Clair, are you paying attention? Useful expressions!

[mint]

Thanks, GG, I'm not really worried and the "original" contact is said to be fine.

You'd think that a thread about the French language would attract queues of people hopping with impatience to get their tuppence worth in, wouldn't you?

Hélas, over 48 thousand viewings and 348 replies!

Sometimes keeping the forum going feels like wading through treacle[+o(]

[Loiseau]

Cacahuète - now there's a word that always sounded pretty disgusting to me! Luckily I don't like peanuts, so I would never have put the word to the test...

Mint, I am sure you will be given a clean bill of health, but hope the above will have given you a smile!

Angela

[mint]

LOL loiseau, yes, that HAS made me smile!

Strangely enough, the oil (which I use for all shallow frying) is huile d'arachide.  Don't know how that's come about?

On another tack, I was discussing the opening of a new bank account yesterday and I was emphasising to the guy that I didn't want any savings account that was long-term because there might be a Brexit.

Showing off a bit, I said that a Brexit would be rententissant, wouldn't it?

Well, he said, with no great hoohah, a Brexit was attendu.

So much for my attempt to impress......I just wanted to see if I could pull off such an impressive word but, whilst he clearly understood, he didn't turn a hair.

But, wait, walk tomorrow and I will try to fish for compliments so will maybe talk about my cookies du buerre  de cacahuète and see if I get a suitably gratifying gasp of appreciation![I]

Edit:  the Welsh word for crotte sounds a bit like the first 2 syllables of cacahuète 

[Loiseau]

Edit: the Welsh word for crotte sounds a bit like the first 2 syllables of cacahuète

So does the French one!!

So sorry your coup with "retentissant" fell flat. It really deserved a better reaction. ?

Angela

[mint]

I have this foolish habit of biting off more than I can chew, loiseau.  And perhaps there is a French expression that means that?

Not only will I be going off for a whole weekend with a group of French people towards the end of June, the following week, I am down for a "reading a book aloud" session!  This, to quote, consiste à lire à haute voix un meme livre à plusieurs, c'est rigolo et littéraire......

In other words, there I shall be reading at half the speed of everyone else, stumbling over unfamiliar words, etc.  So, probably très rigolo but all at my expense, snif!

[Loiseau]

Quelle idée!

Well, you will just have to hope that reading the same book à plusieurs means you will all be reading in chorus, and struggling to read the text over one another's shoulders!!

Angela

[ericd]

[quote user="mint"]I have this foolish habit of biting off more than I can chew, loiseau.  And perhaps there is a French expression that means that?

Not only will I be going off for a whole weekend with a group of French people towards the end of June, the following week, I am down for a "reading a book aloud" session!  This, to quote, consiste à lire à haute voix un meme livre à plusieurs, c'est rigolo et littéraire......

In other words, there I shall be reading at half the speed of everyone else, stumbling over unfamiliar words, etc.  So, probably très rigolo but all at my expense, snif!

[/quote]

Avoir les yeux plus gros que le ventre ...... You can use this at the table when hungry people order lots of food and don't finish it all ....

[idun]

And that is one expression which is probably as close to the english expression as you could get........

............someones eyes are bigger than their belly

[Chancer]

Peter plus haut que son cul.

 

I know several Peters that this is very apt for, none in France though.

 

I'm glad that my name is not Peter or Connor [:D]

[mint]

Eric and idun, yes I HAVE heard that expression before but couldn't think of it when I was typing my post.

Heard your expression before too, Chance, and have even used it but only to our cantonnier about a mutual acquaintance.

I am very friendly with our cantonnier and his wife.  In fact, when they were a few more Brits in our village than now, we were the only ones they'd invite for any party they held.

Now we are practically the only Brits left; the rest have left and there is one other pair who will be leaving as soon as they have sold up.

So, we are going to have rarity value now that our novelty value has worn off!

[mint]

Eric, you'd have been proud of me this afternoon.

We met up with some friends for lunch.  One of them was my ancien prof de français.  Having stuffed myself all last weekend at a stay at a chateau, I am trying to rein in a bit this week.  Actually, if I were French I'd have gone to my doctor complaining of feeling unwell.

Had the entrée and the plat but turned down the cheese AND the dessert.  I said, non, merci, il ne faut pas avoir les yeux plus gros que le ventre.

I HAD to pull out all the stops because my prof always tells me that she misses me and that I was the best student she'd ever had............yes, I'm afraid she is dreadfully biased!

I'd remind her of students MUCH better at French than I ever was but she'd insist that I was the best because my heart was in it!  I sort of know what she meant, it was the first time I had a French teacher, I was new in France and I was hungry to learn.

I often hear people here, and indeed elsewhere, ask what is the best way of learning French?  I usually keep a low profile but what I'd really like to say is, develop a passionate interest in the language.  I also know people who have learnt enough basic French to get by but they learn for practical reasons, to be able to speak and understand and maybe to read and write a little.

