3: The, a, some

Sunday morning "brocantes"

Bonjour mes amis!

Every Sunday morning, when staying in Normandy, we pay a visit to a "brocante" in a nearby village. The locations change every week (apparently each village is allocated one slot per year, so you have to track them down for the particular week of your holiday). The word "brocante" means 'second-hand' and these events involve local people clearing out their attics and children's toy cupboards and selling off unwanted items. Prices are extremely low and there is always something of interest to bring home.

The pictures below show Ken and Sheila attending a brocante in a forest near Fervaques. The second snap I have named, 'le voleur de Fervaques" (the thief of Fervaques) on the grounds that Ken is looking distinctly shifty. In his hand is a lovely wooden miniature chest, which we polished up and gave to our daughter Rosie to display her jewellery (Rosie is, amongst other things, a designer and maker of handmade jewellery).

Sheila and Ken at a brocante near Fervaques 

Le 'voleur' de Fervaques

                       

(By the way, Ken has asked me to make it clear that he is not actually stealing this chest – Ken is a professional actor and and sometimes likes giving us a performance!)

Ken and Sheila are both working hard on the blog and have just watched the videos for Post 2. In his usual, understated way, Ken kindly pointed out a small error in the video, “Teaching my wife French: French words that you already know". I've put a note up about this in Comments to the video on YouTube. [LINK]

Just get on with it…

Anyway, on with the show.

Recently, Sheila was translating some short sentences into French. One read, "She loves apples." which she translated, logically enough, as, "Elle aime pommes." Although this is a literal translation, it is not correct. The French don't normally leave a noun like "pommes" floating on its own like this without some other word in front of it. Hence this post which explains the rules for "the", "a" (respectively, the definite and indefinite articles) and "some".

She pen, he pencil

une plume (a pen - feminine)  










un crayon (a pencil – masculine)
               

If you look at a pen and a pencil, it's hard to think of these objects as being gendered. But, for reasons that I've never understood, the French language has chosen to gender all its nouns. This applies whether or not they are living breathing mammals (yes, sensible enough), plants (mmm, not sure?), inanimate objects (steady now…), or abstract concepts like "opinion", "reason", "gender" and so on (wow – beam me up, Scotty!).

The English word, "the" is known as the definite article, whereas “a" is referred to as the indefinite article. The reason for this terminology is that if you are talking about, say, "the chair" you are being specific and definite about a particular chair, hence the word “the" is the definite article. To talk about “a chair", on the other hand, it is not a reference to a particular chair but rather to a general, indefinite one, hence the word “a" is referred to as the indefinite article. 

The definite article, "the"

Just as all French nouns are distinguished by gender, so too are the corresponding articles that go in front of them. Masculine definite articles are written as "le" and feminine as "la". Below are some examples of "le" and "la" for nouns describing parts of the body.

Examples of masculine nouns:

English	French
the arm	le bra [bra]
the knee	le genou [juhnoo]
the face	le visage [veezaj]
the nose	le nez [nay]
the stomach	l'estomac [estoma]

Incidentally, when I showed a previous draft of this post to Sheila, her immediate response was that she was put off reading it by being unable to pronounce some of these words. At her suggestion, therefore, I've included a pronunciation aid in red alongside my first use of the French words in question.

As you can see from the final example above, the only complication is where the noun in question starts with a vowel, in which case the definite article is written as l apostrophe (l').  For these nouns, it will not be immediately obvious whether their gender is masculine or feminine.

Examples of feminine nouns:

English	French
the head	la tête [tet]
the mouth	la bouche [boosh]
the tooth	la dent [don]
the hand	la main [man]
the ear	l'oreille [oray]

As was the case with the final example of masculine nouns (estomac), the final example in this list of feminine nouns (oreille) also starts with a vowel so "la" is also reduced to "l'".

The indefinite article, "a"

For masculine nouns, the indefinite article is "un" – pronounced [an].

Examples:

English	French
an arm	un bra
a knee	un genou
a face	un visage
a nose	un nez
a stomach	un estomac

For feminine nouns, simply add "e" to the "un" to get "une" – pronounced [oon].

