6. BÂTIR, TO BUILD

The theme of this post is 'building'.

Saint Sébastien

Since 2005, when we first began our annual jaunts to Normandy, we have never failed to visit this beautiful 350-year-old manoir in nearby Préaux-Saint-Sébastien (population 38). In that same year (2005) this manoir became the home of our old friends, Steve and Kay, who moved there from the UK.

The St. Sébastien house in 2011

But it hasn't always looked like this–when they first bought it, the house was an abandoned and unloved home that had fallen into disrepair.

 The same house in 2005

A most enjoyable feature of our French adventures ever since has been that Sheila, Ken and I have tried to do our bit to help our friends to restore the manoir to its former glory.

There was certainly no shortage of jobs to be done. One of the many tasks was to fill the holes in the outside walls where the mud-based 'torchée' surfaces had fallen off over the centuries (now covered in corrugated iron sheeting). Fortunately the 'right sort of mud' was to be found in the garden so Sheila and I helped to 're- torchée' the gaps in the traditional manner. As Sheila commented, "I'm used to working with clay, but this is on a slightly bigger scale!"

Sheila applying torchée to the walls

This involved mixing the wet mud with lime, in the correct proportions, then literally throwing the mixture at the gaps and hoping they would stick. Then, using a hand-made dibbler (a small home-made wooden plasterer's tool), we burnished the mud by rubbing until it was hard and firm. Finally, when dry, it was painted with a modern preservative.

Me painting the torchée walls

Me 'supervising' Ken as he attaches corrugated iron 

sheeting to protect the barn from imminent gales

Sheila attacking the undergrowth

A feature of this house was that the original oak beams were really huge. We learned later from the local mayor that the size of a manoir's beams reflected the status of the owner and clearly this had, at the time of its construction, been the home of a very important person.

One powerful memory of this experience was in March 2006, as we worked indoors attempting to fit ceiling panels between the ancient oak beams. The house was still without heating and it was so cold that we had to wear every garment that we had brought with us, pyjamas included. 

Many layers of clothing required

But despite these obstacles, our times in St. Sébastien have been spectacularly enjoyable. As can be seen from Sheila's painting below, the house is set in splendid isolation with only a distant water tower to break the skyline.

Sheila's painting of the view from the front of the house

  

Steve remained true to his intention to restore the house to something like its original form using, where possible, traditional materials such as wonderful, solid oak beams and, of course, the mud walls. After 5 years of restoration – a true labour of love – it is now a beautiful, 'modern' 350 year-old manoir.

Sheila's wrinkles

"This week's wrinkle is about the value of having things written down. As Alan was writing the table of the –er, –ir and –re verbs in this post, I suddenly saw that I had a better grasp of these verbs than I thought. For me, personally, I know that conversation alone is not going to get me started, so I have printed off the table and I have pinned it to a board in my pottery workshop so that, as I'm working, I can see it all together in one block. I don't have a photographic memory but I know I can recall some of those endings as a picture in my mind, from the table. So now, I have started my own list and any word or phrase that I would like to remember I have written on the board as an 'aide memoire'. Also, on our many visits to Normandy, we have bought several French CDs and, if nothing else, I can at least sing to people and assure them that my holiday is 'la vie en rose' " Sheila

Ken's gems

"The thing that strikes me about the French language is how polite and formal it is. When we walk into any small shop in Normandy we are invariably greeted with the words “Bonjour messieurs, dame” and a hearty “Au revoir” or “Bonne journée” on leaving. These friendly greetings are so enthusiastically delivered that they are effectively sung rather than spoken.  Confronted with these cheery salutations, it instils a certain confidence to ‘have a go’ – until, in searching for the right word, le bon mot, the moment has passed and I walk out having missed another opportunity to utter some halting, basic French to a native speaker. And this for me, I think is key. We can put our noses in books and listen to all the CDs but unless you’re actually speaking it and having the confidence to try out your language skills on other people, it can all go for nothing'. A phrase that I rather like is what the French call 'l'esprit d'escalier' (the spirit of the staircase). It refers to only thinking of the right phrase when the moment has passed – although in my case it is more, 'the spirit of walking out of the shop and standing on the footpath, scratching my head'! " Ken

-ir and –re verbs

In post 5, I looked at the –er verbs in the present tense. These comprise something like 90% of all French verbs, so they really are the main event in the 'verbing' game. But there are two other categories of verbs that are also worth knowing about – those, like bâtir (to build), ending in –ir and those like vendre (to sell) ending in –re.

