French Weekly, Week 5

Note: many of these words have further meanings; these are just the meanings of them that I learned at the time!

Dandiner = To waddle

Dégringoler = To tumble down, to fall from a great height (dégringolade = fall, tumble)

Étreindre = to embrace in your arms , to hug, to clasp (in some scenarios, can also mean “to choke” as in an oppressive feeling)

Épopée = epic poem, saga

Ébloui = dazzled (eblouir = to dazzle)

Se givrer =  to ice over (givre = frost, givrer = to frost, to ice over)

Gâché = scarred (gâcher = to waste, to botch, to ruin)

Esquiver = to dodge, to evade, to shirk

Cible = target, objective

Comble = attic/space under the roof, limit, crowning moment (this is a complicated word, with many further nuances and meanings!)

Échafaudage = scaffolding

Grignoter = to snack, to nibble (grignotage = snacks, whittling away, erosion)

Louange = praise, word of praise

Lionceaux =lion cub

I am always hearing people talk about réseaux. <<Réseau routier>>, <<réseau de connaissances>>, <<activer son réseau>>…  Réseau just means network. But I find it interesting how often this word comes up in such a wide variety of contexts.

Faire une queue de poisson: I saw this expression on a poster, but I haven’t been able to find a good explanation for what it means yet (help?). Everything I’ve read so far says that faire une queue de poisson means passing someone on the road and cutting back in front of their car too soon, but this definitely doesn’t fit the context of the library poster. Whereas a similar expression, finir en queue de poisson, means something that finishes suddenly, in a disappointing manner, without giving the expected results (short article describing both expressions, albeit in French; and this one).

Many of the words this week are from my first French poetry class — that’s right, I’m going to be writing poetry in French. A tout à l’heure!

French Weekly, Week 4

Note: many of these words have further meanings; these are just the meanings of them that I learned at the time!

Raccommodage = mending (can also be verbified: raccommodager = to mend)

Reliure = book cover, binding
Aire de jeu = playground
Grimoire= book of magic spells

A word I constantly want to use is “block,” as in, “walk two blocks then turn left”. But the French don’t really have a simple word for this. The closest compromises I’ve found are “paté de maisons,” or saying “it’s two roads from here”.

Engineering Vocabulary:
Béton = concrete
Poutre = beam
Chargé = loaded
Tassement = settlement
Contrainte = stress (ex: la contrainte normale = normal stress)
Traction = tension
Cisaillement = shearing

French Weekly, Week 3

Note: many of these words have further meanings; these are just the meanings of them that I learned at the time!

l’abreuvoir = drinking trough (like for horses)

ardoise = slate (ex: the building material)

donjon = keep of a castle

meneau = structural element that divides bays of a window or door (ex: fenêtre à meneau)

calcaire = limestone

la frime = showing off; frimeur = show-off

être pompette = to be tipsy (familier)

shlag/schlag/schlague = n. a drunkard, a vagrant, a buffoon; adj. dirty, drunk, unkempt (argot)

tourniquet = turnstile

le vol à la tire = pickpocketing

MST = Maladie Sexuellement Transmissible = Sexually Transmitted Disease = STD

grievois = bawdy, salacious

vieillot = old, old-fashioned

French Weekly, Week 2

Note: many of these words have further meanings; these are just the meanings of them that I learned at the time!

colocataire = flatmate, roommate

roue d’engrenage = gear wheel

chipoter = to nitpick

bosser = to work, to slog (familier)

trafiquer = to tamper with, to ameliorate… in a negative or dishonest sense (ex: turning the mileage back on a car)

effaroucher = to alarm, to frighten; farouche = timid, mistrustful

chatouiller = to tickle

grouillant = swarming, seething (ex: des insectes grouillantes)

avoir du cran = to have courage/be courageous

fonceur = someone who is dynamic, a go-getter

velléitaire = indecisive (an important word for me!)