Examples:

English	French
a head	une tête
a mouth	une bouche
a tooth	une dent
a hand	une main
an ear	une oreille

It can be hard to remember all this vocabulary. Sheila commented that she finds it easy to remember "le dent", meaning "the tooth" by thinking about the word dandelion, which derives from the French "dent de lion" (lion's tooth), and refers to its coarsely-toothed leaves. 

Some (used for portions)

In English, when asking for a portion of butter, you might say, 'May I have some butter?' This is using "some" to indicate a portion. I'll look shortly at a different use of "some", which is for plurals.

For portions, sometimes, the word "some" is omitted and you might shorten the sentence above to, 'May I have butter?' As was mentioned earlier, this omission of "some" is not allowed in French – a noun can't normally be left to float on its own. When used to indicate a portion of something, the noun must be preceded by 'of the'. For masculine nouns this is "du" and for feminine nouns, "de la". A couple of example should make this clearer.

(Note that the word buerre (butter) is masculine and ice cream (glace) is feminine.)

English	French
May I have some butter?	Puis-je avoir du buerre?
May I have some ice cream?	Puis-je avoir de la glace?
May I have butter?	Puis-je avoir du buerre?
May I have ice cream?	Puis-je avoir de la glace?

Plurals

In English, the definite article "the" remains unchanged, whether the noun in question is singular or plural. For example, we can say "the arm" or "the arms" but either way the "the" is the same.

In French, for plural nouns, both the "le" (masculine) and "la" (feminine) become "les" – pronounced [lay].

Examples:

English	French
Singular              Plural	Singular              Plural
the head     the heads	la tête               les têtes
the knee     the knees	le genou        les genoux
the tooth      the teeth	la dent             les dents
the hand     the hands	la main            les mains
the face  the faces	le visage       les visages

A note on pronunciation: All of these plural nouns are pronounced just the same as the singular form – for example, "têtes" is pronounced [tet], just like " tête".

So far so simple. What about plurals of the indefinite article, "a". In English, we simply drop the article altogether, so the plural of "a dog" becomes "dogs", the plural of "a tree" becomes "trees", and so on.

This is NOT how it works in French. Instead, the plural of "un" is "des". You can think of "des" as meaning "some", although in English this word is usually unspoken.

Examples:

English	French
Singular           Plural	Singular              Plural
a head             heads	une tête           des têtes
a knee              knees	un genou      des genoux
a tooth               teeth	une dent         des dents
a hand             hands	une main         des mains
a face               faces	un visage       des visages

A note on pronunciation: "des" is pronounced [day]. 

So how do you remember the gender of French nouns?

It seems that there are certain patterns and guidelines for linking French nouns to their gender but this information is beyond my area of expertise. I turned to Ken for help on this question and he turned to Michel Thomas.

Ken’s gems...

According to Michel Thomas: 1. There are approximately 1,200 nouns in English and in French ending in -ion that take the feminine form (la, une): e.g. the decision/ la décision. 2.  Nouns in English ending in -ty, end with -té in French and are feminine: e.g. the capacity/ la capacité.

Certainly, over time, you do start to pick up that it is la pomme (the apple) but le banane (the banana), la vache (the cow) but le cheval (the horse), and so on. In general, when I am unsure, I tend to go with Sheila's method, which is to say these definite or indefinite articles rather quickly and with confidence. Just hope that the French listener will believe that you said it correctly because, to quote Paul Simon, "a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest".

Sheila's wrinkles

Having read Ken's gems for the last two posts, Sheila was starting to feel that she was missing out. She has asked for a feature in the blog where she can contribute her own special wisdom. For this spot she has chosen the title 'Sheila's Wrinkles' (luckily this was her suggestion, not mine!) and so from next week you will be able to read both of these features!

Postscript on "le" and "la"

A few years ago, I was looking for French mustard in a small local supermarché. “Excusez moi. Avez vous le moutard?”, I asked the young mademoiselle. Answer came there none – just giggles. I asked her friend the same question, " Avez vous le moutard?”. Many more giggles.