Forming the stem: Just as the stem for –er verbs is formed by removing the 'er', so, the stems for –ir and –re verbs are formed by removing the 'ir' and 're', respectively.

The table below summarises the six sets of endings for each type of verb, along with the –er endings that you saw in Post 5.

Endings used for –er, -ir and -re verbs (present tense)

Person (English)	Person (French)	-er ending	-ir ending	-re ending
I	je	-e	-is	-s
you	tu	-es	-is	-s
he/she/one	il/elle/on	-e	-it
we	nous	-ons	-issons	-ons
you	vous	-ez	-issez	-ez
the	ils/elles	-ent	-issent	-ent

Here are two examples of applying the appropriate endings to the verbs, "bâtir" (stem: bât) and "vendre" (stem: vend).

Example 1: Translating "we build" (or "we are building")

Example 2: Translating "you sell" (or "you are selling")

I’ve put up on YouTube a short video that deals more fully with the regular –ir and -re verbs in the present tense:

Teaching my wife French: 6 -ir and -reverbs present tense 

5. The -er verbs, present tense

La chasse

When I think about Normandy, my mind often turns to food and eating out. We have found it very noticeable – particularly when accompanied by our friend Ken (je suis végétarien) – that the locals are enthusiastically carnivorous, as evidenced by the menus in the smaller restaurants, which have few if any vegetarian options. We've also noticed that hunting seems to be much more commonplace than in the UK.

For example, we spotted this sign in a field close to Tordouet and it took us a while to work out what it meant. "Chasser" means to hunt and "garder" is to guard, so "une chasse gardée" turns out to be a private hunting area or game reserve.

Another reminder of the French love of 'the chase' was our discovery of shops aimed specifically at 'le chasseur" (the hunter). Each time we visit Orbec, we are always fascinated to look at L'Armurerie Riffaut (Riffaut's armoury), recently relocated from the centre of the town to larger premises on the outskirts of Orbec. It specializes in steel lances (presumably for dispatching wounded wild boar), powerful-looking bows and arrows, highly expensive hunting knives (€300+) guns galore and of course buckets of "cartouches de chasse" (ammunition).

La Poterie

Just along from Riffaut's 'armurerie', and of much more interest to Sheila, is 'la Poterie' (the pottery) – now sadly lying empty, as of this year. 

la Poterie in Orbec

As Sheila is a potter herself, visiting this little pottery has been a delight and a real motivation to want to improve her French as she strove to compare technical notes about clays and glazes with the woman who ran it. The sign reads, 'Atelier Poterie, expo-vente, cours et stage', which translates as, 'Studio Pottery, exhibition-sale, courses and workshops'.

Before la Poterie shut down, Sheila bought this lovely piece there.

A small ceramic dish from la Poterie, Orbec

Look carefully and you'll see the word 'Orbec' in the stamp.

Sheila's wrinkles

"I loved watching Western films when I was younger and you can bet a pound to a Euro that some cowboy will meet an Indian for a 'parley'. So I've known the verb 'to talk' since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I always find it useful seeing verbs written down in order to see how similar they are to English. Hearing them spoken doesn't always give me the right connection. For example, seeing the verb to ask, "demander" written down reminds me of 'demanding an answer'. When I see the verb to fall, "tomber", I see the word 'tumble'. Here's how I see other verbs: to help – "aider" – 'to come to ones aid'; to stop – arrêter – 'to arrest something', as in " arrêter le bus'; to go in – "entrer" – to enter; to live – "habiter" – to inhabit Orbec; to get up – "lever" – to lever yourself up; to walk – "marcher" – quick march. There are loads of others so, as well as using this blog, check out words in a dictionary as the visual really helps me." Sheila

