Bonne année!

Bonne année // Happy New Year

Well, this :) and Bonne santé :)

Pictures related to cats and New Year @ Shutterstock.

Il s’est déguisé en pirate pour le Carnaval

Il s’est déguisé en pirate pour le Carnaval // He was disguised as a pirate for Carnival

Once again, “French Word of the Day” to the rescue.

Nothing to add (it is perfect as is).

Pictures of carnival @ Shutterstock.

Nous faisons des crêpes pour Mardi Gras

Nous faisons des crêpes pour Mardi Gras // We make pancakes for Shrove Tuesday

There are no lessons till the second week of January, but I my "French Word of the Day" emails keep arriving.

So here is a hand lettering exercise with today's example phrase. I did it with my black Koi pen-brush, but it felt wrong - too sober. So I colored it more carnivaly in Photoshop.

Que faites-vous pendant les vacances de Noël?

Que faites-vous pendant les vacances de Noël? Le chat, par exemple, est allé à Tenerife. //
What are you doing during the Christmas holidays? The cat, for example, went to Tenerife.

There are no classes now (well, obviously), but our teacher sent us another audio file today. It is titled “Que faites-vous pendant les fêtes?” (What are you doing during the holidays?).

Well, I figure it is a perfect pretext (as if I need any) to show you the pic above.

We went to Tenerife for a few days. There, we visited a pretty university town of La Laguna (full name San Cristóbal de La Laguna). That is, its central historical part is pretty; the outskirts are most certainly not, plus it is now merged with Santa Cruz de Tenefire into one (generally unappealing) conglomerate.

But the center indeed is cute. It has many historic buildings, one of them housing the tourist information office.

This time, we saw an open wooden door which we didn’t notice before. We went in and found ourselves inside a small museum. The entrance was free and the building looks interesting enough in itself, but apart from that, upstairs there is the permanent collection of Cristino de Vera, contemporary Canarian painter I’ve never heard of. His style is very minimalist; the choice of subject matter also seems to be quite limited. One of the rooms was entirely dedicated to black and white windowsill still-lives, mostly consisting of a few (maximum three) bowls and one skull.

Mind you, I do not wish to sound disparaging — we liked it a lot.

So. The pic above is a sort of tribute, based on his Ventana, dos tazas y Teide II.

Pictures related to cats, Christmas and Tenerife @ Shutterstock.

J'aime bien cuisiner

J'aime bien cuisiner, expérimenter une nouvelle recette ou un plat exotique. // I like cooking, experimenting with a new recipe or an exotic dish.

Today, in our last lesson before the winter break, we listened to an audio about people's interests and passions and how they can express them. The following expressions came up:

J'aime bien - I like
Je m'intéresse à ... - I'm interested in....
Je suis une passionnée ... - I am passionate ...
Moi, ma passion, c'est ... - My passion is ...
Mon plus grand plaisir, c'est ... - My greatest pleasure is ...

As usual, the idea was that we listen and try to figure out exactly what was said. 
  
The very first guy in the audio liked cooking, that much was clear. Another couple of understandable phrases followed; then he said something about what he is cooking today. The last words were "c'est marocain" (it's Moroccan); that was all I caught. When it was time to discuss this bit it turned out that the majority of people didn't catch much either. So I went out on a limb and said that he was making a Tajine. Mind you, this is literally the only word I can come up with in connection with Moroccan cuisine. Imagine my surprise when I found out that it was correct. 

I rather think that whoever it was who wrote the script for the audio also didn't know much about Moroccan cuisine.

Reminds me, although in reverse, of my oh-so-long-time-ago pharmacology exam. I was not doing well at all, because of a strange stupor which overcame me (and is probably familiar to most exam-takers). The examiner, who obviously didn't want to fail me, asked the last question - "Name the most important antipsychotics". Suddenly, the fog lifted, the things went crystal clear in my head and I inhaled deeply in order to launch into my recitation. The examiner took the pause as a sign that I didn't know the answer and hurriedly offered a way out: "Name ONE antipsychotic!". And with all the pre-gathered air I happily said "Aminazine!" (it was the first on the list). He, in is turn, happily wrote "pass" in the register. Happy end all round and hurray to that.

il a débuté sa carrière

En 2017, il a débuté sa carrière dans ce blog // In 2017, he began his career in this blog

We are nearly at the end of the academic year - tomorrow is the last lesson.