What I hadn't realized was that there are two very similar words in French. The word for mustard is the feminine word, ‘la moutarde’ (note the "la" and also that it ends with the vowel (an "e") which means that the penultimate letter is pronounced [la mootard]. I was offering a masculine word (starting with "le") and, without a final vowel, the "d" is silent [le mootaar]. I only discovered later that what I was asking for  was 'the little rascal'.

Finally, what about Sheila's dodgy translation of, "she loves apples", that inspired this post? She now knows that the correct French translation is, "elle aime des pommes".

Video

To support this post I’ve put up on Youtube another short video explaining "le/la", "un/une" and "des".  

Here is the link: Teaching my wife French: The, a, some.

Au revoir.

2. French words you already know

Sheila sketching in the garden in Tordouet

Bonjour mes amis!

Last night I was chatting to my son on the phone and I told him about this French blog that I’ve started. He related the following story of his son (my grandson) Lonny, aged 4. Until yesterday, Lonny had never heard French spoken but was intrigued when a French-speaking friend of his mum popped over. Afterwards he started asking about French words.

“What’s the French word for  ‘table’; what’s the French word for  ‘blue’; and so on”.

On hearing the answers he announced, “I think French words are just the same as English words except the French don’t say them quite right.” Lonny may have a point – well at least about many of the words being the same. 

Michel Thomas 

Over the past few months, our friend Ken has been working through the excellent Michel Thomas Audio CD,  ‘Michel Thomas French Foundation Course'’. Note: this course is no longer available but has been repackaged (more expensively) together with the Advanced course under the title, Perfect French with the Michel Thomas Method.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Perfect-French-Michel-Thomas-Method/dp/1444133039/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Cover of the Michel Thomas course 

Ken has certainly enjoyed the Thomas series but he has been a bit frustrated that it is so totally oral (Thomas argues that there is no need to write anything down - just go with the flow and, he claims, you’ll absorb it without having to try). However, like Sheila and myself, Ken has felt the need to formalise his understanding of what he has been taught and then sit down and learn it through practice, otherwise he fears it will just not stick. This is the main reason that Ken has been keen to work on the written and the ‘rules’ sides of French with Sheila and me – not to replace the oral approach of Michel Thomas but to complement it.

Ken’s recollections from having listened to the Michel Thomas audio CDs have certainly helped us all with our French pronunciation.  But more than that, one of the gems we were delighted to hear from him was just how many words French and English share.  It seems that, during the Norman occupation (1066 and all that), something like 10,000 French words were adopted into English. Of these, at least three quarters are still in use today.  It is also claimed that more than a third of all English words derive directly or indirectly from French.  What this means is that even before you or I have picked up a French textbook and learned to say ‘Oh la là’, we already sort-of know up to 15,000 French words (although there is sometimes a bit of a problem with the pronunciation). But I think we can safely say – that gets us all off to a cracking start!

Ken’s gems...

According to Michel Thomas, you already know hundreds of French words – it’s just a matter of tapping into them.

So French vocabulary is all around us and it seemed to me that there are three key categories of words and phrases worth working on here: 

• French phrases used in English, 
• vocabulary that is the same in both French and English, and 
• French vocabulary that can be worked out from commonsense. 

We quickly came up with a longish list in each of these ‘gateways to French’ and no doubt you’ll be able to think of many as well. Here is a short summary of some of our ideas.

Three gateways to French

A. French phrases in common use in English

Together we were quickly able to come up with at least two dozen French words and phrases that are in common usage in English, of which here are five.

French	English
à la mode	stylish, up-to-date
à propos	on the subject (of)
au fait	informed
avant-garde	innovative
c’est la vie	that’s life

Over the next few weeks we’ll try to expand our list to include some of the less well known ones, as they all serve to extend our French vocab. We hope that, as well as giving us a range of handy French phrases at our disposal, these expressions will all feed into our basic understanding of how sentences are constructed in French.

B. Words and phrases shared by French and English (some with slight spelling differences)

Our second category is words that are virtually identical in both English and French. However, we’re aware that we’ll have to remember which words do have this property and which do not. There is clearly a great danger of overgeneralising here. For example, a couple of years ago I attempted to refer to the English word ‘vegetable’ as ‘le vegétable’. In fact, however convincing it may sound, there is no such word in French as ‘le vegétable’, the correct term being ‘le légume’ (Sheila pointed out that, in English, a legume was a vegetable with a pod, such as peas, beans, lentils, etc.)

