Today's unrelated Photo du Jour: a fire hydrant in the hilltop town of Seguret.
readers, here.
fendre (fon-dr) verb
: to split; to slit, to
slash
: to cleave
[from the Latin, "findere"]
fendre la
foule = to push one's way through the crowd
se fendre = to crack
fendre
l'air = "to cut through the air" (to quickly advance)
se fendre la pêche / se
fendre la gueule = to laugh openly, noisily
The word of the day ("fendre") was selected at random — after playing today's word game… read on, in the following column…).
My mom leaves in just a few days and I'd like to spend as much
time with "Jules" as possible. Therefore, I'm leaving all the work to you
today, via a fun (and improvised…) word game:
Here are the
instructions (dictionary* not required… but helpful):
1. Randomly open
a French-English dictionary.
2. Cover your eyes.
3. Let your finger drop
to the page.
4. Uncover your eyes, discover the French word beneath your very fingertip…
5. Type the
word into the comments box.
6. Don't forget to add a definition and any
related terms, idioms, or expressions!
*Psst: Don't have a dictionary
handy? Pas de problème! Answer this question: Tell us the first French word
that comes to mind. List it, along with a definition, in the comments box. If
you don't know the definition, just make one up!
Note: Please *do not*
send words via email, but use the comments box.
~~~~New, in
Books~~~~~~~~~~
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Bel Ria: the spellbinding tale of a small dog caught
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perilous passage from occupied France to besieged England.
Tune
Up Your French: Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Spoken French
igourmet's Favorites – 8 Cheese Sampler
Bonne
Maman Strawberry Preserves
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Poubelle = Trash I love the sound of that word! I heard of a restaurant in San Francisco named “La Poubelle”.
L’hipopotame = hippopotamus. Say it out loud and you’ll understand!
porte fenetre – french door (the British say french window)
Poubelle means trash can or dust bin – what a name for a restaurant!!
pantoufles nf slippers (doesnt it sound like slippers?)
lester VT to ballast. I like lester son estomac or se lester, meaning to stuff oneself
Un parapluie = umbrella. Say it and you’ll be glad for rain!
pamplemousse – grapefruit! I’d love to know the origins of pamplemousse — is it as far from reality as “grape fruit” is from the fruit that bears its name?
Manieres – la maniere
= manners. Apprendre les bonnes manieres. To learn good manners. (One to remember for my French class tomorrow!)
‘etre tout feu tout flamme’
‘All fire, all flame’
meaning to be full of enthusiasm. I love this idiom.
Should the ‘tout’ before the word ‘flamme’ have an ‘e’ on the end?
un gugusse = clown, guy, twit (slang)
Try saying it – a little bit of a tongue twister
Tricher: to cheat
I confess, Je suis une tricheuse. (Is that correct?!?) My first three attempts were all cognates, and what fun is there in that?
encore que = although
moufle = (nf) mitten
bon voyage to Jules!
Tu me manques = I miss you. It has always seemed strange to say “You are missing to me”
I kept looking but could not find why “fendre” was selected. Since I use the word of the day in my French classes, the stories are important. please advise. Val
Hi Valencia,
I found the word “fendre” by playing today’s word game (covered my eyes, threw open Petit Larousse, and “pinned” that word with my finger. (And I didn’t cheat like Lori… )
Lori: Je vous taquine! (Just teasing!)
Gigi: glad you asked about “pamplemousse”. Kim (from Eugene Oregon) wrote in a few weeks ago with an interesting note about this word. I’ll try to post it, maybe Wednesday…
un heptagone: a seven-sided polygon.
…brings to mind my lucky, 7-sided tee-pee (the one in my dreams) that lives under the oak tree, beyond the clothesline, and beside the creek, here in Provence.
xoxo,
Jules
Profonde – as in La France Profonde.
Drive thru the wine country sampling Beaujolais Nouveau with French friends who know the wine makers and you have been to La France Profonde!
Hi Valencia,
I couldn’t find it either… but I understand Kristin is very busy today… so, no story to illustrate the verb “fendre”.
Following Kristin’s instructions, here is my word: “secousse”
SECOUSSE – feminine noun
from the Latin, “succusus” = secoué (shaken)
—> jolt
—> shock
—> tremor
Eviter les secousses (in a car) = to avoid the bumps
Avancer par secousses = to jerk forward
Avancer sans une secousse = to move forward smoothly (sans = without)
Psychological, emotional
(maladie, mort) a été une secousse pour elle = (illness, death…) was a shock for her.
Secousse électrique (décharge électrique) = electric shock
In an earthquake, une secousse = a tremor
Hi Jules,
Enjoy your last days! = Profite de tes derniers jours!
Have a good journey back! = Bon voyage de retour!
WE’ll miss YOU … = TU vas NOUS manquer …
Cacahouette – peanut. Always loved this word……
Beurre de cacahouette – hard to find in France, not popular.
“Épouvantable”, completely horrible, as in, ‘une situation épouvantable.’ VERY expressive and, with 5 syllables, even the French think you know what you’re doing!