We continue working with  Passé composé (a débuté in the sentence above) but you can tell that the year is almost gone by the number of people who attend. Basically, the class is almost gone also.

I really need to work on the lights. I will do it on my winter break.

Un flocon

Tu as un flocon sur le bout du nez ! // You have a snowflake on your nose!

Today’s picture is straight from my “French word of the day” email. ’Tis the season to be jolly, etc. You know. “Jolly, with mistletoe and holly and other things ending in ’olly” (Terry Pratchett, Hogfather).

We are are nearly done with our pre-Christmas exams, and Thursday is the last day of classes before the break. We have already got about a hectare-of-amazonian-forest worth of papers each to study over Christmas, which I fully intend to do, of course.

The cat, as it happens, doesn’t have a visible nose. So this is probably your only chance to find out where his nose is supposed to be.

Pictures of snowflakes @ Shutterstock.

Un homme sans poil, c’est comme un jardin sans fleur

Un homme sans poil, c’est comme un jardin sans fleur. //
A man without body hair is like a garden without flowers.

Today, let’s take another delightfully silly phrase from Duolingo. “Poil” can be much more decently translated to simply “hair”, and in fact this is the version Google Translate insists on. But, apparently, it is a “saying” and it’s not the head hair what we are talking about here.

Duolingo discussion currently have another cute example of a similar (sort of) phrase in Turkish — “A man without belly, is like a house without balcony” :)

The cat is not so very sure about validity of this statement though. I mean, flowers he likes, but that furry patch... he needs to think about it just a bit more.

Pictures related to gardens and flowers @ Shutterstock.

Aimez-vous les fleurs bleues autant que moi?

Aimez-vous les fleurs bleues autant que moi? // Do you like blue flowers as much as i do?

Today, Kirill bought me yet another Koi penbrush. It is summer-sky-bue. So I decided to make a picture with something blue in it.

So here is the cat admiring his new hydrangea plant. This one must have been growing in acidic soil to be as blue as this.

"Autant" is a  new word for me. It means "(as) much" and looks suspiciously similar to Spanish "tanto". People native in Romance languages are so lucky.

By the way, I used to be quite annoyed by the lack of distinction between "голубой" and "синий" in English. Using "ultramarine" for "синий" seems very artificial - it is too long a word for something so simple, while "azure" is too poetic for something as basic as "голубой". And another btw - I don't get what something as sombre as "indigo" is doing in the rainbow at all. It might well be imprinting, but Russian rainbow seems more logical to me.

Il mange des tonnes de sashimi

Il mange des tonnes de sashimi. Il est un chat heureux. // He eats tons of sashimi. He is a happy cat.

After finishing two pieces of homework (yes, I know, I shouldn't leave it till the very last moment) I feel like doing something simple.

So, here is a simple cat being simply happy.

Les fleurs de cerisier, cherry blossoms

J'ai envie de voyager au Japon pendant la Semain d'Or. Je veux voir les fleurs de sakura //
I want to travel to Japan during the Golden Week. I want to see the flowers of sakura

Today, an expression “avoir envie de” — “to want to do something, to feel like doing something” was introduced. We were asked to make a sentence with it, and I had an opportunity to voice my long-standing wish, in French this time: I want to go to Japan in spring, around the Golden Week time, to see the cherry blossoms. More specifically, in April, before the madness of the holiday week starts.

I wish to do hanami.

The cat has been there already, here is his selfie as a proof.

Some observations:

Since “envie” on its own is “desire”, first suggestions you get from google AI when you start your research are, predictably, to do with sex.

I originally assumed that the expression “avoir envie” meant “I envy”, which was completely logical yet incorrect. That being said, “envie” and “envy” are etymologically related. To me, it is easier to see the connection via the semantic element of “coveting”* which is present in both words.

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* As in “Thou shalt not covet”

Pictures of cherry blossom @ Shutterstock.

La neige me manque

Le froid ne me manque pas, ça c’est sûr. L'obscurité ne me manque pas. Mais la neige me manque. Esthétiquement.
// I do not miss the cold, that’s for sure. I do not miss darkness. But I miss the snow. Aesthetically.

