Categories
France language

Je Parle Le Français

Et, plus important, je comprends le français

Okay, you don’t read French. I get it. But I’m posting this because, and no one is more surprised than I am, I do! And so, in case you’re thinking of learning some French, I’m sharing how I pulled it off.

After my final new lesson in Duolingo, I can report that I studied French on Duolingo for 1524 days. That’s a bit over four years, but that isn’t where I started, and it doesn’t even show the days I didn’t study, not that there were a lot, but some days I just couldn’t hack it. My first exposure was a month-long visit mostly to France in 1976. I learned “Tourist French” along with how to be polite (I’ve posted about being polite in France if you’d like to know.) I knew Spanish (more or less) so it wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. Spanish and French are both based upon Latin, and they do have a lot of words in common. The difference in pronunciation can be extreme. Take bien, which means “fine” in both languages. In Spanish it sounds, reasonably enough, like “bee-ayn”, emphasis on the “ayn.” In French it sounds like “byahn” sort of, emphasis on the “ahn” and spoken as one syllable. Same word exactly. French, as it turns out, isn’t crazy about pronouncing all the letters in a given word. Here’s an excellent example of that for you French students. You know what Je ne sais pas means, right. (It means “I don’t know”.) If you say that in France, you’ll be understood, and you’ll stand out like a sore thumb. What do we (ahem) say in France? It’s sort of Zhay pah or for a more formal setting J’sais pas. Nobody ever says ne out loud. In writing, well, you’d better spell it right or the ghost of Cardinal Richlieu will haunt you. Or something.

My first lessons in French after we decided to move here were in a series of audiobooks, formerly CDs, from Paul Noble, titled (you’d never guess) Learn French with Paul Noble. Mr. Noble loves language, and he makes it easy to pick up the rudiments of a new one. He teaches a bunch of languages, and in that teaching explains what nouns, verbs, and other parts of speech really are. Want a quick example? Take nouns. If you can say “that is my (his, hers, theirs) _______________. It’s a noun. Those types of nouns your English teacher was so keen on just don’t matter, because in a sentence a noun is a noun. Verbs. If you can say I, you, he, she, it, they are _____________________ (some act or other) it’s a verb. Transitive, intransitive, who cares? A verb is a verb. He even explains pronouns, right down to why they are called “pro”. I found his teaching to be a great background in the basics of French, so that when I switched to Duolingo (where I once completed the Spanish course) it was a lot easier to get along.

Some people don’t care for Duolingo, but for me it worked wonderfully. It is free with ads, but after about a year I signed up for the pay version because I wanted to help keep it free for those who can’t afford it. Using “Super Duolingo” does give you some advantages in the games included with the app, although with enough determination you could dominate with the free version, too. Duolingo has cartoonish characters that weave in and out of the learning, and of course a green owl. I do recommend trying the app in the free version (free, for real) and if you like it, maybe buy up to unlimited hearts. (Once you see it you’ll get that.)

And of course I visited France several times since 1976. I’ve been up the Eifel tower twice, eaten the blandest Mexican food imaginable, toured the Louvre several times (Mona Lisa isn’t worth it, but the rest of the place is fantastic,) watched the world from Montmartre, been through other museums, and Notre Dame (we walked across the plaza two days before it burned.) I’ve also seen Cannes, Nice, Saint Tropez, Bordeaux, Rennes, Poitiers, some lovely castles, a bunch of cathedrals including the one in Orleans, and lots of French countryside and small towns and villages. We liked it well enough to move here, and I’m glad we did.

So if you plan to move to France, or study in France, or just to study French because you like distorting your mouth a lot 🙂 this is the story of how I came to be basically literate in French. 1524 days with a green owl? Totally worth it!

Categories
Culture Life

Holildays

France has exactly one more national holiday than we have in the US. This month is especially rife with them. Last week was Labor Day, or May Day, the one day of the year when only emergency services and such can force an employee to work. Some family owned businesses are open, but not much else, even restaurants. This week we had VE day, jour de victoire, which commemorates the end of fighting in Europe in World War Two. Today is Ascension Day. I don’t know why Ascension day, as France is stubbornly and thoroughly secular. It may have to do with the time the French state became secular, even taking over ownership of church properties. As compensation, perhaps, we continue to celebrate a number of Christian holidays, and not just Christmas. In a couple of weeks we will have Whit Monday off. I know nothing of Whit Sunday or Whit Monday, but it is a holiday.