However, I do believe that you need to have your heart in it and to feel real love for learning it.

.

[Loiseau]

Well done for working that in so soon, mint! I am sure Eric will be hugely proud of you.

I quite agree about the motivation for learning a language. You have to have a real curiosity about it, and a passion for discovering how it works - a bit like codebreaking, really.

And you need to be a good listener, able to latch onto words and expressions that might be useful, or that you realise you had been using wrongly until then.

And I must say, as far as French is concerned, 10 years of studying grammar, irregular verbs and literature at school in England paid dividends!

Angela

[mint]

[quote user="Loiseau"]Well done for working that in so soon, mint! I am sure Eric will be hugely proud of you.

I quite agree about the motivation for learning a language. You have to have a real curiosity about it, and a passion for discovering how it works - a bit like codebreaking, really.

And you need to be a good listener, able to latch onto words and expressions that might be useful, or that you realise you had been using wrongly until then.

And I must say, as far as French is concerned, 10 years of studying grammar, irregular verbs and literature at school in England paid dividends!

Angela[/quote]

Oh, Angela, what a wonderful start!  That's my weakest bit, a HUGE gaping hole that is to do with the grammar.

Until last year, I was happy to se debrouiller, and stumble along.  But this year, I suddenly feel the need to get to grips with some of the easier aspects of the grammar.

In fact, today, my former teacher gave me the name of this book:  grammaire progressive du français niveau intermédiaire CLE international.

I was just going to look on Amazon.  I am hoping that Betty would know something about it and give me her thoughts.  If she doesn't see this post, I shall have to start a new thread about grammar books[:D]  There, guaranteed to drive hoardes of people away....and I can't say I blame them!

Edit:  I have ordered the grammar book mentioned.  If anyone is interested to know where to get the lowest price, just ask!

[Loiseau]

But grammar was ALL we did in French classes, mint! We eventually had to learnt to string just a very few words together to struggle through the O-level French oral.

I remember the first lesson of the next year (some of us were embarking on A-level, in spite of only speaking "grammar"!), a young French "assistante" took the class and rabbited on for 1hr20m; none of us had understood a SINGLE word, as we had never heard French spoken!

Angela

[YCCMB]

It's my favourite book, mint. In fact, my copy is as dog-eared and well-worn as my copy of Murphy's Intermediate English Grammar.

You might be interested in the accompanying Exercices Communicatifs book that goes with it. Lots of extra exercises putting the grammar into a context.

Check out also, by the same publisher, Vocabulaire Progressif du Francais. In that series, I'd go for the "Niveau Avancé"

[mint]

[quote user="Loiseau"]But grammar was ALL we did in French classes, mint! We eventually had to learnt to string just a very few words together to struggle through the O-level French oral.

I remember the first lesson of the next year (some of us were embarking on A-level, in spite of only speaking "grammar"!), a young French "assistante" took the class and rabbited on for 1hr20m; none of us had understood a SINGLE word, as we had never heard French spoken!

Angela[/quote]

Before answering your post, Angela, I MUST say thank you to Betty for that endorsement of the grammar book.  I am hugely looking forward to getting to grips with the exercises and will bear your other recommendations in mind.

Angela, hmmm......I do understand totally what you are saying.  After the first couple of years in France, I stopped feeling envy for those people I knew who learnt French in their schools.  Certainly listening and understanding and, crucially, SPEAKING bear little resemblance to "learning" from books!

Me, I spoke "French"  from the word go....well, somebody had to as OH was NOT going to be the one!

I mangled everything but I did manage, even from our very first entry into our house when the water was off and I had to ring somebody to come and fix it.

I understood very little but I persevered and just said d'accord every now and then to keep the conversational ball rolling[:-))]

I had all sorts of people, neighbours, people in supermarket queues, notaires, correcting me because I INVITED help.  I might look puzzled, shrug my showders, make a moue, whatever it took.

Gradually I learnt more but I still struggle very often.  I will say ah bon and listen hard for the next few sentences in order to work out what has been said.  I might resort to qu'est ce q'on dit ça en français?  And so on, but I love the whole process!

Now, Angela, I will tell you about a little incidence which you might like.  About 2 or 3 weeks ago, we were walking in the grounds of a chapel called St Jean des landes.  It is a very curious place, being in the midst of woods and no one other than the most informed locals would even know about it;

We'd met a local historian who showed us lots of stuff, including scratchings on the walls and a lime tree where there remain bullet holes from when they shot 3 collaborators after the last world war.

Anyway, yesterday evening, I found an email from a French couple we met in the same location about a fortnight ago.  OH, in his usual friendly fashion, had given them our coordonnées.  I helped the woman find her husband in the woods and it was no great shakes for me because I have visited the chapel many times.  Then we got to chatting and, yesterday evening, there was this message asking if we might meet up again!