This.

Pictures of snow @ Shutterstock.

Dormir à poings fermés

Le chat peut dormir comme une souche. Il peut dormir comme un loir. Mais il ne peut pas dormir à poings fermés. Cette situation le dérange.
// The cat can sleep like a log. He can sleep like a dormouse. But he can’t sleep like a baby. This situation bothers him.

We are going through “your daily routine" theme. One expression came up while talking about sleep — “dormir à poings fermés” — “sleep soundly”, “sleep like a baby”, but literally something like “to sleep with clenched fists". (Although it doesn’t sound very relaxed, babies really do sleep like that).

Now, the cat, due to his configuration, can’t clench his fists. He feel rater bothered by it, since he always thought himself an expert sleeper.

I used this site to look up sleep-related French idioms. “Dormir comme une marmotte”, “to sleep as a marmot” is my favorite because we have exact same expression in Russian — «дрыхнуть как сурок».

Pictures related to cats and sleep @ Shutterstock.

bavarde comme une pie

Elle est bavarde comme une pie. Peut-être que c'est parce qu'elle est une pie // She is as chatty as a magpie. Maybe it's because she is a magpie.

Today, we learned another expression which is very similar to something we'd say in Russian. Apparently, if you are a chatterbox, you are "as chatty as a magpie", "bavarde comme une pie". It corresponds very nicely to russian "трещит, как сорока" - "rattles like a magpie".

Note also the obvious connection between magpie and pie. Apparently the "Mag" bit come from a nickname for Margaret, that was used to denote a chatterer, and the "pie", predictably, from French.

Aren't languages fascinating?

La cuillère n’existe pas

Voilà, ma petite Amélie: la cuillère n’existe pas // So, my little Amelie: there is no spoon

Today we were given a text about the movie Amélie.  Our homework is to find synonyms for the adjective used to describe various characters from the movie.

The text was accompanied by a (badly photocopied) image from the poster - Amelie holding a spoon, looking extremely pleased with herself and with the world around her.

A parallel with the famous "There is no spoon" scene from the Matrix came to my mind. For some reason, I never saw it before. Of course, when I've googled it became clear that many people made the very same connection before me.

But anyway - here it is. Once she was told there is no spoon, Amelie ceased to be so very pleased.

The cat is taking a short break for this one.

Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé ici?

Beaucoup de choses peuvent se produire pendant trois cent trente-trois générations //
Many things can happen during three hundred and thirty-three generations

We started on family (a cousin of my half brother is not my sister and all that jazz).
So I thought it will be fun to build the family tree (arbre généalogique) of the cat. But I very soon understood that I need to leave a lot of lacunae in it — in fact, one very large lacuna.
333 cat generations might not be exact but the number pleases me visually.
Bastet is his 333^rd great grandmother. I am not sure if arrière (x333) is correct, but I think it conveys the meaning. Ra, the Sun god, is “The Great He-She” so (s)he is Bastet’s father and mother (Egyptians were funny that way).
In other news: my laptop started to miss almost all of the “h”s. So I am acquiring a sort of written Cockney accent ’ere.
More pictures of cats @ Shutterstock.

Le chat est allé à un musée

Le chat est allé à un musée. Il s'est ennuyé énormément. // The cat went to museum. He was very bored.

We carry on with Passé Composé (and a few other things). Reflexive verbs take "être" as an auxiliary, and aller (to go) is one of the few non-reflexive verbs that also take être. So here it is used in both phrases.

We were given a table that explains when you use être and when avoir. I really like that fact that in the avoir section there is a box which simply stated "TOUS LES AUTRES VERBES", all the other verbs.

Rather reminds me of the alien vocabulary used in "Кин-дза-дза" movie which consists of a several special words and a catch-all word "КУ" (KOO) used for everything else.

Je suis plutôt un écrivain félin

Je n'aime pas (tant) lire. Je suis plutôt un écrivain félin. // I do not like reading that much. I am more of a feline writer.

We were given a list of various stuff which we can borrow from the school library. Well, when I say given, I mean it was first shown in class and later it was sent by email. I am rather afraid to open the file, because I think there is about four thousand items in there.