One holiday that is very similar to one of our American ones is the Fète National, or National Holiday, which I’ve mostly heard referred to as “Bastille Day.” Oddly, it does not celebrate the storming of the Bastille on 14 July, but in fact the huge party held one year later on the Champs du Mars. The idea is to repeat that happy celebration every year on the anniversary of the first grand party. It is very similar to our Independence Day celebrations, with fireworks, parties, cookouts, and general yee-haw type celebrations. We hope to be in Paris some year for the occasion. (Not this year. Olympics? Merci, mais non!

Other holidays include Noel, Toussaint (All Saint’s Day), Armistice (November 11th), Saint Etienne (St. Stephen’s Day), Assomption, Assumption Day, Nouvel An (New Year’s Day), and in what was once known as Alsace-Lorraine, Good Friday, Easter Monday, and what our British friends would call Boxing Day. (Only there, not nationwide.) If you’re counting, that’s twelve national holidays, plus a few left overs that some areas insisted upon when they became French (again.) There are eleven national holidays in the US. (Don’t forget Juneteenth, folks.)

Except for Labor Day, you’ll find things open on most holidays, though not everything, and some things are on a reduced schedule. Some supermarkets close completely, most of the ones around here open for at least a few hours. I bought some groceries just today, in fact. Most of these holidays don’t involve any particular observances (a few do, of course) but people do a thing called faire le pont, which literally means “make the bridge.” For instance, this week Wednesday and Thursday are holidays. You have thirty days of paid leave per year, so why not take Friday, too, and then you’ll have a five-day weekend? Heck, we took a five-night vacation to Italy once. You can have quite some fine family time in Five Days, huh? A possible drawback is that, outside of Whit Monday, holidays are scheduled by the date, not the day of the week. If November 11th falls on a Sunday, there is no day off, and if you don’t like it, tough. Then, there are weeks like this one where, honestly, even places that are open are short staffed. Like I said, there are differences between French and American national holidays.

So, for all you American readers, have a good Memorial Day weekend, and remember the purpose of the holiday. (You can go ahead and cook out, but pay some respect while you’re at it.) And, while I’m at it, have a good Junteenth (why not?) and for heaven’s sake, Happy Fourth of July! (Bastille day, the fète national, is commonly known as quatorze julliet, or July Fourteenth!) That one is, as I wrote above, pretty similar to one of ours.

Categories
Culture France

Fête du travail

Our official Departmental (county) emblem. Vienne is the name.

It’s May Day in France, and all over the world (more or less). In France that also makes it Labor day, or Fête du Travail. This is the one day all year that an employer may not force anyone to work, except for hospitals and emergency workers, police, EMTs, that sort of employee. Other than those folks, everyone has the day off. (I guess if one offered employees enough cash one could go ahead and open the store, but I imagine that it would take a lot of cash.) It is a paid holiday. This year it’s on a Wednesday, so many people faire le pont (make the bridge,) take a couple more days off and have a five-day paid weekend. Next week there are two holidays, but one can force employees to work (by paying them overtime) every day but today, but there will be a lot of bridge building next week as well.

And that segues nicely into discussing the different attitudes toward work in the United States and France. In the US, many people live to work. We distrust anyone who isn’t regularly employed. Welfare moms are a common subject of scorn. We are, by reputation at least, the grasshopper in the old (French, by the way) tale of the grasshopper and the (ant, cricket, pick your lazy insect.) In France, workers are certainly not lazy. In fact, France has the most productive economy in the European Union, but workers are entitled to thirty days of paid vacation per year, in addition to paid holidays. Thirty Days?!? Yes, in fact. There are a couple of consequences of all that free time that American enterprise never seems to consider.

First, employees who feel more in control of their lives tend to be happier and more productive. Even good old Canada has a nicer work climate than the US, in spite of being frozen stiff for most of the year.