French and English	French and English
acteur / actor	batterie / battery
âge / age	bébé /baby
arriver / to arrive	bleu / blue
balle / ball	broche / brooch
banque / bank	café / coffee

C. French words or phrases that can be worked out from common sense

This third category of words is an interesting and very helpful one. All three of us like to think that we’re older (certainly) and wiser (hopefully) than when we were at school, as a result of which we now have a more extensive vocabulary than when we were 15. A very useful trick, when trying to decipher a French word is to look for a similar English word that it sounds like or might be associated with and then make an inspired leap. For example, suppose you are faced with the French word ‘mer’. You may associate this with the English word ‘marine’ and then deduce that ‘la mer’ means ‘the sea’. 

Here are a few of the words in this category that we uncovered.

French	sounds like / is associated with	English
aimer	amiable, amorous	to love
chambre	chamber	room
déviation	deviation	diversion / detour
faim	famished	hungry
habiter	inhabit	to live

‘Déviation’ means diversion

‘Chambre’ means room

If you don’t know, just have a guess!

So, the message here seems to be that if you don't know the French word in question, just guess the same or similar word in English, but say it with a plausible French accent – you might just be right. However, on occasion this principle can let you down badly.  For example, on one occasion while staying at Tordouet, our car started to drip petrol. ‘‘Est-ce qu’il y a un mechanic?” I asked a neighbour, hoping to find a mechanic in the village. Seeing that I was getting nowhere, I went back to check my vocabulary and found that I was asking if there was a robot. 

In June of this year, our trip from Portsmouth to Caen was rather choppy and I ended up quite ill. So, while in St. Pierre sur Dîves I tracked down ‘une pharmacie’ and asked madame, “Avez vous du medecin pour le mal de mer?” All went well and I congratulated myself on a job well done, until I checked the dictionary that evening to find that the word for medicine was ‘medicament’. What I had actually asked for was a doctor!

Two videos

To support this post I’ve put up, on Youtube, two short videos ... and please remember that my French pronunciation is still very much ‘work in progress’. Here are the links:

Basic grammar, covering six key parts of speech (noun, adjective, verb, adverb, conjunction and pronoun)

French words you already know (summarising the three gateways to French set out in this blog:

- French phrases used in English, 

- Shared words and phrases and 

- Words or phrases that can be worked out from common sense. 

On this video I’ve also included a useful general pattern of how many of the adverbs are formed in French. 

Each week, over the next year, I aim to upload a new video to YouTube. To see them all, type in TeachingMyWifeFrench or my user name, slievegarth1.

Exercises

1. Based on gateway ‘A’ in this post, try to extend your repertoire of French phrases used in English. Then fire up the link below and see how many of these you are already familiar with.

http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/a/frenchinenglish_2.htm

2.  Based on gateway ‘B’ in this post, try to extend your repertoire of French and English words and phrases that are identical or very similar.

3. Based on gateway ‘C’ in this post, try to extend your repertoire of French words and phrases that can be translated by finding a similar English word that it sounds like or might be associated with it and then making an inspired leap. 

4. Take every opportunity to practice your French pronunciation, even when the circumstances are unpromising. For example, Sheila and I tend to get quite a few ‘cold-calling’ sales or scam call from the Indian sub-continent (the tell-tale sign is when the words ‘International call’ appears on the telephone display). After replying with, ‘Bonjour, qui est là?’, we like to spin off into a random list of French vocab. A current favourite is the very French-sounding place names of the small villages around Tordouet: St Martin de Mailloc, Notre Dame de Courson and so on. I’m always disappointed if they ring off before I get to my particular favourite – St. Cyr du Ronceray. It’s a chance to really go for it, French accent-wise, so we try to give it some welly!

5. Look through French magazines, books, adverts, etc and try to make sense of what they say. For example, Sheila remembered looking at a French atlas and noticing that their word for the English Channel was ‘la manche’ (the sleeve). I wonder why they decided to call it this...

So that’s it for Post 2 and I hope you now feel you know a few more French words than you did before reading this post.

Au revoir!