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This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Lower Intermediate Season 1 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
8 Responses to “Lower Intermediate Lesson #15 - I See London…I See France…I See Everyone’s Underpants!”
Friday at 6:30 pm
What other strange French custom do you know about?
Saturday at 3:53 am
I was taking the train back from Brest to Paris. There were some young Frenchmen on the train. One young man who might have been a sailor seemed to enjoy kissing a woman on the train. It is possible they did not know each other. I imagine their dialogue went something like this… (Please help me translate it):
Madame, I have just finished serving our country. How about a kiss to show your gratitude?
What do you think a young Frenchman would actually say? Is it possible a guy would do this just to kiss women?
What do you call an “opening line” — something to say to start talking to a woman you don’t know?
Sunday at 1:09 am
Hey Careyxxx
What a scene to be a witness of! I enjoy watching streets scenes and imagining people thoughts! Sometimes My hubby and I pick up on the same things as a little kid enjoying his ice cream with a BIG smile on his face!
Your imagination is quite wild ! Let’s see the translation of the lines you came up with:
Madame, je viens juste de terminer une mission au service de notre pays. Pourquoi ne pas m’embrasser oour me montrer votre appréciation?
Sincerely I don’t think that would be a good line to charm a woman. Generally speaking patriotism lines or gestures aren’t very popular except maybe for some extremists of course. It seems to me that we become more patriotic during soccer games!
An opening line or pick up line would be …. I’m drawing a blank Hmmm maybe
“Une phrase pour séduire / flirter”
but it doesn’t work as well as the English one. Help anyone?
Here are some you can check a bit nmore poetic:
- Est-ce que ton père a été un voleur ? Parce qu’il a volé les étoiles du ciel pour les mettre dans tes yeux.
(Was your father a thief? Because he stole the stars from the sky to put them in your eyes)
- La seule chose que tes yeux ne me disent pas, c’est ton nom.
(The only thing your eyes don’t tell me is your name)
What line would you use with a man or woman you don’t know?
Sunday at 4:31 am
I taught Japanese middle school girls English in Taiwan. They didn’t want to study English. They tried teaching me the meaning of “chi kan”. They used an example to explain the definition: a bad boy puts a mirror on his sneakers and looks up the skirts of girls. I don’t know how to say that word in English, but it is similar to this lesson about men who use puffers to blow women’s skirts up to look at their underwear.
1. What do you call men like that?
2. As this lesson advises, women who don’t want men to see their underwear should wear pants, but I think there are some women who want to show everybody their underwear. Can you translate the following sentences into French?
She intentionally wears a dress during the masqarade des soufflaculs. She doesn’t mind people looking at her underwear. She wants to give everyone a “free show”.
Saturday at 3:09 am
I’m still trying to think of how to say “free show” in French. I remember coming across an expression written on a sign in France — “Entrez libre”. I think “Matez libre” would come close. It is interesting because one would think of “gratuit” when thinking of the word “free”, as one line in the movie “Devoirs de vacances” goes: “Sue Ellen would let you see hers for a quarter.”
I am also wondering how to say “intentionally”. For some reason I keep thinking of the word “express”.
Tuesday at 3:05 am
Bonjour!
Any show, performance or place with an entry fee, might be free of cover charge on some days. In that case you’ll see the sign “Entrée libre” meaning “No cover charge”.
Another phrase you might encounter for shows could be “spectacle gratuit”.
For the word “intentionally” you could use “intentionnellement” or “exprès”
French “English”
J’ai fait ce compliment intentionnellement. “I intentionally made this compliment.”
J’ai fait ce compliment exprès. “I made this compliment on purpose.”
Tuesday at 11:49 am
In this lesson, you defined “soufflet” as “below, swipe.” I think you meant to say, “bellow” rather than the preposition “below” or “au dessous de.” Also, a question: when you formulate the vocabulary lists, why do you leave out the articles? I always find it much easier to learn and remember the gender of a noun when I always include the article while learning it. When I do this, it just never sounds right if I become confused and use the wrong article. Thanks for putting together such an original program.
Wednesday at 12:26 am
Hi Catherine,
Vous avez raison, you’re right, the noun “un soufflet” is “bellows” in English. It is now properly spelled in the Learning Center.
As for the articles, I couldn’t agree more! Our new lessons (for now, Absolute Beginners, and, soon to come, a new Intermediate series) have the articles included in the vocabulary list. Learning a noun along with its article is essential.
Merci encore pour vos commentaires, please comment more and more!
Virginie
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