10: French Vocabulary on a plate

We normally get to France for just one week each year and so opportunities to speak the language and consolidate our French vocabulary are limited. In this post I suggest an alternative approach by looking at some of the French phrases and sayings that are already around us. We've found that there is a lot to be gained by looking closely at French words and constructions that we already are familiar with and seeing what can be learned from them. As you'll see from the YouTube video linked to this post, many of these opportunities are linked to la cuisine, which is another reason that the post is called, 'French Vocabulary on a Plate'.

French Proverbs

I’ll start with a few French proverbs. There is a nice collection of proverbs at the site below, along with translations and suggestions as to their meaning. Many are almost identical to their corresponding English versions, but some are inescapably French (un jour sans vin est comme un jour sans soleil!)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/French_proverbs

You might like to have a go at translating the six proverbs below and then look closely at the French constructions to see what can be learned from them. At the end of the post I’ll try to provide translations and also some observations that Sheila, Ken and I shared after reading them.

1. Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps.

2. À cheval donné on ne regarde pas les dents.

3. C'est l'exception qui confirme la règle.

4. À l'œuvre, on connaît l'artisan.

5. Il faut laver son linge sale en famille.

6. Ce n'est pas aux vieux singes qu'on apprend à faire des grimaces.

A final quote

Now, before handing over to Ken and Sheila, here is a final quotation for you to translate. The clue is that it was uttered in English by a Frenchman in 1995 (translation at the end of this post).

‘Quand les mouettes suivent le chalutier, c’est qu’elles pensent qu’on va leur jeter des sardines.’

Ken’s Gems

"Put it into practice – Practise!  Now that I know some of the theory, I think it might be a good time to think about beginning to use what I have learned so far.  When going through Alan's tables, I feel it's important to actually speak them out loud while trying to learn them. Also, in applying the theory to learning new verbs, rather than just conjugating them, I try to think about a (short) conversation I've had during the course of my day and then try to translate it into French. I'll try to translate what I can, guess at what I can't and look up what I don't know. As with learning anything new, it's important to do this regularly and by doing so we can slowly build up our vocabulary as well as cementing new conjugations.” Ken

Sheila’s Wrinkles

"Learning through Eating  Having done some reading recently, I have discovered some interesting facts about the food that I always eat when we go to France.  We have all seen the famous tarte Tatin in the patisserie, but did you know it was named after the 19th century Tatin sisters who accidentally burnt their new tart creation just as customers were arriving at their restaurant in Lamotte-Beuvron. But instead of throwing it out, they kept the slightly burned apples, called them caramelised and made a new pastry case. Voila – they had a success! tarte Tatin Confusingly, the word tartine comes from the verb 'tartiner' meaning to spread and so une tartine is a sandwich. In France it's usually an open sandwich, with the choice of bread being possibly more important than the choice of topping. Chouquettes: Alan, Ken and I always buy these small, light, sugar-sprinkled cakes when we visit St. Pierre market. You get a bag of 20 or so for about €4. The word chouquettes means little cabbages and that's exactly what they look like, except they're not green. The French use the expression 'mon petit chou' (my little cabbage) as a term of endearment, especially to a child.” des chouquettes Sheila

Translations and comments

1. Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps.

Une hirondelle	ne fait pas	le printemps.
A swallow	doesn’t make	the spring.

English version: Two swallows don’t make a summer.

Comments:

* In French it’s just one swallow and the season seems to have shifted somewhat.

2. À cheval donné on ne regarde pas les dents.

À	cheval donné	on ne regarde pas	les dents.
To	horse given	one doesn’t look at	the teeth.

English version: Don't look a gifthorse in the mouth.

Comments:

* The word ‘donné’ is formed as the past participle of the verb ‘donner’ to give (i.e. given) but it is used here as an adjective to describe the horse. The meaning can be confusing because we are unused to the French habit of putting adjectives after the noun. So if you are seeing donné here as a verb, it will look as if the horse has done the giving rather than being the gift!

3. C'est l'exception qui confirme la règle.

C'est	l'exception	qui	confirme	la règle.
It is	the exception	which	confirms	the rule.

English version: It's the exception that proves the rule.

4. À l'œuvre, on connaît l'artisan.

À	l'œuvre	on connaît	l'artisan
By	the work	one knows	the craftsman.

English version: The craftsman is known by his work.

(Original source, The Bible, Matthew 7:16 By their works ye shall know them.)

Comments:

* The word ‘l'œuvre’ is used here to mean ‘body of work’ as in the ‘œuvre’ of a painter or novelist.