Yes, I am exaggerating, but only a little.

On this occasion I am uncertain about both phrases, but what the hell. Basic phrases in any language are boring.*

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* Having said that, I immediately remembered a funny episode from my first year of English. We we meant to complete sentences with words ending in "-less", like homeless, fearless, painless, etc. One of my classmates did brilliantly. His phrase was "do not worry about the dog, he is ...". Everybody expected "harmless", or course. But the guy used "toothless" instead.

We were quite a bit more advanced in English than we are now in French though.

Dying for a cuppa

tournez à droite, tournez à gauche, tout droit, carrefour, La maison du Matcha, waka waka //
turn right, turn left, straight ahead, crossroads, The House of Matcha, waka waka

We started (slowly) on directions. Here is the cat, trying to navigate his way to La Maison de Matcha. He really really needs a good cuppa.

So do I. Today, I was specifically asked to say where was the ceiling in the sketch. My best response that the ceiling was above everything (“le plafond est au dessus de tout”) was not acceptable, I didn’t quite get why. Then we tried to figure out how to say “the lamp is hanging from the ceiling”. Well, I was trying to figure it out, I am reasonably sure our teacher knows the answer. On this particular occasion the vestiges of French which we use in Russian didn’t help me, rather the opposite, because «плафон» means lampshade in Russian, not ceiling. So we talked at cross-purposes for a bit. It seems the right answer is “la lampe est suspendue au plafond”.

One small discovery of today was that carrefour means crossroads in English. I am now wondering if the store chain «Перекресток» which I see mentioned in Russian social networks is actually Carrefour hypermarket in heavy disguise (UPD: no it isn’t).

Don’t know what Pacman is doing there. He is probably just filling the lower left corner with WAKA WAKAs.

Pictures related to cats @ Shutterstock.

Elle m’a posé un lapin

Elle m’a posé un lapin, on dirait // Looks like she stood me up

There was no class today (well, it is Sunday) but I did miss one on Thursday, so here it is.

Apparently, expression “poser un lapin” means “To stand someone up”. Literally, it means “to pose a rabbit”, “to put a rabbit”, something along these lines.

This (very useful) expression was given because we are studying spatial prepositions. They were illustrated by a rabbit posed on, under, in, behind, close, far, above, below, etc. in relation to various, mostly boxy, stuff.

Poor cat, he brought Mackintosh roses and everything.

Pictures related to roses and rabbits @ Shutterstock.

Sur la route il y a un chat

Sur la route il y a un chat. C'est le chat lutteur sumo. Il est tout seul. Devant lui, il y a un coucher de soleil. C'est beau et romantique. // On the road there is a cat. It is the sumo wrestler cat. He is alone. In front of him, there is sunset. It is beautiful and romantic.

Oops. I've just noticed a missing "y" in the first phrase. But never mind.

Today, we started on questions and how to pose them,  but we got sidetracked by the same grammatical feature that I already mentioned before. Namely, that the construction "C'est" is used to answer "who?" question, and a direct translation of  something like "He is a serious man" (Il est un homme sérieux) must not be used. So you answer "who" question with "c'est" and you can describe with "Il(elle) est +adjective" construction, i.e. "He(she) is beautiful, serious, bookish, whateverish".

Incidentally, neuter grammatical gender finally came up and it doesn't exist anymore. "C'est" is one of the remnants of it.

 I drew much busier variation of the theme originally.  One of these where you look at it and think "I should have stopped five minuted ago". Above is the second take.

 

Souvent, le chat rêve

Souvent, le chat rêve d'avoir sa propre petite île. Et parfois il ne le fait pas. // Often the cat dreams of having his own little island. And sometimes he does not.

Today, we had a whole bunch of tests, including the small monologue based on a questionnaire which I already mentioned.
I wanted to be (or seem) smart, so I included words like parfois (sometimes) and souvent (often) in mine. Unfortunately, the whole French pronunciation business went right out of my head when I needed it most (as usual, I must add). I am afraid I didn't seem quite as smart as I wished.
So I am using this picture to fix if not the pronunciation, then at least the spelling of these words in my mind.
There was a higher than normal number of sharks this year at the Fuerteventura Kite Festival. That explains the fins, I guess.
In other news, I have completely filled a small-format sketchbook bought at Flying Tiger and started drawing in a slightly bigger one from MUJI. The paper is whiter and smoother; it doesn't absorb the ink as well. I smudged the outline when trying to remove the pencil marks. I should wait longer next time.