Just goes to show where your even elementary French might get you[:D]

[ericd]

In deed, well done Mint ! It's great when one can apply a new phrase/word in a discussion.

When I arrived in England with limited language knowledge in the mid-80's, I first signed-up for night classes at the local college. It's when eventually, after a few months of attending, I realised that "preterit" was the same as "passe compose", I stopped going to the classes and continued learning the language from reading newspapers (easy to associate the articles with what was happening in the world), TV and then radio (that was an achievement).

I used to read the "Sunday Post" religiously from front page to back cover and that, along with my daily office work and exchanges with colleagues, helped me with vocabulary.

Go on all of you, persevere as you are well on the route to fluency.

[mint]

I agree totally, nothing like reading lots and lots to increase vocabulary.

For example, I went on a recce walk this morning with a few neighbours because we have our fete patronale coming up and we needed to find a walk that will be manageable by everybody, that will last at most 2 hours and also to see if we need to clear parts of the path.

We have had nothing but rain here for days on end.  We started in iffy weather but we only had very light showers.  By the end of the walk, we had only been lightly soaked.

I said we had had un bon créneau after all and everybody agreed.  I only know that word because I'd read it in an email sent by the chef of our club de marche nordique just a few days ago.......hah!

[Loiseau]

Brilliant mint, re chapel friends and managing to use "créneau" !

I have not spoken to ANY French person today, but have been uttering expletives in both languages to the stubborn roots of the weeds I have been trying to dig out!

Angela

[idun]

There is only one word I would love to be able to use when necessary and that is 'jadis'........ for me it is a wonderful little word. And I read it in sentences and for whatever reason it never looks right to me, somehow just wrong as it always feel like more words should be used with it.... and I am unable to explain more than that.

I don't need any examples. I know what it means and I do know what it goes with, I just know that I am uncomfortable using it in a sentence.

[mint]

How strange, id, because that is a word I use quite frequently.  When I am talking about the past or asking about the past, I might say well, was it like so and so jadis?

Oh, there IS another thing that happened on that walk in the grounds of the chapel in the woods.  I mean apart from showing the people the miraculous fountain, etc[:P]

Our dog was digging around the roots of the tree under which we were shading ourselves and chatting.  She revealed this red oval object which I thought was some sort of fruit.  Closer examination showed it to be an egg.  I tapped it on the tree trunk and it was a HARD-BOILED egg!  I laughed my head off and peeled it and smelt it and it seemed perfectly OK so I gave it to the dog who scoffed it all up, eggs being one of her most favourite foods[:D][:D]

Thinking about it afterwards, I guessed that it must have been an undiscovered egg from an Easter Egg hunt and it had stayed unspoiled because of the cool, rainy weather we have had.  The shell had been coloured a brightish red and it looked for all the world like some sort of fruit!

But tell me, do children have Easter egg hunts in France and do they hunt for plain old hard-boiled instead of chocolate eggs?

[ericd]

My GreatGrandMother used to use the word "jadis" a lot. Younger generation use it less nowadays in common daily chats.

She would tell me ..." au temps jadis nous faisions this/that".

As for the Easter Eggs, we have always put the chocolate eggs around our small gardens for my younger brothers to go and find/collect on Easter Sunday morning. One year, the 3 young kids two doors down woke up earlier than my brothers and came in to collect the eggs from our garden.

In France, Church bells travel to Rome overnight and on their way back, drop the goodies in your gardens/balconeys/flats before heading home to the local church.

[Rabbie]

Ericd said

I used to read the "Sunday Post" religiously from front page to back cover and that, along with my daily office work and exchanges with colleagues, helped me with vocabulary.

Help ma boab. You must have picked up a strange vocabulary if you learnt from the Broons and Oor Wullie.

[ericd]

Those were pushing the limits ..... and I often had to ask for help.

However, the mini reports that used to make the Sunday Post were the right format for me.

[NormanH]

Poème Ballade (des dames du temps jadis)

Dictes moy ou, n’en quel pays,

Est Flora la belle Rommaine,

Archipiades ne Thaïs,

Qui fut sa cousine germaine,

Echo parlant quant bruyt on maine

Dessus riviere ou sus estan,

Qui beaulté ot trop plus q’humaine.

Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan?

Ou est la tres sage Helloïs,

Pour qui chastré fut et puis moyne

Pierre Esbaillart a Saint Denis?

Pour son amour ot ceste essoyne.

Semblablement, ou est la royne

Qui commanda que Buridan

Fust geté en ung sac en Saine?

Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan?

La royne Blanche comme lis

Qui chantoit a voix de seraine,

Berte au grand pié, Beatris, Alis,

Haremburgis qui tint le Maine,

Et Jehanne la bonne Lorraine

Qu’Englois brulerent a Rouan;

Ou sont ilz, ou, Vierge Souvraine?

Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan?

Prince, n’enquerez de sepmaine

Ou elles sont, ne de cest an,

Qu’a ce reffrain ne vous remaine:

Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan