Category Archives: French language

French language, Portugal

Friday’s French in Portugal

5 Comments
Print pagePDF pageEmail page

fire_signMy first contact with Portuguese was during my honours year of university in Australia when I studied and fell in love with Romance Linguistics, which is the story of how Latin turned into Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian. It was like a jigsaw puzzle – and I had always liked jigsaws.

I found it absolutely fascinating to learn that flos, the word for flower in Latin should have become fleur in French, fiore in Italian, flor in Spanish and Portuguese and floare in Romania. Castellum turned into château, castello, castillo, castelo and castel. Not only that, but the changes are systematic: fl in Latin nearly always gives fl in French, fi in Italian, fl in Spanish and Portuguese. And ditto for ca which remains the same in all the languages except French where it becomes ch.

I have since studied French, Italian and Spanish in greater detail and still get a kick out of the systematic changes you can see: blanc, bianco, blanco for white ; pluie, pioggia, lluvia for rain, and so on. But this is my first real contact with Portuguese.

The first thing I noticed is that the “l” has disappeared from definite articles : o, a, os, as and not il, la et les.

N often becomes m : jardim, im, bem (bien), bom.

Otherwise it often seems a mixture of Spanish and Italian when it’s written – but not when it’s spoken.

I’m kicking myself for not having at least learnt some basics with the help of my Portugueuse cleaner before I left!

I’ve now mastered obrigada (thank you) which is like saying (I’m) obliged. As a result, Jean Michel has to say obrigado.

I downloaded an app on my iPhone (not lost or stolen yet) to help with pronunciation. We weren’t sure how to say azulejos (those beautiful ceramic tiles they have everywhere). It sounds like a-zu-lie-si (with s being pronunced like the s in Asia). I can tell you, it’s going to take me a lot longer than a week to master that one!

I also learnt something very interesting about the days of the week. Unlike the other Romance languages, Portugueuse has a totally different system. Sabado (Saturday) and domingo (Sunday) correspond to most of the others but Monday to Friday are a different kettle of fish: segunda-feira, terça-feira, quarta-feira, quinta-feira and sexta-feira meaning second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth feast day.

There are a couple of explanations, one being that they were called according to the fair (feira) that used to take place on that day many moons ago. A feira is a set of tents pitched in the street where you can buy vegetables, fruits, and other foods.

Another explanation is that, because of the pagan origin of the original names of the days of the week, Martinho de Dume, a sixth-century bishop of Braga, in what is Portugal today, changed them to correspond to the full observance of an Easter week.

Domingo (Sunday) has its origin in the Latin expression for the Day of the Lord, sabado was named for the Hebrew word Shabbat while the other days come from the Latin terms for “second/third/fourth/fifth/sixth day on which one shouldn’t work” (in observance of Easter week).

Whatever the explanation it’s a bit confusing when reading a bus timetable!

French language

Friday’s French – littoral, cotière & rivage

3 Comments
Print pagePDF pageEmail page

In last week’s Friday’s French, I talked about côte meaning coast (among other things). A reader said he thought that littoral meant coast so I thought I should do a second post!

Le littoral espagnol sur la Côte basque
Le littoral espagnol sur la Côte basque

I checked out my trusty Larousse which tells me that le littoral is a sinuous area where the sea or a lake comes into contact with land. Then it goes on to say that it has a wider meaning than either rivage or côte which concern the area directly or indirectly affected by the action of the sea.

It also gives a second meaning i.e. littoral is used when speaking of all the côtes of a country, region, ocean or sea.

OK, so, in practical terms, what exactly does that mean? Examples of use are probably the best indication.

The first that comes to mind is conservation du littoral which means coastal conservation.

Here are some other examples:

Sur le littoral, une maison sur deux est une résidence secondaire. – One house out of two along the coast is a second home.

Avec ses milliers de kilomètres de littoral, la France offre une extraordinaire diversité. – With its thousands of kilometers of coastline, France offers extraordinary diversity.

Les Sauveteurs en Mer contribuent à diminuer le nombre des accidents sur le littoral français. – Lifesavers help to reduce the number of accidents along the coast of France.

Côte, often in the plural, could also be used in all these examples:

Une maison sur deux sur la côte est une résidence secondaire.