Fuerteventura a sa lumière spéciale

Le chat aime les vacances à Fuerteventura. Fuerteventura a sa lumière spéciale. //
The cat likes vacations on Fuerteventura. Fuerteventura has its special light.

We didn’t have lessons today. So, the cat is using this occasion to nip to Fuerteventura to catch some sun and watch some kites.

Pictures of Fuerteventura and kites @ Shutterstock.

Il y a toutes sortes d'oiseaux

Il y a toutes sortes d'oiseaux sur le cap Fréhel // There are all sorts of birds on cape Fréhel

Today, we listened to a dialogue in a tourist office somewhere in Bretagne, trying to decipher it. Afterwards, a transcript of the audio was given out, and I promptly lost it, don't ask me how. 

I am pretty sure there was a phrase in it about all sorts of birds you can see on cape Fréhel.

The cat, on the other hand, always wanted to be a bat.

Is so bracing

Doesn't really need translation, does it?

 Today, we were discussing many complicated and difficult-to-resolve problems that some town in France, fortunately fictitious, has. There, they have high level of unemployment, drug use, motorway running practically through the town, working incinerator nearby and a part of town which was built in such a manner that it is cut off of all the services and doesn't have transport connections. Plus, they also have, like, two dogs per head of population, doing what dogs do in the street. Terrible, terrible place, where drug addicts (unemployed, of course), roam the streets, each dragging along a brace of dogs, inhaling fumes and car exhaust gases.

Well, I immediately remembered a variation on the the old "Skegness is so bracing" poster, where somebody put "oh shit" in place of "is so bracing" and colored the puddles brown.

So here you have my own take on that poster.

Incidentally, "It's so bracing" will be something like "C'est si fortifiant".

If the shoe fits

 Il chausse du quarante-huit // He takes shoe size 48

Today, two of my classmates had to do a monologue in front of the class, giving a description of a (supposedly unknown) person based on a questionnaire that person filled in some time ago.

One of the boxes to fill was "shoe size", pointure. The obvious way to go is to just say "her shoe size is blah", right?

But life is never as simple as all that. Quick verbal explanation of how it should be said was given, accompanied with the illegible scribbling on the board. So quick and so illegible that I had to search for it on internet. *

So, there is a verb, chausser (which could be reflexive, se chausser, but it doesn't seem to be obligatory). It means "to shoe" (self), i.e. to take shoe size X.

It can also mean buying shoes or shoeing a horse and probably a few other things.

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* - I am almost  sure it (the explanation) is also present in that ever-increasing heap of photocopies I am carrying in my backpack to each lesson, but I not in a mood for trawling through it.

Hier le chat s’est reposé. Aujourd’hui le chat se repose

Hier, le chat a reposé. Aujourd’hui, le chat repose.* //
Yesterday, the cat rested. Today, the cat is resting.

Today we briefly touched on Passé Composé, a verbal tense similar to present perfect in English, although is doesn’t always translate into it. Two auxiliary verbs can be used — avoir and être (to have and to be). To have, avoir, is used in most cases. (Counterintuitively, we started with The Other One, être, as in “hier, ils sont allé”, “yesterday they went”).

I am not sure if Passé Composé sounds natural in this little description of the cat’s daily routine. But I wanted to use it anyway.

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* UPD: a correction just arrived from Twitter (AnessNuts) — it must be “hier le chat s’est reposé , aujourd’hui le chat se repose” — i.e. it is a reflexive verb and these take être as an auxiliary. By a strange coincidence this was exactly what we talked about in class today.

Pictures related to cats and sleep @ Shutterstock.

Il neige

Il neige // It’s snowing

Just a small pic about snow and dark winter nights.

Pictures of snow @ Shutterstock.

Le chat se prépare pour Halloween

Le chat se prépare pour Halloween// The cat is getting ready for Halloween

Today in class absolutely nothing happened that was in any way related to Halloween. So I decided to remedy that with this little pic. And that's how I found that French not only has reflexive verbs (verbe pronominal ou verbe réfléchi), it also forms them the same way as Spanish (with -se). Well, at least sometimes, for third person singular. I am not sure about the first and second person.