Second, French workers generally work while they are working, are expected to, and do, avoid wasting time at water coolers or break rooms. From noon to two they take lunch. In a store they will typically work from nine to six, er, eighteen hours as they track the day here. That’s a seven hour work day broken up by a two hour lunch. Seven hours? Well, yes, the law says that a work week is 35 hours long. Plenty of people work more than 35 hours per week, but they receive compensatory time off. Yes, even more vacation. And, an employee is expected to take the time. Because, as stated above, the French Work to Live. Yep, they do what they must to ensure that they can enjoy a leisurely lunch, three weeks on a Portuguese beach, some time off when their kids have a school break. Working your ass off so that you can finally retire is not something people from around here understand. Why not, they will ask, enjoy life as you live it?

Different strokes, right? I’m not saying one way is better or worse than the other. That depends on your personal outlook on life, I suppose. But it does show how different approaches to the same problem can both yield good results, which is a valuable lesson to learn in and of itself.

Categories
Culture History

Musée Gallo-Romain Perigueux

This is what remains of a 1900-year-old Roman noble’s house

Yesterday we visited the Musée Gallo-Romain in Perigueux. This is the main indoor display area as seen from the upper level gallery. The city was named Vesunna at that time, although late in the empire its name was changed into what has morphed into “Perigueux” (try Para Goo to get close). Whoever built the place was very rich. The under-floor heating was handled by slaves. (No political comments, please.) Here is a picture of the kitchen:

If you read French, the sign has a lot more information.

Of course, next to the kitchen is a small dining room:

The murals are original.

Those aren’t the only painted walls on the house:

That’s 1900-year-old paint. We should all look so good at that age, huh?

Comfort was provided by under-floor heating, which involved pots of fire beneath the floor. These pots could be moved around (by slaves, of course) if the family and guests moved to a different room. The slave owner had an excellent insurance policy. If somebody murdered the master of the house, all the slaves were killed, which provided the master with a sort of personal Pretorian Guard. I didn’t get a picture of a heating space, but if you visit, you’ll see several.

There are things outside in a courtyard, including a 2000-year-old tower that was incorporated into the town wall in the fourth century. (Prior to that there was no need for a town wall. No wonder people looked back on Rome with a sigh, I guess.) But a truly impressive storm came up and it would have been difficult to see what we were looking at due to wind and rain. But, I did get a few more photos, to wit:

A capital from a column with, I dunno, an amphora full of biscuits? Rocks? Whatever, carved into it.

An inscribed bit of stone, but from what I couldn’t say. I can read a 21st century vulgate version of Latin, but not the original. I think there’s a translation on one of the small labels.

A part of a column. I’d say “NO BULL!” but, well, you know . . .

A row of back rooms of the house. Could be bedrooms, storerooms, slave quarters, nobody knows, really. Originally the house fronted the river (Dordogne) but after numerous modifications, and especially after the city wall was built, that access was cut off. In fact, sometime in the third century somebody filled in the courtyard and raised the floor. Like all good things, this place deteriorated in the end, and was under a mess of landfill until rediscovered by canal diggers in, I think it was, 1859? Sometime around there.

A really interesting aspect of this old town and house is that the owners, and their slaves, probably still have descendants living in the area. Unlike the US, where the only ancient town I’ve been to is a village in Arizona, in Hopi, that’s even a bit older than Vessuna. That is, I’m actually related to the indigenous people of France, kind of distantly, but more closely than I am to any Native Americans. My grandfather was born in a village in Moselle, a long way from Perigueux, but still in France. And, in fact, most of the inhabitants of Vessuna were local Celts, not imports from Rome. A bit odd to contemplate for an American, but there it is.*

And that was our first brief vacation together in France. Must pick another area to explore. Hmmmm . . . .

Visit: https://www.perigueux-vesunna.fr/

*The French are mostly still shorter, like Celts, even though their country has a Germanic name.

Categories
Culture Food France

Stuff You Might Miss

A menu from the Banquet du Chasse yesterday. Lots of food.

BONJOUR!

Sorry for my extended absence. La grippe can be a harsh taskmaster. Anyway, this is about some things you may miss if you visit, or move to, France.