Avec ses milliers de kilomètres de côtes, la France offre une extraordinaire diversité.

Les Sauveteurs de Mer contribuent à diminuer le nombre des accidents sur les côtes françaises.

But the register is different. Littoral is more appropriate in a written context.

So when wouldn’t you use littoral? You wouldn’t say Je vais passer mes vacances sur le littoral or Il faut beau sur le littoral or J’adore le littoral. You would need to use côte in all these examples.

Côtier, the adjective from côte, is used in contexts such as bâteau côtier (coaster), région côtière (coastal region), ville côtière (coastal town) and pêche cotière (inshore fishing).

And what about rivage, which I mentioned earlier?

This is closer to our word “shore”, namely, that part of the land subjected to the action of waves and tides. It can be used for both the sea and lakes. Apart from names of camping grounds, restaurants and hotels (Beau Rivage), it’s practically never used. An example would be la baleine a échoué sur le rivage – the whale was beached on the shore.

So, in general, you can just use côte and côtière unless your context is specific.

And while I’m on the subject, when the French are talking about the Atlantic Ocean, they use the word “océan” and if they are talking about the Mediterranean, they use “mer”. whereas in Australia, we tend to use “sea” all the time. Tous les matins je cours ou je joue au tennis et après je me baigne dans l’océan – Every morning I go for a run or play tennis and afterwards, I swim in the sea. We would NOT say “I swim in the ocean” now, would we?

French language

Friday’s French – cote, côte, coteau

10 Comments
Print pagePDF pageEmail page

These words all look fairly similar but they’re not, of course, or I wouldn’t be talking about them.

Une côte sur la piste cyclable
Une côte sur la piste cyclable

To start off with, cote and côte are not even remotely related and not even pronounced in the same way! Cote is pronounced much like the English “cot” whereas côte is almost like “caught” but not quite. To an untrained Anglo-Saxon ear, they sound pretty much the same of course but they’re not!

Cote comes from the mediaeval Latin quota pars meaning each one’s share, which gives a whole range of derivative meanings such as a quotation on the stock market, a school grade, someone’s rating or standing (la cote de popularité du président = the president’s popularity rating (very low at the moment), elle a la cote = she’s very popular at the moment) and even dimension (as-tu pris toutes les cotes = have you taken all the measurements?).

Côte, with its circumflex indicating a dropped “s” you may remember, comes from the Latin costa meaning “flank” and has even more meanings than cote.

First we have the ribs in our body (j’ai mal aux côtes = I have sore ribs), leading to expressions such as côte à côte = side by side.

Côtes premières et côtes découvertes
Côtes premières et côtes découvertes – the top one is découverte and bottom première

Then we have animal ribs with côte d’agneau = lamb chop, côte première = loin chop, because it’s among the first ones on the rib and côte découverte, my favourite which is the ones streaked with fat further along the rib. I don’t, however, know what they are called in English. Any suggestions?

Another meaning of côte is the sort of ribbing you get in velvet (velours à larges côtes = wide rib corduroy, velours côtelé being regular corduroy) or knitting (j’ai fait les poignets en côtes = I did the cuffs in ribbing).

But doesn’t côte mean “coast”, I can hear you saying. How do you get from rib to coast? Well, the coast flanks the sea or ocean, doesn’t it? So we have Côte d’Azur = the French Riviera. Also, there is no separate word for coastline. Une côte rocheuse = a rocky coastline while a coast road = une route qui longe la côte but more often than not it is called une corniche (or route en corniche).

An entirely different meaning, but still attached to the idea of flank, is slope or hillside. This is one you need to know when you’re cycling (si la côte est trop dure, je descends du vélo = if the hill is too steep, I get off my bike).

A hillstart in a car is un démarrage en côte.

But coteau also means a slope or hillside and can even mean a hill only it’s not used in the same way.

Les vignes poussent sur un coteau
Les vignes poussent sur un coteau

A coteau is a hillside or slope on which vineyards are grown to start with. You may remember some really steep ones we saw in Germany this summer along the Moselle. Les vignes poussaient tout au long du coteau = There were vines growing all along the hillside/slope BUT Je suis arrivée en haut de la côte sans m’arrêter = I got to the top of the hill without stopping (yes, it does happen!)