Come to think of that, the "s'" in "peut-il s'inscrire" probably has the same origin.

So, anyway. The Cat is getting ready for Halloween. Lazy creature that he is, he can't be bothered to even cut the eye-holes properly. Now he is busy putting his signature on the back of the pumpkin (une citrouille).

True artist - however half-baked the product might be, you gotta sign it.  (c) Justin Case

le chat est japonais

Le chat est japonais. Le matcha est une boisson japonaise.// The cat is Japanese. Matcha is a japanese drink

Today, we were concentrating of toponym-derived masculine and feminine adjectives. The word "Japanese" will have slightly different endings in "she is Japanese" and "he is Japanese".

"Boisson", "drink" is feminine in French. The sumo wrestler cat is a tomcat, i.e. he takes a masculine adjective.

I still don't know if there is a neuter grammatical gender in French, but I will figure it out eventually.

Well, I figured it was a perfect moment for my favorite character to cast off his beret and baguette and show his true (japanese, dunno feminine or masculine) nature.

In other news, there are no black Koi pen-brushes in the shops. This is partially the reason for casting off the beret - I don't like coloring it is with a fineliner pen.

Un chat parisien peut-il s'inscrire à la bibliothèque de la Sorbonne s'il habite à Paris?

Un chat parisien peut-il s'inscrire à la bibliothèque de la Sorbonne s'il habite à Paris? //  Can a parisian cat join the library of Sorbonne if he lives in Paris?

Today, we had a test of "comprehension of written text". In order to prepare us for it, our teacher asked us to read the membership rules of the library of Sorbonne and choose "true" or "false" for each of seven statements.

First statement was "A student from Las Palmas Uni can join the library" The answer was (mostly*) "false", because those elitist bastards in Sorbonne ask you to be either a french student above certain year, or a professor, or a scientist, etc. Students of LPU didn't fall into any of those categories.

Second statement was: "If you live in a shared flat in Paris, you can come and join the library". Most people answered "false".  And !SUDDENLY! a huge argument ensued. The main arguments for saying "true" were, it seems "why would you deny a poor guy who shares a flat in Paris his membership? Doesn't he have a right to at least come and try, what if he does qualify?" and "but you should consider each question separately".  Set theory? Necessary and Sufficient conditions? Coherency? Never mind all that.

I do hope the idea was to make us read every text very, very carefully. But by the end of the discussion the answer to a simple yes/no question like "Is your name Tutankhamun?" could as well be "A Suffusion of Yellow".

(Very confused) sumo wrestler cat wishes to get a library card. Can he please? He brought a lot of papers, and he even has a baguette to prove his residence. He is wearing a beret, for God's sake. What else can you possibly want of a cat? It doesn't say anywhere cats can't join.

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* - mostly, because there exist a small matter of laissez-passer temporaire (temporary pass) which can be obtained under certain circumstances. But let's not get (even more) confused.

Fuseau horaire

Fuseau horaire // Time zone

Today, much to my chagrin, I have discovered that not only I confuse six and seven when I need to write them down, but I confuse place names in the same manner. Well, maybe not all place names, but still, it was embarrassing.

I came into the classroom a bit late, and the teacher was about to start playing an audio in which two people were talking on a plane. Knowing full well that he will ask us to repeat all the details of the conversation, I listened carefully while pulling my pen and a notebook out of the backpack and started taking notes as soon as I was ready. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds between me hearing “Hong Kong” being mentioned and writing down ... TADA! ... Thailand.

And I was absolutely, one hundred percent sure what I wrote was correct, which made it especially amusing for my classmates and the teacher.

And then came the discussion about time zones and time difference between Paris and Thailand and I discovered that I wildly overestimate it. It is only six hours it seems; I was sure, don’t ask me why, that it was around twelve.

Well, anyhow. Another day, another discovery.

PS: And the Parisian cat (Le chat parisien) looks like he just broke out of a prison.

Pictures related to cats @ Shutterstock.

