Category: French (français)

Language learning lethargy

By Simon

Cat on dictionaries - an illustration of language learning lethargy

Are there times when you don’t feel like learning languages and can’t summon up much enthusiasm about them? When language learning lethargy strikes, in fact.

For me most of August this year was like that – I did use my languages when I had the chance, and spoke quite a bit of French and Welsh, and odd bits of Italian and Irish. I also listened to plenty of foreign language radio, as I often do. I didn’t go out of my way to find opportunities to practise my languages though, and didn’t study at all for almost the whole month. This is unusual for me.

Sometimes I think to myself, “You already speak five languages more or less fluently, and know quite a few others to varying degrees. Isn’t that enough?”, and my usual answer is “No, I want to learn more!”. Recently however, my motivation to learn more has been low and my answer was “Yes, that’s enough for now.”

This month I am re-starting my studies with Czech, and am planning to start dabbling with other languages as well. Yesterday my Teach Yourself Swedish course finally arrived – the one I got for free after attending the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin in May. So I will be learning more Swedish before long.

If you come down with language learning lethargy from time to time, how do you deal with it?

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By Simon

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No holds barred

By Simon

I came across the phrase no holds barred today and wondered where it came from. I probably have seen it written down before, but didn’t pay any particular attention to it and thought it was written no holes barred.

According The Phrase Finder, this phrase comes from wrestling and refers to wrestling matches in which the normal rules are suspended – that is any hold is allowed, and no holds are barred. It first appeared in print in around 1892. Before then wrestling matches were not subject to any rules and there was no need for such a phrase.

Related phrases include anything goes and carte blanche. Can you think of any others?

The phrase carte blanche comes from French, originally meant a military surrender, and was first written in 1707 [source].

Are there phrases with a similar meaning in other languages?

Put the kettle on!

By Simon

No kettles!

I discovered last night that although there is a French word for kettle – bouilloire – kettles are not common in French kitchens. More or less every kitchen in the UK, and Ireland, has a kettle, and a toaster (grille-pain) – they are considered essential equipment. However, according to a friend who used to live in France, French kitchens generally don’t have kettles, or toasters. Teapots are probably rare as well.

Is this true? What other things are normally found in kitchens where you live?

So even though there may be a word for something in another language, it might not be commonly-used (either the word or the thing it describes).

Here’s a tune I wrote called The Kettle / Y Tecell:

Gleann Cholm Cille

By Simon

This week and next week I am in Gleann Cholm Cille (Glencolmcille) in Donegal in the north west of Ireland. I’m doing courses at Oideas Gael, an Irish language and cultural centre: a harp playing course this week, and an Irish language and culture course next week.

This is my 11th visit to Gleann Cholm Cille, and the second year I’ve done the harp course. On the harp course page of the Oideas Gael site there are pictures of the harp group from last year – I’m third from the right in the first one, and in the middle at the back in the second one (see also below).

2014 Oideas Gael Harp class
2014 Oideas Gael Harp class

This year we have a different teacher – a music student called Elsa Kelly, who also plays the flute. We’re learning some O’Carolan tunes and some other traditional Irish tunes, and it’s great fun.

I’ve been speaking plenty of Irish with people here – locals and students – and have also spoken bits of German, French, Scottish Gaelic, Dutch, Russian and Czech. People come here from all over the world to study Irish language, music and related subjects, so there are plenty of opportunities to practise languages.

So far the weather has been very mixed – cloudy and windy one minute, warm and sunny the next, then the rain starts, and it can go on all day and all night sometimes and be rather heavy. This is fairly typical for this part of Ireland, but local people are complaining that they haven’t had much of a summer this year yet.

Telyn newydd / New Harp

By Simon

Fy nhelyn newydd / My new harp

Mae fy nhelyn newydd wedi cyrraedd y bore ‘ma. Telyn efo 34 tannau o’r enw Ossian Clarsach< gan Tim Hampson ydy hi.