  • Good Mexican (Tex-Mex anyway) food. French food is undeniable fine, but the French never have come to appreciate the tang of a chili. They do have chilis, of course, but they all seem to be the mild variety. I grew up in a household like that: Mom thought that pepperoni was “too hot to eat” so we never ate it, or anything like it. Same with the French, although they do use Spanish chorizo on pizza.
  • Pepperoni. You might think that pepperoni is a basic Italian sausage, but it isn’t. In fact, pepperoni was invented by Italian immigrants in New York City. Yes, the most iconic pizza topping of them all is absent from French pizzarias, even though the pizza is, in general, pretty good.
  • Mac and Cheese. They do sell the stuff in boxes, but it ain’t Kraft, buddy. Not even close. Of course, you don’t have to miss Mac and Cheese if you learn to make your own, which, in fact, is pretty easy. Still, Kraft we don’t have. Sorry.
  • Hershey’s chocolate. It seems that people who didn’t grow up with Hershey’s chocolate tend not to like it, probably because it’s made with a different process from other chocolate products, a process that turns the milk ever so slightly, which is why Hershey’s tastes uniquely like Hershey’s. This extends to chocolate syrup for ice cream, where everyone “knows” that Hershey’s is the best of the lot. Oh, well.
  • Grabbing a quick lunch outside of fast food. Eating in France is an experience all its own. That banquet that we attended provided us with four hours of sequentially presented EIGHT courses! Yoiks! A “quick” lunch will run you about an hour, and many people take two, right out of their work day, to enjoy a leisurely lunch. Of course, if you go to Mickey Ds (McDo) you order from the screen and can leave as soon as you snarf down your food. Question is, for most of us most of the time, why do that? France is the second most popular country for McDonalds, by the way. Also the second biggest consumer of pizza per capita.

Some things you won’t have to miss include Snickers bars, Ben & Jerry’s, Hagen-Daszs, potato chips (not crisps, it says chips right on the bag), pretzels, burgers, hot dogs, pizza of course (Italian style, cooked hot and fast), paper towels, automobiles, freeways, toll roads, DIY stores (Bricos), supermarkets (even hypermarkets), movies (they always have showings of “VO” or version originale, with French subtitles of American films. You can ignore the subtitles.) And there’s more. The similarities, in fact, outweigh the differences.

I’ll do my best not to get the flu again, so I hope you’ll read on in my next post!

AU REVOIR

Categories
Culture Food France info Life

Home Again

This was our house the first time we looked at it. It actually looks the same as it did in the picture on the outside, except for our old Kia parked in front of it.

Kind of repeating a topic this time, but as this blog is intended to let whomever is interested in it to know about the experience of moving to France, it’s probably just the thing to do. I spent three months here (in this house) in the spring of 2022, and I moved here permanently in May of 2023. So I have actually lived in France for thirteen months now, and I do have some impressions.

First, it no longer seems at all odd. In fact, the way things happen here seems normal, and I’m not sure but that I’d need to do some adjusting if I were to move back to the US. Not that the US is bad, but it’s different. In France I am in the process of applying for a residence permit, which of course I’ll never need in the US. You ain’t seen bureaucracy until you’ve seen French bureaucracy! That said, they have a facility in the nearest sizeable town for the sole purpose of helping people find a way through the bureaucratic maze, and they were very nice, and very helpful, and I felt better when I left than I did when I went in. That, believe it or not, seems like a normal thing.

And the food really is better. Not just restaurant food, but food you make yourself. Europe doesn’t approve many additives in food, so the beef never had hormone treatments, nor antibiotics unless it was sick, and there is a lot less added sugar in, well, virtually everything, although sugary treats are quite easy to obtain, and not just weird Frenchie stuff, but Kit Kat bars, Snickers, Gummy Things, Nestles (naturally, as it’s a Swiss company,) plus pies and cakes and other dessert items. Even, occasionally, doughnuts that would sell in the US. Not all the time, but sometimes. But outside of the dessert aisles, the food is nutritious, and meats, in particular, taste better, and if you’re into veggies only (can be tougher in France) the legumes (vegetables) are extremely high in quality.

Streets and roads are not as wide as I was used to in Nevada. In fact, some country roads are just about wide enough for one car, and it’s not unusual for someone to have to pull into a side lane or entrance to a field to pass another vehicle. This is normal. Also, speeds are generally lower, although the Autoroutes (mostly toll roads) are beautifully maintained and have a speed limit of just above 80 mph. Every so often they catch somebody going 120 mph or so, but as enforcement is strict, that’s rare.