La femme boit avant le cheval

pour la femme, pour le cheval // for the woman, for the horse

This time, an illustration for another delightfully silly (and horsey) phrase from Duolingo : "La femme boit avant le cheval" - "The woman drinks before the horse".

I don't know who is thinking up these phrases, but I suspect they occasionally get bored and introduce something nonsensical just to amuse themselves. 

Kind of reminds me of an old student joke : "А электрод я взял деревянный, потому что этот диплом все равно никто читать не будет." - "I used a wooden electrode since no-one gonna read this thesis anyway". I don't know how international it is, maybe it is a part of the students' lore everywhere.

mon chat, ma souris, mes animaux

mon chat, ma souris, mes animaux // my cat, my mouse, my animals

To demonstrate the possessive adjectives, I wanted to draw one male and one female cat. Duolingo mentions female cats (chatte) in many lessons. However, when I used google translate to make sure I spell everything correctly, I discovered that it refuses to use the word "chatte" point-blank, insisting on using "chat" (which is a male cat) with qualifiers. Like, for example:"we have a tomcat, female" (huh?).

A little search brought up the answer - "chatte", although formally correct,  has transcended its original (at least I think it is original) meaning and now is firmly associated with female genitalia. I.e. more or less the same story as with "Pussy".

Well, Duolingo has its faults I guess. Good thing I've checked though.

I quickly changed a female cat to a mouse (f).  Now everything is in order and unambiguous, I hope. I don't like how the mouse turned out though.

He works in a lab

Il travaille dans un laboratoire. Il est chimiste // He works in a lab. He is a chemist

We carry on with the professions, as you can plainly see from the pic. We also had a long explanation about possessive adjectives in French. To be honest, I didn’t get what was the problem. It might well be some specific difficulty that Spanish speakers tend to have. Or I might have missed the point completely. I’ll report next week, when the lessons and pictures resume.

The cat doesn’t like it the lab either, though maybe not so much as in the eggplant jungle. Nobody knows why did he get there, but that’s cats for you.

And hooray for me — another week done (another Koi pen brush for me!)

meterse en berenjenales

Today, I'd like to take a breather from French and talk about a funny expression our teacher used. It was in my french class, so it fits here, sort of.

We have only been doing french for a month, so we can't handle any complex concepts. I did have a go at one though; when my teacher finally understood what I was trying to say he said "Te metes en berenjenales". The meaning was immediately apparent from the context - "you are getting yourself into trouble", but I thought the expression he used was funny. Literally it means "you are getting into eggplant patches".  

Explanation, as I later found, is as follows - eggplants' stems have spines, so if you somehow get yourself into an eggplant patch it will be difficult to get out. 

First I couldn't believe that there is such a specialized word as "berenjenal" (eggplant patch), so it made me imagine a sort of jungle of eggplants. Alas, the word does exist, but I still prefer to think of it as an eggplant jungle.


And here you have it. Sumo wrestler cat has gotten himself into an eggplant forest; he doesn't like it at all, I am afraid.

une chanteuse camerounaise

C'est une chanteuse camerounaise. Elle étudie à Paris et elle chante en anglais.// She is a Cameroonian singer. She studies in Paris and she sings in English.

 

Today we were doing the professions. It took our teacher a goodish while to explain the difference between C'est une(un)... and Elle/il est ...  and why the indefinite article is used in the first construction and not in the other.

Interestingly (unless I am mistaken), it would be easier for him if everybody knew Russian. First construction is a direct analog of  "Это одна (или некая) певица" and the second "Она певица".

dans la rue

dans la rue, passant (m), trottoir (m) // in the street, passerby, pavement. поребрик as a bonus track

Today we watched a short video where a young women with a clipboard was stopping passersby to talk to them about their likes and dislikes. Out of three persons she asked two refused to speak to her, and none of those two smiled at any point. Though I know it's just a silly "basic french" video,  I think it sort of contributes to the "arrogant french" stereotype. The stereotype that doesn't agree with the impressions I got during my (alas, very short) visits to France. 