In fact, the slopes on either side of a river are always called coteaux. Il habite sur le coteau = He lives on the side of the hill and not Il habite sur la côte which means he lives on the coast. Now, isn’t that confusing?

The only way I can really explain is that coteau gives the idea of a surface area whereas côte indicates height. I think the first and last photos illustrate the difference well. Are you with me?

French language

Friday’s French – prune and other metaphorical colours   

10 Comments
Print pagePDF pageEmail page

carte_grise_verteI’m reading a book in French and come across an expression I don’t know (which doesn’t often happen – I’m a translator after all). “C’est quoi, prendre une prune”, I ask Jean Michel. “Une amende”. So why would you call a speeding or a parking ticket a plum? Maybe it’s the colour of the ticket, he surmises, like a carte verte or carte grise. Prune incidentally corresponds to what we call burgundy.

 

This is very typical of French – designating something by its appearance rather than its purpose. Carte grise is what EVERYONE calls car registration papers and the carte verte is the insurance certificate and not a working visa.

However, I checked out prune and the expression doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the colour but rather the fruit. Back in the 13th century, prune already had several metaphorical meanings: a blow, bad luck, something worthless, all of which correspond pretty well to a speeding or a parking ticket.

The actual reason why prune developed these meanings is obscure but one legend has it that the crusaders brought back plum trees from Damask after the second crusade which they lost, prompting the king to say, “Don’t tell me you only went there for plums” (i.e. for nothing).

Another ticket-related colour is aubergine which later became pervenche or periwinkle blue used to designate traffic wardens after the colour of their uniforms. Their official name is contractuelle because they are employed on a contractual basis and are not regular civil servants.

The real name for a ticket is a PV or procès-verbal, which is really the strangest thing because it literally means a verbal process, yet it’s written down.

Many years ago, I accidentally went through a red light (I didn’t see it – it was one of those very low ones and I was turning right) and was stopped by a policeman. He asked for my carte grise, carte verte and permis de conduire (which used to be pink but was never called a pinkie which, incidentally, is petit doigt or auriculaire in French because it is the only one small enough to be inserted into the ear).

I did the “excusez-moi monsieur, je suis vraiment désolée, je n’ai pas vu le feu” bit and he answered “je ne vais pas vous verbaliser” which I assumed meant I wasn’t going to get away with a spoken reprimand and that he was giving me a ticket. But he waved me away instead! Verbaliser actually means to give someone a procès-verbal. Very disconcerting.

Do you know any more expressions based on colour?

French language

Friday’s French – prochain, next, this,  huitaine & quinzaine

4 Comments
Print pagePDF pageEmail page

That may seem like a strange combination but an English-speaking friend living in France has suggested I deal with the topic of “this” and “prochain“.

lune

This is what she wrote: “ I just had a confusing text message exchange with a French friend who I’m going to visit this Saturday. And yes, “this Saturday” was the cause of confusion. He speaks English quite well and he likes to practise it when he texts as well.  I was confirming my train arrival times with him and he said to me in English “so I’ll see you next weekend then!”

Even though I was pretty certain he was (badly) translating “le weekend prochain”, I still had to make sure we were on the same page and that he’d be there to meet me THIS weekend.”

In English, we make the distinction between “this Saturday”, that is, the one coming, and “next Saturday”, meaning the one after that, whereas in French, “samedi prochain” is the one coming and “samedi en huit” is the one after that. You can’t say “le weekend en huit”, though. You’d have to say something like “je te vois dans dix jours”, with dix being anything between 9 and 13!

But why “en huit”, you may be wondering. A week in English consists of seven days, but in French a week is “huit jours” – even in legal documents – despite the fact that semaine comes from the Latin septimana meaning seventh. But then another way of saying week is huitaine. The same applies to a fortnight, which is “quinze jours” or quinzaine and not quatorze jours as you would imagine.

Where does this all come from? Well, it seems is comes from the Romans who divided the month (30 or 31 days) into four unequal periods. So for a 30-day month, you’d have eight days followed by seven days, twice. A quinzaine was thus an 8-day period plus a 7-day period. This also explains why “huitaine” means week.

In France, the expressions sous huitaine and sous quinzaine (within one week and within two weeks) acquired a legal meaning in the Middle Ages which still exists today.