* Note the ‘œ’ construction in l'œuvre where the ‘o’ and the ‘e’ are squashed together. It’s called a digraph and the French often refer to it as ‘e dans l’o’ (e in the o). It helped me with the pronounciation of ‘œuvre’ to think of ‘un œff’ (an egg).

5. Il faut laver son linge sale en famille.

Il faut	laver	son linge	sale	en famille.
It is necessary	to wash	one’s laundry	dirty	in the family.

English version: Don't wash your dirty linen in public.

Comments: 

* The French use this adage in a positive form (i.e. ‘do wash your dirty linen in private’, rather than don’t wash it in public).

* ‘Il faut’ is literally translated as ‘it is necessary’ but it is more used as ‘you should’ or ‘one should’.

6.Ce n'est pas aux vieux singes qu'on apprend à faire des grimaces.

Ce n’est pas	aux	vieux singes	qu'	on apprend à faire	des grimaces.
It isn’t	for	old monkeys	whom	one teaches to make	faces

English version: You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

* in the French version, dog has become monkeys and tricks are faces.

* The word ‘aux’ is hard to translate in this sentence – it often means ‘to the’ (plural).

That final quote

`When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much'. Eric Cantona (Manchester United footballer) during a press conference, March 31, 1995.

Having uttered these words, Cantona got up from his seat and walked out of the press conference, leaving the sports hacks (unused to philosophical utterances from footballers) scratching their heads.

I’ve put up on YouTube another short video – this one explores some French sayings:

Teaching My Wife French, French Sayings:

9 The Imperfect Tense

The Château of Saint-Germain-de-Livet

The joy of driving in rural France is that you never quite know what will be around the next corner. On our last trip to Normandy we came across this amazing château, which was a mere 15 km from our holiday home in Tordouet. 

The château: me photographing the swans ...

 As you can see, the château itself is truly spectacular–actually a bit like something out of a Walt Disney film. It was first constructed around the 14th century. Of course it has undergone a number of tweaks since then but originally it was designed to satisfy a number of contradictory aims. First, it was meant to be a “petit bijou” for a young princess but also it was constructed as a castle for war. You can see this from the delicate jewel-like entrance, alongside the arrow-slits that frame its sides.

... the swans

What is most striking are the colours. Red and green bricks, shining white limestone (and, of course, shining white swans), the deep blue of the moat, the intense green of the grass and trees and of course the most spectacular colours leaping out of the many flowerbeds that surround the castle. As we simply stumbled across this delightful surprise, we had to make best use of our mastery of the language (the guide was doing a ‘French only’ session that day). We like to think that we rose to the challenge but it did inspire us to buy English booklet afterwards, just to check that we had understood her every subtle nuance!

Some of the spectacular flowers that surround the château

The massive old cider barn (now crumbling)

In more recent times, the château had belonged to the Riesener family but from the beginning of the 20th century it was the property of the Pillaut family.

The moat

Imagine our surprise when, on departure, we saw this sign – crêpes for sale. Who could resist? 

La crêperie est ouverte

The only problem was that Ken and I had just started a new dietary regime that involved semi-fasting for two days a week (something that we have kept up ever since) and this was only Day 1, so no room for back-sliding. It was left to Sheila to fly the flag and she was able to let us know with a barely suppressed smile what we were missing!

View of the château from the crêperie (and cider barn) 

Sheila enjoying a well-earned treat

Yes indeed, we all agreed that the Castle of Saint-Germain-de-Livet is a little cracker and one that we will return to in the future – but definitely on a non-fasting day.

The Imperfect tense

In Post 8, I covered the perfect tense (le passé composé) and mentioned that it was one of two important forms of the past tense. This post looks at the other form, the imperfect tense (l’imparfait).

But before saying goodbye to the perfect tense, here’s a little bonus tip. I mentioned last time that the majority of verbs used avoir with the perfect tense but a small number of them use être. I didn’t actually provide a complete list of all 16 of these ‘être” verbs but thanks to a suggestion I received this week, I can give you some neat tricks for remembering these verbs – called ‘advent’, ’10 Little Indians’ and ‘Dr & Mrs Vandertramp’.

Remembering the 16 être verbs

Advent

French/English	French/English
A: arriver, to arrive	partir to leave
D: descendre, to go down	ascendre, to go up
V : venir, to come	aller, to go
E: entrer, to enter	sortir, to leave
N: naître, to be born	mourir, to die
T: tomber, to fall	rester, to stay

Note that these 12 verbs are arranged into six pairs, each with their opposites – so arriver is the opposite of partir, and so on.