(Sumo wrestler cat would have had much easier experience being an interviewer. After all, nobody can be more arrogant than a cat)

un couple d'éléphants

un couple d'éléphants heureux // a couple of happy elephants

today nothing inspired me during the lesson, so I had to go to Duolingo again.
and here we are - a couple of elephants.

they turned out to be happy elephants :)

Anniversaire

c’est mon anniversaire aujourd’hui // it’s my birthday today

Once I’ve finished drawing a туева хуча (pardon my Russian, it means, er... an awful lot) of candles, and started adding flames I automatically counted them and SUDDENLY! realized that this awful lot was not nearly enough to represent my actual age. Jeez.

Aaanyway... Not sure why the sumo wrestler cat from the previous post crawled into the pic, but here he is.

I promised myself a little prezzie from stationery shop for every week I manage to make as many posts as we had classes. I am looking forward to another Koi pen-brush, they are great.

Pictures related to birthdays, cakes, candles and things @ Shutterstock.

les chats

les chats sont nombreux / cats are numerous

Last Christmas we bought a white matte bauble with an idea to cover it with some sort of imperfectly repeating pattern. I don't think we made it, but "multitude of cats" was one of the possibilities we considered. So as not to let it go to waste - here it is.

Can you spot a sumo wrestler (lutteur de sumo)?

Le cheval a huit ans

Le cheval a huit ans / The horse is eight years old

This time the phrase comes from Duolingo site. I thought it was rather adorable and lends itself well to a little drawing.

Judging by the discussion under the phrase, native English speakers find it difficult to accept that age construction can contain verb “to have” (“avoir” in French, “a” in third person singular) and not the equivalent of “to be”. Fortunately I have already passed though this stage with Spanish. Spaniards also “have” their years, not “are” them, if I may say so.

Come to think of it, the Russian construction “Тебе сколько лет?” — “Мне 50”, implies by the grammatical cases that somebody went and gave the years to the speaker. I.e., the question can be interpreted as “How many years (were given to) you?” and the answer “I (was given) 50”. If so, Russians also “have” their years.

S’il vous plaît

silver plate / s’il vous plaît / please

I always assumed that the use of “silver plate” in Nanny Ogg’s “fake foreign” was Terry Pratchett’s invention. I was quite surprised to find it listed as one of “American fighting words and phrases”. In the same capacity of course — as a way to remember how to say “please”, “s’il vous plaît”, in French. Maybe it is more widely used than I thought.

While we are on the subject, did you know that “Yellow blue vase” sounds like a very polite and formal (and not very well pronounced) “I love you” in Russian? If you didn’t, let it be your daily bit of useless knowledge.

Continuing with free associations: in a Russian folk tale there is an episode where a silver plate (saucer, to be more precise) and an apple were used for divination. This explains the weird writing on the sketch.

I am not sure whether all the above will help me to remember the spelling of s’il vous plaît, but silver plate is now etched in my memory.

Numbers

vingt, dix, quatre-vingt, quatre-vingt dix / twenty, ten, eighty, ninety

I must admit that numbers are not my strongest point in any language. That is, while being perfectly happy operating with figures, I have certain difficulty in writing numbers down as words. That applies to both cardinal and ordinal numbers, and my troubles start already in Russian. I am happy to write 1916 but ask me to write it as words and that will definitely give me a pause (is it “тысяча” or “одна тысяча”, “девятсот” or “девятьсот”?). I will figure it out eventually, of course, but the pause will be there.

English and Spanish numbers both come with their own sets of pauses to bestow on me.

Now, we only just started with numbers, but I must say it already looks like French takes the macaron biscuit. I mean, eighty is “quatre-vingts”, which is “four (by) twenty” and ninety — “quatre vingt dix”, i.e. “four (by) twenty (plus) ten”.

I mean, wha’?

In other news, our French class keeps growing, so much so that I found “my” corner place in the second (and last) row occupied when I entered the class today. So I had to sit in the first row. That, in turn, made further sketching of my classmates’ ears impossible. Maybe I should come earlier tomorrow, sit in my usual spot and glare at anybody who dares to approach.

Food

formule de jour /daily special

We spoke about food today (and many other things). To me, “formule de jour”, “formula of the day” is reminiscent of an alchemy labs with a tangle of glass vessels and crucibles all joined by transparent tubes with green liquid running through them.

While meaning simply “daily special”.

Beautiful language. Bit crazy though.

Trois chats mignons

trois chats mignons / three cute cats