, to twinkle
grignoter vt	to snack, to nibble
ouistiti nm	marmoset
lacrymogène adj	causing tears
anthropophage adj	cannibalistic
oryctérope nm	aardvark
brouillard nm	fog, mist
gyrophare nm	revolving flashing light (on a vehicle)
azote nm	nitrogen
canicule nf	heat wave
jusqu’au-boutiste nm	extremist
dactylographier vt	to type
magnétophone nm	tape recorder
jalonner vt	to punctuate, to mark
hippocampe nm	sea horse, hippocampus
organigramme nm	organizational chart, flow chart, diagram
rétroviseur nm	rear-view mirror

Les Tavarneux: Ya ben du monde

No, I don’t understand the words either.

https://lestavarneux.bandcamp.com/

Pronunciation of -ill

The letters -ill are almost always pronounced /ij/, as in:

French	English
fille	girl
brille	shines (v)
aiguille	needle
famille	family
grésiller	to crackle, sizzle, sleet or hail
scintiller	to scintillate, twinkle, sparkle
vaciller	to waver, falter, stagger, flicker, or wobble
osciller	to oscillate, waver or sway

But there are a small number of words in which -ill is pronounced /il/ because of their pronunciation in Latin (according to Bescherelle’s Le vocabulaire):

French	English
mille	thousand
ville	town
tranquille	quiet

These last three are super easy to remember using the mnemonic “milles villes tranquilles”.

Books by M. Grevisse on Archive.org!

I’m pleased to see Belgian grammarian Monsieur Grevisse well-represented on Archive.org, with several works available for borrowing, including but not limited to Le français correct, Le bon usage, Quelle préposition, and Savoir accorder le participe passé. There is even what appears to be a downloadable recent edition of the venerable Le bon usage, though it is certainly still in copyright so there’s no telling when it will be removed. 

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Some freely-downloadable editions of Petit Larousse

Speaking of the Petit Larousse dictionary/encyclopedia in the July 27th post, here is a free Archive.org source for some past editions of Petit Larousse.

You can freely download the editions of 1906 and 1922 in PDF format and the 1959, 1989, 1993 and 1991 are borrowable for two week periods.

The motto of Larousse publications as well as that of its founder, French grammarian, lexicographer and encyclopedist Pierre Larousse, is “Je sème à tout vents”, which explains the dandelion motif on so many of the covers.

An app to help you finally ‘get’ French numbers

Hey, I wrote an app. It was originally just for me, but I realized it might be of use to others. It’s basically a number recognition drill, similar to flash cards, but more versatile and fun. The object is to say or think the random number shown by the app before the next one is shown. You can vary the number format, drill speed, and font. It can be used by students of any language, not just French.

I think that many French language learners coming from English have a problem with their speed recognizing certain ranges of French numbers, specifically the numbers 70 through 99. I still am slow at this. You know what I mean: “wait a minute, ninety-seven is four twenty ten seven? argh!”. Here’s the app in action:

Numerus will run in either English or French, depending on your device’s language setting.

If you end up using the app, please feel free to let me know what features you’d like to see. It’s Android-only for now, but an iOS version is planned.

Numerus: an app to help you finally conquer French numbers

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Recommended books for students of French

Merriam-Webster’s French-English/English-French Dictionary has pronunciation in IPA (invaluable for a beginner!), short grammar section, verb conjugations, short concise definitions. Includes both international and Canadian usages. Hardcover but the medium format is small enough to take anywhere.

French Grammar in Context by Jubb and Rouxeville: I love this book. One chapter on each grammar topic, each with a short text. Not too long, softcover, decent explanations, exercises with an answer key. Older, used editions are just as good and cheaper.

Les verbes et leurs prépositions: The 1800 most common verbs, presented alphabetically, with the prepositions and conjunctions they take, plus examples. Learning which verbs take which prepositions was hard for me but here it is, all in one book! I was so happy to find this.

Bescherelle’s La Conjugaison (pour tous): Used to be called L’Art de conjuguer and had a green cover (newer ones are red). You’ll need a conjugation reference. 12,000 verbs. Other editions have had ‘only’ 8,000 verbs, but for a learner this isn’t important. Mine has a 78 page section on verb grammar which is rather advanced. But you still need a book like this. Nice small format, hardcover.

Bescherelle’s Le vocabulaire (pour tous): Word geek? Then you will like this. Word histories, etymologies, borrowings, prefixes, suffixes, figurative vs literal usages, difficulties and traps etc. Intermediate level and above.

Le petit Larousse illustré: For when Merriam-Webster isn’t enough. French only. Divided into two parts: an exhaustive dictionary and an encyclopedia of proper names, plus conjugations. Big and heavy, small print. Published annually since 1905, so an older version is a better bargain. Did you know ‘passer’ has 21 meanings? You do now, thanks to this book.

Advanced French Grammar by L’Huillier: Supposed to be the authority in English on French grammar. Grammar people, this is what you want. Comprehensive, softcover. Note: for beginners this is just too much information.

Le Bon usage by Grevisse and Goosse: The late M. Grevisse was/is the authority on French grammar in the French language. For the brave. Large and expensive. If you’re kind of obsessed with the language, find someone who owns this and become their best friend. Otherwise, it’s too much information.