Story Time: Ourson

I read lots of books in French, probably more than I do in English at the moment.  I only mean those books for French learners, that often have an English translation alongside.  I'll try to show you them if I can.
But today I just wanted to show you the cutest thing.  It is such a thrill to be able to read it, look:

First of all, why is this significant?  It's because our surname is Orson.  When John was at school and did heraldry as a project, the teacher looked up his surname and the nearest she could come up with in Latin was Ourson, meaning 'bear'.  His symbol was 'a bear rampant,' like this



What I love as well is that we called Tessa 'Tessa Bear' so she'd have been Tessa Ourson, which is our surname, so we were more right than we realised!
More of the book, which is very sweet, quirky and funny:

The illustrations are lovely and there are lots of little details for people to notice. 

This page says, 'Deux grands yeux jaunes le fixent.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est?" demande Chat.
"C'est mon crayon magique," répond Ourson.
“Alors dessine-moi quelque chose à manger,“ dit Chat.

I think there are some others in the series,, so I'll have to have a look.
À bientôt
Jane xx

A New Beginning

Hello all!

As of today I've decided to start writing little snippets every day in French, but there's so much of it I decided to backdate it into February.  It's going to be a mix up of bits about my life, books I read, books I'm working through and vocabulary and phrases I really want to remember.


This is going to be quite hard work because I have to check what I want to say on Google Translate, then type it onto the most awesome programme I've just found called http://french.typeit.org/ where I can type what I want and put the accents in, then I can cut it and paste it directly onto here.  The plan is to write more and more in French.  If you've stumbled across this site because you speak French, please don't hesitate to leave a comment so I can correct what I've said.  I'll be checking back regularly though, so I can keep things updated, so even if you've read a post once before, later on it may be different as my vocabulary and understanding improves.Thanks for looking in today.  If you like what you've seen you can leave a comment, email me at jane.orson@btinternet.com or come and find me on facebook.Thanks for lookingJane xx

Que and qui ... and then some!

Bonjour!
Ne vous en faites pas!
I found this really difficult at first, and I teach English as a foreign language, so I understood the grammar.

Let me explain.  I'm talking about (cue posh word...) Relative Pronouns.  But if I'd put that as the title of today's post you'd have switched off tout de suite, wouldn't you? 

I'm going to talk about the relative pronouns

qui : who, which, that (subject)  and
que: whom, which, that (object)

Because sometimes it's the little words that are the most important!

Here we are:

L'automobiliste qui parle français.
The motorist who speaks french.

La voiture qui est en panne.
The car which has broken down.

But:

Le camion que vous avez réparé.
The lorry which you repaired.

I'm just going to give you a simple rule, in case you struggle with things like who is the subject and who is the object.

If, in English the verb comes immediately after 'who', 'which' or 'that' then use qui.
But if, again in English, not the french sentence yet, there is another word between 'who', 'which', 'that' and the verb (the doing word) then use que.
The above rule works every time and is really simple once you get used to it.

However, I have a treat for you (and me!) today, as I've found the most awesome video that explains it much better than I can.  As you watch it, with the examples he gives, check back with the rule above and all will (hopefully!) become clear.

Here's the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYZZR3S7sZw&list=PL2AKGdFj6mUekxfeHnTGhXYX3ibYH6H4n

Ammusez-vous!


Thanks for dropping in today.
More soon, I'm sure
Jane xx

Useful Phrases: s'ammuser

Hello all!
I've really struggled to grasp this verb and I don't know why.  It isn't just because it's a reflexive verb either, I just couldn't find any examples of how to use it in a sentence and that's when I struggle.  It turned out it was sitting in my verb tables book all the time!

Par exemple:

Je m'amuse beaucoup au bord de la mer.     (So we can see straight away that it's a reflexive verb).
I enjoyed myself very much at the seaside.

Nous nous amusons.
We enjoy ourselves.

Elle ne c'est pas amusée
She hasn't enjoyed herself.

Les gens s'amusent beaucoup.

Je me suis bien amuse
  I enjoyed myself.                                       Just going to remind myself that reflexive
                                                                     verbs take être in the perfect tense.

Hope these examples have been useful to you.
Jane xx

Useful phrases: en train de

Bonjour!

Voici des examples:

Elle est à ce monsieur là-bas qui est en train d’essayer un costume.
It belongs to the man over there who is in the middle of trying on a suit.




Je suis en train de coller quelques timbres dans mon album.
I was in the middle of sticking some stamps in my album.
But that's a bit OTT in English, isn't it? 
So we would say, "I was just sticking some stamps in my album."

Elle est tourjours en train de de courir, de sauter et de parler.

Laurent était en train de boire une tasse de café quand...

Hope that's useful for you today.  Leave a comment and let me know.
Back soon
Jane xx