Ken's gems

"I found something very useful on the Michel Thomas course, which is that in English there are three ways to express something in the present tense - I eat, I am eating, I do eat, whereas in French (with the most common  '-er' verbs ) there is only one: je mange. (So, there are no '-ing' tenses in French.) Also, another way of thinking about the conjugation of, say, manger is that to form the first person singular conjugation you simply drop the' -r'. Then, for all these -er verbs, the form for 'il', 'elle', follows the form for 'je' - je mange, il mange, elle mange." Ken

The present tense

Both Sheila and Ken can make themselves understood in French, but only provided they stick to speaking in the present tense. What really got all three of us into working on this blog was our desire to master the subtleties of the verb endings for the other tenses – future, imperfect, and so on – which are both a source of terror and of great fascination in equal measure.

I'm hoping that what we cover here in Post 5 will reinforce what we already know about speaking in the present tense and give us a solid foundation on which we can build all the other tenses over the coming weeks.

Over the next couple of posts I'll be looking at the three most common families of verbs: those ending in -er, -ir and -re. By far the most important of these families is the "-er" group and that is where I'll start here. But first, here are three tips about pronunciation.

Pronouncing French

Tip 1. If a word ends in a consonant, ignore it:

For example, both of these words are pronounced in the same way.

parle, parles.

Also, -ent endings are ignored, so "parlent" is pronounced the same as "parle" and "parles".

Here are two further examples:

milk, lait [lay] – ignore the final "t".

but, mais [may] – ignore the final "s".

Tip 2. If a word ends in an "e", pronounce the preceding consonant but ignore the "e" (as is done in English).

Here are two examples:

rest, reste [rest].

cup, tasse [tass].

Tip 3. If a word contains an "e" with an acute accent over it, " é", then stress the "e".

Examples:

school, école [aykol]

priest,  curé  [curay].

-er verbs (present tense)

The overall aim of this blog is to help Sheila, Ken and myself to learn to "parler français" a bit better, so in this post I'm going to look at the verb "parler" (to talk or speak).

Like the majority of verbs in French, "parler" has an -er ending and in this post I'll be using it as a template for all French verbs ending in -er. Unlike, the three irregular verbs that I looked at in Post 4 (être, avoir and faire), it is comforting to know that the –er verbs (and there are thousands of them) behave in the same way.

The hard bit with using verbs in French is working out what ending to put on them. Here are the three steps to choosing the correct ending for a verb, based on "parler" to say – pronounced [parlay].

Step	Explanation
1. Find the infinitive form of the verb (parler).	The word "parler" translates into English as the two words "to talk". This is the infinitive form of the verb; it is important to know this as it tells you what family of verbs it belongs to (in this example, parler is an "-er" verb).
2. Remove the "er" from the infinitive to form the stem (parl-).	So, the stem for parler is parl-, the stem for aimer is aim-, and so on.
3. Choose the appropriate ending for the verb and add it to the stem.	Depending on the 'person' being used with the verb (I, he, we, etc), choose from the list of endings given in the table below.

Endings used for -er verbs (present tense)

Person (English)	Person (French)	Ending
I	je	-e
you	tu	-es
he/she/one	il/elle/on	-e
we	nous	-ons
you	vous	-ez
the	ils/elles	-ent

Here are two examples of applying the appropriate endings to two verbs, "demander" (to ask) and "danser" (to dance).

Example 1: Translating "we ask" (or "we are asking")

  
nous demandons

Example 2: Translating "she dances" (or "she is dancing")

elle danse

Une exception?

One important exception to this rule for –er verbs is the irregular verb "aller" to go, which conjugates rather weirdly, as follows:

je vais, tu vas, il/elle/on va, nous allons, vous allez, ils/elles vont

There are one or two other –er verbs that don't behave entirely predictably but luckily the vast majority do!

Video 

I’ve put up on Youtube a short video dealing with the regular -er verbs in the present tense.

Here is the link: Teaching my wife French: -er verbs, present tense

So, that's it for the "-er" verbs. In Post 6 I'll look at the conjugation, in the present tense, of another family of verbs – those ending in "-ir".

Au revoir.