This is borne out by a similar use in Italian where quindicina is used for a period of two weeks.

I was talking to Jean Michel about huitaine and quinzaine and he said he remembers people using the term lunaison when he was young. I immediately checked my Larousse. It’s a real word and is the interval between two new moons, whose average length is 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 2.8 seconds (nothing like precision, is there?).

Now isn’t that interesting?

French language

Friday’s French – docteur, médecin, toubib, doctor

3 Comments
Print pagePDF pageEmail page

Doctor Antoinette Séjean
Doctor Antoinette Séjean, nutritioniste

I was surprised recently when a 6th year French medical student told me that there is a difference between a médicin and a docteur : a médecin is able to prescrire but is not qualified whereas a docteur has a Ph.D.

After translating in the field for nearly 40 years and never having witnessed this distinction, I was not convinced and have not found any literature supporting his statement since.

Certainly je vais chez le médecin is exactly the same as je vais chez le docteur. However, you would say bonjour docteur and not bonjour médecin, athough you could say bonjour monsieur le médecin if you wanted to be very polite.

Un médecin généraliste ou just un généraliste is the equivalent of our general practitioner (GP) and definitely qualified!

He was actually speaking about internes who, after 6 years at the faculty of medicine during which they usually do 4 annual 3-month practical periods in a hospital (as externes), spend another 3 years full-time in a hospital before presenting their thesis and becoming a GP or 4 or more years to become a specialist.

A doctor whom you see regularly (what we loosely call my doctor) is docteur or médecin traitant (but not docteur traitant). Qui est votre médecin traitant? Who is your doctor?

When I first arrived in France from Australia, I was surprised to hear people talk about ma gynécologue, mon pédiatre, mon rhumatologue and never about mon docteur, always referred to in any case as le docteur. The system has now changed but until a few years ago anyone could consult a specialist without a referral. You still can but you won’t be reimbursed by social security with the exception of gynaecologists, ophthalmologists, psychiatrists and stomatologists (but only for run-of-the-mill treatment, called acte médical).

My mother-in-law always referred to the doctor as le toubib, borrowed in 1898 from  the Algerian word for witchdoctor but which has the same root as medicine. It’s familiar of course and would sound very strange in the mouth of a foreigner!

In English, it is customary to address anyone with a Ph.D. as doctor but docteur is only used to refer to a medical practitioner in France. No distinction is made between a G.P. and a specialist who is also called docteur, unlike the Australian practice of calling a specialist Mr.

When you get higher up on the scale and become a Professor, however, you become le professeur Jacques Dupont, for example.

Among the various specialities, oncologue is used in preference to cancerologue; you go to see a rhumatologue if you’re having back problems , an oto-rhino-laryngologiste, more commonly known as ORL, if you have an ear, nose or throat infection, an angiologue for varicous veins and a pneumologue for lung problems.

The French love using scientific words whenever they can and would consider our more down-to-earth ear, nose and throat specialist, eye specialist and lung specialist almost to be baby talk!

Accommodation, French language, Loire Valley châteaux

Weekly Blogger Round-Up: Apostrophes in French – Chenonceau & the War Effort – 3-star Hotels in Europe

2 Comments
Print pagePDF pageEmail page

An all-Australian cast for this week’s Blogger Round-Up. Wendy Hollands from Le Franco Phoney talks about a subject dear to my heart – the French language – and the apostrophe in particular. Susan from Days on the Claise takes us to back in time to one of my favourite châteaux – Chenonceau – which served as a military hospital during World War I. And to complete the list, ever-practical Jo Karnaghan from Frugal First Class Travel tells us what to expect in a 3-star hotel in Europe, often a far cry from what Australians are used to. Enjoy!

The French Love Affair with English Words

by Wendy Hollands from Le Franco Phoney, an Australian who writes about all things French in La Clusaz, Annecy and Haute Savoie as seen by an outsider …

penneballsDid you know that France is the world’s most popular country for tourism? Despite their reputed gruffness, the French population must be doing something right, right? France is a proud nation of people who (sometimes illogically) support regional food and wine, get a little arty farty at times, and make me feel like a complete frump in comparison to their natural chic.