fignoler = to perfect

Expressions:

trouver un Jules = to find a boyfriend (Jules being slang for boyfriend; the only reasoning for this I could find is that it is just a common French name)

ressembler à monsieur Tout-le-monde = literally « look like Mr. Everyman » but it is an expression for saying that someone isn’t original

un caractère de cochon = literally “a pig’s character,” but it actually means that your personality is bad or dirty (ex: someone who’s never satisfied with anything…)

I’ve been saying « ça fait du sens » for the last two weeks, and I was only just corrected for the first time on Saturday night. Apparently mu host mother kept intending to correct me, but it was just so darn cute that she forgot to until now. The proper way to say this is « ça a du sens » or « ça fait sens » (meaning “that makes sense!”)

Also, I finally learned when you use second and when you use deuxième (which are both ways of saying “second”): you can only use second when there’s 2 things, while when you use deuxième there could then be a troisième or quatrième… That’s why you can say both « la seconde Guerre Mondiale » and « la deuxième Guerre Mondiale » (“World War II”), because there are exactly two.

Orientation

At this point, I have been through too many Orientations to count (not really). You’d think it might have lost a little bit of its lustre by now, but I still think every day of Orientation is the most exciting thing. Whereas over the weekend I could barely drag myself out of bed, these past three days I have practically bounded out the door. I showed up 15 minutes early on the first day, although those of you who know me will probably find that difficult to believe.

This orientation experience, unlike the previous three, is actually a three-week long process composed mostly of classes. Yes, there are social activities and yes, there are city explorations and yes, there are lots of new friends. But this is an academic orientation above all. I have 10 hours of class on the methodology of the French University, which is both an incredibly fascinating cultural introduction to the French and probably the most useful orientation lecture I’ve ever had. I also have 16 hours of French language instruction and 4 hours of French conversation workshop. And in between all of this, I have classes on how to select courses, immigration information sessions, university tours, and course selection meetings.

As for the food…. Yesterday, I discovered a new crêpe and panini stand with some other CUPA students. I bought a soft ham, tomato, and mozzarella baguette panini and a bunch of us ate together while wandering the Jardin de Luxembourg.

Then in the afternoon I purchased my first French crêpe from a stand on Boulevard du Montparnasse and ate it while wandering the sunny street. Buttery, sugary, and crisped to perfection.

Today wasn’t quite as pleasant outdoors; it was drizzling and so me and two other girls ended up in an indoor crêpe restaurant, ordering the prix fixe (fixed price) menu. Luckily I was very hungry, because it was a lot of food! The meal started off with a savory galette (pictured below) which was so huge I could barely finish it despite my hunger, and was followed by a sweet dark chocolate crêpe.

Even more impressive, the three of us spoke completely in French for the entire hour that it took us to eat! Yes, we’re all pretty much fluent in the language, but I still consider it an accomplishment. While meeting completely new people, it is all too easy to morph back into using English outside the CUPA offices because we don’t have the rapidity of language necessary to get to know each other as quickly as we would like. When you know that you could express yourself better in a different language and be understood better, it’s very difficult to have the willpower to keep speaking French.

French Weekly, Week 1

Note: many of these words have further meanings; these are just the meanings of them that I learned at the time!

La décalage horaire = Jetlag

Fêlé = 1. cracked (literal, as in a wine glass) 2. crazy/nuts (colloquial, as in ‘cracked in the head’)

Mouliner = 1. To turn or grind (literal, as in a windmill) 2. To think about things repetitively (colloquial, negative connotation)

Collants = tights, hose

Toboggan = playground slide

Canicule = heatwave, very hot weather

Fichu = shot, kaput, ruined (colloquial)

Carrière = 1. career, profession 2. a quarry (ex: there are carrières running underneath some of the houses in Malakoff, where the stone used to build those houses was mined from.)

Dépit = chagrin, bitter disappointment; but En dépit de = despite

SDF = Sans Domicile Fixe = homeless

Radoter = repeating things you already said, as if you’d forgotten you said them already

Borne d’incendie = fire hydrant