La Mer

I have just heard a few words of the English version of 'La Mer' by Charles Trenet. It was in the background for an article on sea farming on the programme Country Tracks. I know the song because it is sung a lot in English. Occasionally you hear it in French and in French it reminds me of when I was on an Open University summer school. On Wednesday afternoon we were free to do what we wished and many of us went to Arromanches. When we saw the sea a fellow student broke into song and I was able to join him.

There is no chorus so if you wanted to take some part in the karaoke version then it is probably a good idea to try to learn the first verse.

La mer qu'on voit danser
Le long des golfes clairs
A des reflets d'argent
La mer
Des reflets changeants
Sous la pluie

Take a look at YouTube et chantez tous ensemble.

A bientôt

Un lèche-bottes

You may know that une botte is a boot but did you know a lèche-bottes is a servile flatterer? Well these are not words that I commonly hear in English but I have heard of sycophants and crawlers and even boot lickers but servile flattery is quite rare in my experience. So lèche-bottes is fairly easy to translate.

If you know that a PDG is the president directeur general which means you are talking about le patron, then you are in a position to understand “c’est un lèche-bottes du PDG”.

A bientôt

Thanks to Sky

I have good news for my own motivation to learn French. I am now listening to Sky TV which was installed today. We have the sports channel and I can now watch TV5. I phoned someone in Glasgow who couldn't tell me which channels were French, for that matter neither could the person who sold Sky to us, but I know I have TV5 at least.

I do have other things to do like work and walking the dog and watching The Ashes but I can now listen to some French. I have just heard the words "merci à tous" so merci à tous at Sky.

A bientôt

Théâtre Sans Frontières

A couple of weeks ago I received an advert of Théâtre Sans Frontières. This is a theatre company that tours the country. I have seen them a couple of times and they are merveilleux. So I had no hesitation in getting tickets for their show “Les Trois Mousquetaires”. If you hear the words “tous pour un et un pour tous” then you don’t need much of a memory of French to know what this means. Not only do you get great entertainment but you also get some French revision.

If you get the chance then do go and see them. Take a look at their website at www.tsf.org.uk

A bientôt

Your favourite French song

There is an advert on TV at the moment for the Halifax and the background music sounds like a steel string acoustic guitar. The reason why I am mentioning it on a French blog is because the chord sequence is exactly the same as Francis Cabrel's song 'elle écoute pousser les fleurs'. If you go on YouTube and search the title of this song then you can link the Halifax with Francis Cabrel yourself. I can't help singing the chorus when the advert comes on.

The reason why I know about Cabrel and in particular this song, is that I went to a French Circle and there was a 'Desert Island Discs' evening. Members of the circle brought in their favourite piece of French music and this was played.

When you get the opportunity ask people about their favourite French singers or their favourite French song. It may become your favourite.

A bientôt

High Society 2

No it's not a sequel but I went for a second time to a performance of High Society because I was a volunteer. I sold raffle tickets and when everyone sat down I could sit down too and enjoy the performance. So I can now tell you more about the French connections. The first and main connection is that in America of the 1950s French is seen as the language to speak if you want to be part of high society. There are lines in the musical like tu veux jouer avec moi and c'est vrai absolument. There is a question quelle chanson? The answer is tu sais bien. In the song 'I love Paris' there is some French. I couldn't find it on the internet yesterday but I heard a last line something like parce que mon âme est là.

There were two other French references that I noticed. One character had been thinking and there was a comment about Rodin's thinker Le Penseur along with a Bruce forsyth type gesture. Finally one character is surprised and says 'my...' the next word starts as a rhyme with class but changes to eye. I cannot remember ever hearing the expression 'my eye' used in context as an expression of surprise and disbelief. The French use this expression in exactly the same way. They say mon oeil but they also pull the skin down below one of their eyes with their index finger. In fact they don't need to say anything as the gesture is enough.

A bientôt

High Society

I saw High Society this evening (24th June) so I shall now write about the French connections. The person who played the journalist is called Mike and in the film the actor was Frank Sinatra. The character of Mike came from South Bend and in South Bend is Notre Dame University. OK this is a pretty tenuous link to a French blog and if you heard an American say Notre Dame then I don't think any French person would understand what they were saying. They pronounce it Dame as in Daimler as opposed to the French version Dame as in dam - rhymes with jam and m'am.

Perhaps the link you were thinking of is the song 'I love Paris'. When I was on a boat trip on the Seine I heard this music in the background. So the French know the music at least. I heard some French lyrics and I would love to write them down for you but I can't find them anywhere on the internet. If anyone knows these lines, there are only two or three, then please let me know. In the meantime I am going again tonight as a volunteer 'fire officer' (I think that is the correct title for someone who stands around in a shirt and tie) so I will try to jot down the lyrics.

A bientôt