Their approach to language is no different. Who doesn’t love the sound of a French voice whooshing effortlessly through sentences? The rest of the world loves it and the French know it. They’re keen to preserve their language, as I’ve mentioned before with the Talkie Walkie (seriously) and the Academie français. Regardless, there’s a growing love of mixing English words into sentences. Read more

A Hundred Years Ago at Chenonceau

by Susan from Days on the Claise, an Australian living in the south of the Loire Valley, writing about restoring an old house and the area and its history and running Loire Valley Time Travel.

chenonceau_xmastree1914, and Chenonceau became a military hospital.

2254 wounded poilus, for the most part very gravely affected by their injuries, were cared for at the chateau over the course of the conflict and up to 31 December 1918. (The French soldiers were known as ‘hairies’, because of their luxuriant facial hair, especially moustaches.)

From 2 August 1914, the day war was declared, the industrialist and Senator Gaston Menier wanted to participate in the national war effort. He suggested to the War Minister that he could set up a temporary military hospital, at his own expense, in the Chateau of Chenonceau, which he had recently become the owner of, after the death of his brother Henri, who had bought the building in April 1913. Read more

Your First Trip to Europe – What to Expect in a 3-Star Hotel

by Jo Karnaghan from Frugal First Class Travel, an Australian who loves to travel – especially in Europe – and who has gradually learned how to have a First Class trip on an economy budget, without missing out on anything!

hotelsYou’ve decided to take your first trip to Europe – how exciting!  Now you need to make decisions.  What airline to book, what to do, and most importantly where to stay!  It’s very tempting to stick with the familiar and stay at a chain hotel.  You know what to expect, what the room will be like and how the plumbing will work.  But because this is frugalfirstclasstravel, a Hilton or Ibis just isn’t going to do it.  Small, locally-owned hotels typical of the location are what I actively encourage to add so much enrichment to your trip.  So in this post I’m looking at what to expect in a three star hotel in Europe.  I’m choosing a 3 star as it’s a good mid-point option for many travellers. Read more

French language

Friday’s French – frais & fresh

4 Comments
Print pagePDF pageEmail page

I keep walking past this little grocery store in our neighbourhood and seeing the sign: “fresh drink inside – boissons fraîches” and wondering whether tourists really understand that he’s selling cold drinks.

fresh_drinks

Tu as de l’eau fraîche? does not mean “Do you have fresh water?”, but “Do you have cold water?” L’eau froide is used as opposed to l’eau chaude, that is, cold water out the tap and not hot water. You can also say l’eau glâcée (iced water) to mean cold water out the fridge. And fresh water (as opposed to salty water) is eau douce.

L’air frais, on the other hand, means fresh air while l’air froid means cold air, as you would expect.

You can have légumes frais (fresh vegetables), oeufs frais (fresh eggs), pain frais (fresh bread) and peinture fraîche (fresh paint). However, a fresh coat of paint is une nouvelle couche de peinture.

In fact, nouveau or nouvelle is always used when the intended meaning is new e.g. une nouvelle feuille de papier = a fresh sheet of paper, to make a fresh pot of tea = refaire du thé, to make a fresh start = prendre un nouveau départ, a fresh face = un nouveau visage (as in someone you haven’t seen before) and fresh fields and pastures are nouveaux horizons, which is rather amusing. I wonder to what extent it reflects French and English thinking?

Nouvelles fraîches means recent news – we’d hardly talk about fresh news, would we?

Je ne suis pas très frais ce matin means I’m not feeling the best today (probably as the result of a late night).

Argent frais can mean either ready cash or fresh money depending on the context.

To say it’s cool or chilly, we also use frais – il fait frais. And servir frais means serve cold or chilled.

In weather-related  contexts, grand frais is, surprisingly, used for near gale while joli or bon frais is a strong breeze. But those are nautical terms.

If you’re talking about fresh coffee that has just been ground, you have to say café moulu and not café frais, which means freshly made coffee.

When fresh means cheeky, you never use frais, but rather impertinent or familier. I tried to find out from Jean Michel how to say “don’t get fresh” in French but he couldn’t think of anything. I can imagine a teenager responding with something like, “Ca va pas, non?”

Any suggestions?

French language

Friday’s French – normalement, normal & norme

13 Comments
Print pagePDF pageEmail page

In a very amusing post, Abby from Paris Weekender talks about her new pet peeve as opposed to her previous one which is normalement that got me thinking about how it is used in French.