And I can speak some French. In my learning curve, I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can see how much I don’t know. This is discouraging, but also encouraging. Sometimes I even understand what someone is saying to me, and I’ve had a few conversations that, I think, actually worked. So there’s that.

I hear my supper calling, so I’m signing off. Be sure to tune in for the next thrilling installment!

Categories
Culture France Life

Frenchified?

Inside Notre Dame de Paris, before the fire

Last weekend I went out walking with my dogs and found myself having an attack of Frankish resentment at an impolite encounter. The hunters were out (la chasse), in which some people stand by a road with shotguns while facing the woods, while others take their dogs, circle around to the other side of the woods, and attempt to chase out something for the folks by the road to shoot. The bush beaters have shotguns, too, so maybe the folks by the road are just backup. Anyway, as I’ve written a few times, in France, it is obligatoire to say bonjour to anyone you meet well enough to lock eyes with. Not saying bonjour is the height of bad manners. You might get away with no s’il vous plaît, no merci, or even no au revoir, but bonjour is not negotiable. One says that, or apologizes if one starts a conversation without doing so.

Anyway, on Sunday the mutts and I passed by a number of people standing along the road holding shotguns. I’m cool with guns, and none of these people looked like they were obsessed with their guns, which are, of course, a tool to use of you happen to want to kill your prey animals yourself. I’ve eaten some of the wild boar from around here, and it is probably worth shooting. It’s very good. Most of the people and I exchanged bonjours, although one man we so intent on the tree line that I don’t think he even knew we were passing. But there was one small group, a man and a woman, who I looked at, nodded at, and said bounour to each of, who just stared at me as I walked past. Now, I’ll admit, maybe they were strangers to France. Maybe from someplace like Denmark where, I’m told, saying hello before getting down to business is considered impolite. I admit, maybe they had their reasons, but, you know, I found their failure to say hello made me angry. I mean, how dare they? One always says hello, boor!

I wasn’t that angry. I didn’t say anything to them about it (they should know better anyway, right?) But I was surprised to find out that they sort of pissed me off by not responding. I’ve lived here a total of just about a year, counting three months in 2022, and apparently that’s enough to start soaking up local cultural norms. Who knows what’s next? You never know, I might start eating pizza and beer and cheeseburgers like I see a lot of French people doing. And there’s just no telling where that might lead! Or, seriously, it is interesting that I would react that way. You don’t formally greet everybody you happen to meet the eyes of in the US, do you? I didn’t, although I did always at least nod and maybe make some sort of sound.

I guess I’m just moving along the continuum toward being a judgmental twit, huh? Well, life’s a journey!

Categories
Culture France Healthcare

Sproing!

Springtime in Paris? Well, yes to be accurate.

The sound in the title of this post is spring, springing. Last month it was colder than heck for around here (I used to live in Minneapolis, don’t bother with examples of when it gets “really cold.”) Yesterday it was 65 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny. The cranes (grue) have been flying north over Lizant. It’s actually rather pleasant, and not terribly cold even when it rains. This weather is premature, but I haven’t heard any complaints. Maybe next summer the weather will continue to smile upon us and it won’t get up to 30 degrees Celsius every other week like it did last year. Maybe.

My French is improving. I had my medical exam for my Titre de sejour, residence card, last Tuesday. So on Monday I had to drive to Poitiers, about an hour away, to go to a French equivalent of a county hospital to get a chest X-ray taken. Then on Tuesday morning I walked into what we’d call a “Class C office building” again in Poitiers, with uncertain lighting and disturbingly bland decor, at 9:25 in the morning. At 11:55 I walked out again, having had a six minute interview with a nurse, and a fifteen minute interview with a couple of doctors. I’m telling you here and now, if you want to live in a particular country, be sure to be born there. It’s a lot less aggravating. I’ve since applied online for my official “can you live in France?” interview, which should be easy enough to pass. I had to send them many of the same documents I had to send the agency that gives out visas. France has a huge bureaucracy, with many branches, and apparently no two branches do much effective communicating with each other. This is itself very encouraging, as a scary situation would be where you give your documents to just one office, and the entire government apparatus knows all about you. I tell myself that while awaiting another step in a bureaucratic dance.

