Books, articles and poetry by Julia Bloch Frey
Store names often combine two French obsessions: shopping and jeux de mots.
Walking to dîner with Albert and Maria, we passed their favorite librairie (bookstore, not library): Mona Lisait (Mona was reading). Great calembour (pun)! We don’t do that much in the United States. In …
Just for fun, this “Amuse-Bouche” is in French, about the perils of learning English!
Les Français adorent s’amuser des gaffes que font d’ignorants Américains (et surtout Américaines), venus dans leur pays pour apprendre le français. Ils …
I learned that song in Girl Scouts. The reality is somewhat different.…
You know how all of France vacations at the beach in August? Not Auguste (my husband). We go to the mountains—hors saison (off-season). As a germanopratine (n., …
“C’est quoi, un yau ?”
“C’est quoi un yau ?” asks Auguste, reading his mél (slang for email, officially known as courriel, from Canadian French, a contraction of courrier éléctronique). Auguste quotes the perplexing sentence: “Comment vas-tu, yau de poêle?” It’s not in the …
Warning. You can wish someone Joyeux Noël, Joyeuse Saint-Valentin, or Joyeuses Pâques,
but you don’t say “Happy Bastille Day” …
Or Bastille Day at all. In France, the national holiday is called …
Is there une mystérieuse substance that makes Parisians exceptional beings?
Reading Figaro Madame, I saw une pub (pronounced “pewb”, from publicité, advertisement, as distinct from un pub, pronounced “pub”, an English bar) selling “l’esprit parisien”. Quoi ? Depending on context, l’esprit parisien — the essence of Paris — …
Cool expressions revolve faster than une porte à tambour (revolving door).
Does everybody read the newspaper with a yellow marker, or just me? At Sunday lunch, I regularly ask Nicole’s family to solve my word mysteries. But this …
Bilingual love can be murky …
Chantal, une ado (adolescent) who speaks excellent English with virtually no accent, is just back from two weeks as a paying guest with an English family who promised une immersion totale in English living. …
Il y a grève dans le RER, et manif chez Chanel
Il y a grève (there’s a strike). Encore ! (Again!) C’est la énième fois ! (It’s the nth time! ) In Marseille, garbage hasn’t been picked up for days; in …
Un chiffre can also be a secret code.
Last night we spent la fête de Saint-Sylvestre (New Year’s Eve) with Michel in the country, and today, le jour de l’an (New Year’s Day), on a fait la grasse matinée (literally, everyone made a fat …