Ruisselant – Streaming, dripping, running, very wet.
espérance – hope
Télécabine, téléphérique – ok so I cheated. All the random words I kept finding were boring, but I love these two words added to my vocabulary on a recent trip to Chamonix and Megeve.
They mean ‘cable car’, with a télécabine being a smaller 4-person type cable car, like the ones in Megeve that you can take to the top of Mt D’Arbois and Jaillet, and a téléphérique being a large multi-passenger car, such as the one you take to the top of Aguille de Midi.
It is good that these are such nice sounding words, making it a little easier to get over one’s ‘peur de hauteur’.
cerf-volant- kite
jouer au cerf-volant- to fly a kite.
In English if you say “Go fly a kite” it means “get out of here” I doubt it means the same in French. Does anybody know?
compte – account. tenir les comptes d’une maison : to keep the accounts or the books of a firm. Strangely appropriate based on your husband’s former and my occupations.
ou est la biblioteque?
where is the library??
Pecherman.. (fisherman)a word I made up when I lived in France
Hi Kristin!
The word I turned to was “violet” which can be the flower or the color. However, violet de colere means black in the face or purple with rage; violet de froid means blue with cold.
That was fun, thanks!
“Fleuve” – veut dire “river”. I have always loved the way this word flows off the tongue. Two more fun words I try to work into conversation in the US: “melange” (mixture) and “quotidienne” (everyday, commonplace)
Gigi & Leeza: “Pamplemousse” and “Pantouffles” are also two of my favorites!
SOUTERRAIN meaning “underground” or “underpass” or “tunnel beneath the earth”” is by far my favorite. I can’t precisely remember when I encountered it, but it may have been a sign pointing to a passage under the all the traffic that gets you to the Arch in Paris. I suppose I like it because it actually says what it means.
champignon – One of my favorite lines from Le Petit Prince is when he calls the aviator “une espece de champignon.”
caner-verb
“to funk it, to chicken out”
Tres bizarre!!!
C’est la classe de francais qui a trouve ce mot du jour!
l’écureuil. I love saying this word – which means squirrel. We have them all over our yard right now. I first looked up the word in high school when I had to give a speech in French class.
Today my (Turkish) students really wanted to know how to say never mind and whatever in French. I had to resort to the internet, but am not sure if I agree with the result…
ne vous occupez jamain = never mind
quoi que = whatever
Then I remembered that we used to always use laissez tomber (let it be) while I was in Guinea.
Since I live in San Francisco and never heard of the restaurant “La Poubelle”, I looked it up. Here is one in Los Angeles.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/la-poubelle-los-angeles
‘pamplemousse” comes from Dutch words for “big lemon” according to the Larousse “Dictionnaire d’etymologie.”
“cacahuete” is derived from (no “o” in the last syllable) from the Aztec language.
Thanks to everyone for today’s fun comments!
Thanks, Kristin, for all your work to keep this site going. I look forward to it! 🙂
Bon retour, Jules!
magnifique – magnificent (I didn’t even cheat!)
To add to Diane’s mountain transport words:
télésiège – chair lift (siège=seat)
téléski – drag lift, button lift where you go up the mountain ON your skis.
Télécabines and téléfériques are distinguished not only by size, but a télécabine system has many “cabines” which keep going in the forward direction on a single cable. A téléférique has two larger “cabines” which alternate direction, each on their own (usually two) support cables, pulled by a third cable.
Vous pensez que je suis ingénieur? Mais oui, c’est mon métier!
grappiller = to pick up (fruits); to glean
(renseignements)
grappiller quelques sous = to scrape together some money
Found with Kristin’s “open and point” method.
chouchou–my dictionary says it means “teachers pet” but I heard a friend in France use it as a term of endearment for his daughter..
Distraitement=absent-mindedly/distractedly. Perhaps as Kristin is now with her mom leaving. A fun exercise. And fun to read others’ favorite words. It seems many of us really love the multisyllabic ones with the cool sounds like pamplemousse and the ones that are so French in their pronunciations like écureuil; there is nothing like that in English!
l’ombre = the shadow
I don’t know where my dictionary is – but I remember learning degalas (sp?) which I think means disgusting. I remember learning swear words in french as well. I think ‘putain’ was the worst one I was told, which means prostitute? My life in France is a distant memory these days. Sad. Triste.
capucine [kapysin] nf [fleur] nasturtium
Moyennant, prep., by means of; in consideration of, conj. phr., moyennant que, on condition that
“CHOUETTE: f, owl, adj. (fam.) splendid, Am. swell.” I cheated a bit, as I used this word as my poodle’s name. She is wise like an owl, and surely “cool, or neat” which might be an update on that American translation.
Déborder – to overflow
La rivière a debordé de son lit – the river has crested its banks
déborder de joie – to be bursting with joy
Plein à deborder – full to the brim
Déborder le sujet – to go beyond the scope of the topic
être débordé de travail – to be up to one’s eyes with work
Another cool thing about pamplemousse: It is one of those rare French nouns that can be either masculine or feminine, depending on how the writer is feeling. So, write either le pamplemousse or la pamplemousse — you’ll be correct in either case!