Besides awaiting that appointment, I await eagerly my carte sanitaire, or health insurance card. French healthcare is priced according to income, and they do not include pensions. Our income being all pensions at the moment, it should be cheap enough, huh? I applied in October, sent further documentation in late December, and as soon as I receive the card I plan to visit my French doctor, if only because I promised those doctors in Poitiers that I would do so. I do believe that there is no way that one could overestimate the ubiquity of French bureaucracy. But, what the heck, I do like living here.

Speaking of which, I’m considering reviving my “Grumpy American Moves to France” YouTube channel. Please let me know if you’d be interested in such a thing. If you want to check out what it was a couple of years ago, click here: (483) A Grumpy American Moves to France – YouTube

Categories
France Moving to France

Moving In

We actually bought this in 2022, and I’ve been here since May 2023, plus 3 months in 2022.

Not moving into the house. That’s over and done with. Moving into France requires a series of steps, one of which I have reached, or am about to reach. I am currently living on a one-year tourist visa, which you can get if you just want to spend more than 90 days in France. By you I mean anyone. It required a trip to Beverly Hills to interview with the company that handles French visa applications. They were nice. My visa expires at the end of April, so it’s time to apply for the next thing, which is a five-year residence permit, which requires a couple of things as well.

First, a medical exam, which is scheduled for a week from Monday and Tuesday. Monday for an X-ray, Tuesday for the interview. I have to take my passport (of course), vaccination record, birth certificate, and any records of surgeries that I may have, which is exactly none. I hope that doesn’t mess anything up, but if they aren’t available, they aren’t available. After the Tuesday exam I have another interview (or will have) in which it is determined either that I am a suitable subject to live in France for at least five more years, or if I should be sent packing. As I am retired, and we have income and won’t actually cost France much of anything (we pay our taxes on time) that shouldn’t be a problem.

After five years there are several ways to go. One can renew that five-year card online, apply for a ten-year residence card (carte de sejour is the official name of those cards, by the way) or apply for French citizenship. That’s four years from now if I include the application time. Of course, for the five-year card one must also demonstrate a basic knowledge of French language. A2 level, which is enough to get by. Ten-year card required B1, which is essentially comfortable. Citizenship requires B2, which is good in everything except the technical minutiae of life. Even the current French zeitgeist is okay with not knowing how to build a skyscraper, apparently. These requirements are new, as of last week. Previously the 5-year had no language requirement, the 10-year required only A1, which I call “tourist Franch”, and citizenship required only B1.* If you think that there has been some complaints from some expatriate quarters, you’re right. Mostly, though, not from Americans. From Americans I have read sympathetic posts, and comments that we should require English of anyone wanting to live in the US, forgetting that the US has no official language, as does France. Tough to write a defensible law about a non-existent situation, I’m afraid.

So this is simply a report on where I am in my adventure in Moving To France. I’ll post something about how my medical exam goes after it happens, in a couple of weeks. Until then, au revoir!

*Those letters are from a European standard language skills rating system. I am C2 in English, proficient that is, at least! 🙂 The levels, in ascending order, are A, B, C.

Categories
Culture France

French Labor

A view from Montmartre. That’s a “high school” class visit walking past, in case you were wondering.

News today in France: It is very difficult to get to anywhere significant from anywhere significant as farmers are staging nationwide protests by blocking roads and Paris streets. The Autoroutes and National Roads (largely freeways) are affected, and the alternate routes are, shall we say, not so fast at the best of times. French people in general back the farmers, and also labor unions of all sorts.

Remember that last sentence. A majority of French citizens, while off put by the inconvenience, support the ideas behind the protests. A protest is called a manifestation, a union is called a syndicat. These protests are mostly organized by a group whose name translates as “Young Farmers’ Union.” If this sounds weird to American sensibilities, that’s just because it is, but you should know that most Europeans agree with the French people on this one. This is the weirdest thing about life in France, that labor unions are appreciated and respected. Yet, France is a capitalist country. France has the most productive economy in the European Union. France is the second largest food exporting country in the world after the US. But France, generally speaking, supports labor and farmers.

I’m not offering an opinion on this phenomenon in this post. I’m just pointing out something different about French and European society. I leave you to make what you will out of these simple facts. For me, this has little impact on my daily life. I’m retired, I live in a small village, and all the towns I need to get to are along side roads, but there are lots of people who are impacted in a major way. As Dorothy says to Toto, I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore, are we?