Totally irrelevant photo taken in Rue Tiquetonne. I wish my geraniums would grow like that!
Totally irrelevant photo taken in Rue Tiquetonne. I wish my geraniums would grow like that!

Abby gives the example of normalement meaning that something should happen :

Le magasin est ouvert demain ? Normalement, oui. – The store is open tomorrow?  It should be, yes.

Another context you’ll frequently find is normalement il vient jeudi – he normally/usually/generally comes on Thursday. Alternatives are d’habitude il vient le jeudi and en général il vient le jeudi.

C’est normal and ce n’est pas normal are also common expressions. The first means “it’s only natural” while the second means “there must be something wrong”.

Merci de m’avoir aidé ! C’est normal. – Thank you for helping me. It’s only natural. Or in Australian parlance “No worries, mate!”

Il est en retard. C’est pas normal. – He’s late. Something must be wrong/that’s not like him.

Ce n’est pas normal qu’ils soient libérés de prison si tôt. – It’s not right that they’ve been let out of jail so soon.

Note the use of the subjunctive soient and not sont (not that everyone uses it!)

Sometimes you can avoid the subjunctive without ambiguity, but it’s not always possible.

Il n’est pas normal d’attendre trois semaines pour avoir un RdV chez l’ophthalmo – You shouldn’t have to wait three weeks to get an appointment with the eye specialist.

(Unfortunately in France it always seems to be the case particularly in the country. Same for gynaecologists, I might add.)

So when would we say “normal” in English and not in French ?

He got there at the normal time : Il est arrivé à l’heure habituelle if you mean he got there at the time he usually does and il est arrivé à l’heure précisée/réglementaire if you mean that he got there at the time he was supposed to.

To get back to normal is revenir à la normale and not revenir à normal.

Which makes me think of norm. It’s the norm = C’est la norme.

Norme also has the meaning of standard e.g. normes de fabrication = manufacturing standards

Ce produit n’est pas conforme aux normes françaises : This product does not comply with/conform to French standards.

Have you heard normal or normalement used in other contexts ?

And, normalement, this blog will be back to it’s usual format next week!

French language, Uncategorized

Friday’s French – déjeuner, jeûne and jeune

6 Comments
Print pagePDF pageEmail page

déjeunerBreakfast and déjeuner both have the same origin. I don’t mean their Latin root, but their meaning. Jeûne = fast and dés = stop. But déjeuner doesn’t mean breakfast, it means lunch. Breakfast is petit déjeuner.

On the days we practise intermittent fasting our déjeuner really is when we break our fast. I searched around to see why déjeuner is the midday meal in French and came across the unverified information that it is because Louis XIV didn’t get up until noon. It seems that déjeuner still means breakfast in some far-flung corners of rural France. That, too, is unverified.

The expression à jeun which means while fasting is used quite a lot in French to mean not having eaten. For example, for a surgical operation or certain blood tests, you need to be à jeun. We would probably say on an empty stomach.

Funnily enough, the equivalent of letting your children go hungry is faire jeûner ses enfants. Not that you probably need to know such an expression.

Jeune, of course, has another meaning – young – but without a circumflex, and comes from the Latin jovenus while jeûne comes from jejunare meaning to be abstinent. See how important those circumflexes are!

Jeune can be used in contexts other than youth as well. I love the expression donner un coup de jeune which literally means “to give a stroke of youth” and can be used in various ways. Ils ont donné un coup de jeune à l’immeuble = they gave the building a face-lift or they freshened up the building.

La nouvelle lui a donné un coup de jeune = the news gave him a new lease of life.

And while we’re the subject of freshening up, I learnt an interesting expression from my younger brother when he came to visit once. He took himself off to the hairdresser’s with his schoolboy French and when he came back, I asked how he went.

“I just asked for a trim”, he said. “And how did you do that?” “Juste rafraîcher“, he answered. I went into hysterical laughter (that’s an older sister for you) because the only meaning I knew was to freshen up. “I found it in my phrase book”, he said indignantly, “and they understood exactly”.

I appealed to Jean Michel and was somewhat embarrassed to learn that it’s exactly the right expression! So now you can go to the hairdresser’s to get a trim in France.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...