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.