The four remaining verbs not included in the ‘ADVENT’ collection are: retourner (to turn over), revenir (to return), devenir (to become) and monter (to climb).

10 Little Indians

An alternative ‘aide de memoire’, and one that picks up all 16 of the ‘être’ verbs is to sing their past participles to the tune of ‘Ten Little Indians’. Not only may this help you to remember the verbs that take être, but it should also help you to remember their past participles (including the final two irregular ones). The lyrics are:

allé, arrivé, venu, revenu,

entré, rentré, descendu, devenu,

sorti, parti, resté, retourné,

monté, tombé, né et mort.

Dr & Mrs Vandertramp

A mnemonic for the ‘être’ verbs that is popular in the USA is ‘Dr & Mrs Vandertramp’. Ignoring the & symbol, this picks up all 16 verbs.

The imperfect tense

The imperfect tense is used for describing continuous events in the past and in English usually takes the form, ‘I was eating’, ‘she was selling’, and so on.

The principal for forming verbs in the imperfect tense is similar to that for the present and future tenses. First you must find the correct verb ‘stem’ and then add the appropriate endings.

Finding the stem: the safest way of doing this, and one that avoids having to remember a lot of exceptions, is to take the ‘NOUS’ form of the present tense and then knock off the ‘-ONS’. This method works for both regular and irregular verbs with just one exception–ètre–which I’ll explain separately. The table below sets out the method for the three main verb types (–er, –ir and -re) along with a couple of the irregular verbs.

The ‘stem’ for the imperfect tense

Verb type	Infinitive	‘Nous’ form	Stem
-er	parler, to speak	parlons	parl-
-ir	choisir, to choose	choisissons	choisiss-
-re	vendre, to sell	vendons	vend-
irregular	aller, to go	allons	all-
irregular	faire, to do	faisons	fais-

Adding the endings: The corresponding six endings are:

ais, ais, ait, ions, iez, aient.

The one exception, ètre, has as its stem, ét-, but fortunately the endings are as shown above.

Examples:

(a) Tu parlais très doucement.You were speaking very softly.

(b) Je choisissais une nouvelle voiture. I was choosing a new car.

(c) Elle vendait des vêtements au marché. She was selling clothes at the market. 

(d) Nous allions à Paris. We were going to Paris.

(e) Il faisait mauvais. The weather was bad.

(f) J'étais très en retard. I was very late.

Ken’s Gems

It’s all about context “When we were travelling to France we saw a beautiful chateau." "Quand nous voyagions en France nous avons vu un beau château." Within the examples of the two different past tenses above (underlined), there lies a small word which can change its meaning depending on the context in which it’s used. In the above example ‘en’ means ‘to’. In that example it could also mean ‘in’. En passant (in passing) you could also say, ‘to speak in French’, ‘parler en français’. However on its own this little word, ‘en’, means ‘of it’ or ‘from it’. It can also mean ‘some’ or ‘any’, ‘some of it/any of it’. For example:  I would like to have some – je voudrais en avoir;  I'm going to buy some – je vais en acheter. This makes me listen more intently to try to ascertain something that in my own language I take for granted:  the context in which words are used.” Ken

I’ve put up on YouTube a short video that deals more fully with the imperfect tense:

Teaching my wife French: 9 The imperfect tense.

8. TALKING OF THE PAST: the perfect tense

Some history

Overall, our experience of the weather in Normandy during the month of June has been pretty good. If I’m not in the garden or wandering around the village with a camera around my neck, we’re generally off on a jaunt somewhere. But, when it does rain, I always pull out a previously unread book from the bottom of my suitcase and take great delight in losing myself in it. 

This year, the book in question was a gift from friends who know of my love of France. It is, “France: an Amazingly Short History” by Bob Fowke. At only 128 pages, it provides an amusing and rapid overview of the history of France from 90,000 BC to the present day.

In fact, I became so ingrossed in the book that I started reading out bits to Ken and Sheila. Eventually, when they realised that I was unstoppable, they ‘invited’ me to read aloud a couple of chapters each day, which was greatly enjoyed by all.

If we were to pool all our collective known facts of la belle France, they would probably be quite wide-ranging. Naturally, we had all heard of Joan of Arc (Jeanne D'Arc ), Cardinal Richelieu, Mme Guillotine, Louis XIV or Louis Quatorze) and of course the little corporal, Napoleon Bonaparte. But we were hazy about the details. For example, why was Jeanne D'Arc burned, who set fire to her, what happened as a result and when exactly did all this take place? 

