Brazil always goes first in the annual debate at the General Assembly of the United Nations. This is because no-one else wants to start. Brazil volunteered in 1950 to break the deadlock and has kept the job ever since. That’s how diplomacy works. As host, the President of the United States is always the first […]
Sa mémoire vivra. Son exemple demeurera.
This month France was moved by the death of Arnaud Beltrame, a police officer who was killed after substituting himself for a hostage in a terror attack in the south of France.
Passé not so simple
To describe actions in the past, French is similar to English, but it’s also significantly different. To get on top, a little bit of theory can help.
Vous tirez et vous relachez
Learning the nasal vowels
Que les hommes et les femmes soient (beaux) belles!
Is the French language sexist? That’s the claim of 314 education professionals, who have have launched a petition calling for changes to grammatical rules which they say echo the prejudices of a patriarchal society.
I speak two languages perfectly. Pity the other one’s not French.
Do you speak interlanguage?
La soupe à la grimace
Clearly articulated vowel sounds are an essential part of good French pronunciation.
Zeus adorait pianoter sur son ordinateur
Masculine or feminine? Getting the gender of nouns right is a key to fluency in French.
Pénélopegate (ou l’affaire Fillon)
It’s election year in France and the news is dominated by claims Republican candidate François Fillon spent almost a million euros of state money to pay his wife for an allegedly fictitious job as his assistant.