Such questions and more were answered by this excellent little book. We were particularly intrigued by the ‘Maid of Orleans’ because, every May/June in Normandy (and presumably throughout France) posters are much in evidence publicising “le feu’ which is when her conflagration is re-enacted each year. I took the photo (below) at a fête in Saint-Martin-de-Mailloc (on the road from Orbec to Lisieux). The main event was a brocante (see Post 3), followed by a pig-roast and ending with a good-natured conflagration of Jeanne.

All that remained ‘aprez le feu’ 

This year, 2012, is the 600th anniversary of her birth and, a wide range of events took place throughout France to commemorate her life and death, particularly in Normandy, with which she had strong associations.

There were many other fascinating facts to share from Fowke’s amazingly short history. For example, we were already aware that a large townhouse in our very own Leamington Spa bears the name of ‘Napoleon III House’. We then discovered that this Louis-Napoléon (1808-1873), nephew of the ‘little corporal’, Napoléon Bonepart, had lived there for two years during his exile in England. 

Number 6 Clarendon Square, Leamington Spa, where Louis-Napoléon, apparently, eeked out a pitiful exile between 1838 and 1839 (look carefully to see the name, ‘Napoleon III House’).

Like most French rulers, Louis-Napoléon certainly engaged in his share of military conflict. But It turned out that he had been a rather popular emperor who managed to push through a number of important reforms. For example, he was responsible for the creation of those iconic Parisian boulevards–though this was apparently not just to beautify the city but also to reduce the risk of riots by removing the cobblestones (so useful for lobbing at the state troops). These long straight boulevards had the added advantage of allowing his troops clear fields of fire, should the mob decide to turn nasty. Napoleon III was also responsible for the building of new bridges, the opera, and a new water and sewage system.

The perfect tense

And talking of the past, there are two past tenses that you need to know about: the perfect tense (the most commonly used of the two) and the imperfect tense. In this post I’ll look at the perfect tense.

You would use the perfect tense when you’re describing completed events or actions that only happened once or just a few times in the past. For example ‘I ate my dinner’ or ‘I have eaten my dinner’. The imperfect tense construction here would be  “I was eating my dinner”. 

Avoir + participle

For most French verbs, the perfect tense is constructed using avoir + the past participle. For example:
'I have eaten' is: 
J’ai mangé.

The J’ai part is the first person singular of avoir and the mangé is the past participle of manger, to eat. Each of the three common verb types, -er, -ir and -re verbs, has a different participle ending. The table below shows each of these endings, along with an illustration of how they are used.

Using ''avoir':

Infinitive	Participle	Example
parler, to speak	parlé	I spoke slowly.  J’ai parlé lentement.
choisir, to choose	choisi	We chose some pears. Nous avons choisi des poires.
vendre, to sell	vendu	Did you sell an apple? As-tu vendu une pomme?

Être + participle

A small group of verbs are constructed using être + the past participle. For example, I have gone is: Je suis allé.

The verbs in this category (participles in brackets) include:

aller (allé), to go, 

arriver (arrivé), to arrive, 

rester (resté), to stay, 

partir (parti), to leave, 

tomber (tombé), to fall,

naître (né), to be born and 

mourir (mort), to die

A complication with using the ‘être’ construction is that there is requirement to make the participle ‘agree’ with the subject, as shown below.

Using 'être':

Subject	Participle	Examples, showing agreement in red
elle, she	add ‘e’	She went home.  Elle est allée chez lui.
nous, we	add ‘s’	We arrived today. Nous sommes arrivés aujourd’hui.
vous, you	add ‘s’	Why did you (plural) stay? Pourquoi êtes vous restés?
Ils, they (m)	add ‘s’	They fell. Ils sont tombés.
elles, they (f)	add ‘es’	They (female) died. Elles sont mortes.

If this all sounds rather complicated, do take comfort from the fact that, in spoken French, many of these endings are silent, so we’ll probably get away with a few slip-ups – a point echoed by Ken in his ‘gem’ below.

Ken’s Gems

"When speaking French and when you don’t know the gender of a particular verb (i.e. whether or not to use ‘le’ or ‘la’) there is a vocal trick you can employ to get over this. Don’t fully pronounce either. Just let your tongue trip over the ‘l’ without pronouncing the ‘e’ or the ‘a’.  For instance: for 'Je n’ai pas le temps' (I don’t have time) say: 'J’n’ai pas l’temps'. This is only to be employed when speaking - the written form requires more discipline!" Ken

I’ve put up on YouTube a short video that deals more fully with the perfect tense:

Teaching my wife French: 8 The perfect tense.