Pan ro’n i yn Plymouth dwy wythnos yn ôl yn ymweld â fy chwaer, mi es i i Bere Ferrers, nid mor bell o Plymouth, i gwrdd â Tim Hampson ac i weld y delyn. Mae o’n gwneud atgynhyrchiadau o delynau hanesyddol, ac yn atgyweirio telynau hefyd, ac roedd hi’n ddiddorol iawn gweld ei weithdy ac sut mae o’n gwneud telynau. Mae’r delyn Ossian wedi ei seilio ar delynau y 1930au a 1940au gwneud gan Henry Briggs yn Glasgow. Dw i wedi canu hi am oriau heddiw yn barod, ac mae hi’n swnio yn wych, ac yn edrych yn wych hefyd.

Yn y ffoto mae fy nhelyn newydd, a fy nhelyn bach y brynes i y llynedd.

My new harp arrived this morning. It’s a 34 string Ossian Clarsach made by Tim Hampson.

While I was in Plymouth visiting my sister a few weeks ago, I went to to Bere Ferrers, not far from Plymouth, to meet Tim Hampson and to see the harp. He makes reproductions of historical harps, and repairs and services harps as well, and it was fascinating to see his workshop and how he makes harps. The Ossian harp is based on harps made in the 1930s and 1940s by Henry Briggs in Glasgow. I’ve already played it for several hours today, and it sounds wonderful, and looks good too.

The photo shows my new harp with my little lap harp, which I got last year.

Les mot de la semaine

By Simon
français English Cymraeg
l’étui (m) à lunettes glasses/spectacle case blwch/castan/cas sbectol
la bannière Web web banner baner we
le budget budget cyllideb
le découvert budgétaire budget deficit diffyg cyllidebol
le découvert overdraft gorddrafft
gorgodiad
dyled cyfrif
à découvert in the red yn y coch
promouvoir to promote dyrchafu
rhoi dyrchafiad
être promu(e) to be promoted cael dyrchafiad
le syndiact trade/labour union undeb
l’épingle (f) pin (sewing) pin
l’épingle de nourrice safety pin pin cau
pin dwbl
la punaise drawing pin pin bawd
pin gwasgu
pin pen fflat
la broche pin (medical) pin
le papier bulle bubble wrap pecyn/papur swigen (?)
(la cérémonie de) remise des diplômes graduation ceremony cyflwyniad graddau
DAB (le distributeur automatique de billets)
GAB (le guichet automatique de billets)
le guichet automatique (Québec)
le bancomat (Suisse)		 ATM
cash machine
cashpoint
hole in the wall		 peiriant arian parod
twll yn y wal

Coasts and competitors

By Simon

Arfordir

Sometimes when I see new words in English or other languages I can immediately break them down into their component parts and work out their roots, but other times I just accept words as whole entities without trying to work out their derivation.

One such word in Welsh is arfordir, which I hadn’t tried to analyse before. Last weekend, however, I was explaining some Welsh words to a friend who recently moved to Cardiff and who wants to learn Welsh, so I was in the right frame of mind, and the probable etymology of that word jumped out at me – ar (on, by) + môr (sea) + tir (land), so it’s “land by the sea” or the coast. This is correct, according to the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru.

Another etymology I discovered today is the word competitor, which comes from the Middle French compétiteur (rival, competitor), from the Latin competītor (rival, competitor, adversary, opponent; plaintiff), from con (with) and petītor (seeker, striver, applicant, candidate, claimant, plaintiff, suitor, wooer).

Petītor comes from petere (to make, seek, aim at, desire, beg, beseech), from the Proto-Indo-European *peth₂- (to fall, fly), which is also the root of the English word petition, and the Spanish word pedir (to ask for) [source]

Marmosets, cheese and gargoyles

By Simon

IL y a un ouistiti sur le fromage ! (There's a marmoset on the cheese!)

When French-speaking photographers want people to smile, they might say Le petit oiseau va sortir (The little bird is going to come out) or Souriez! (smile), or might ask them to say pepsi! or ouistiti! (marmoset), just as English-speaking photographer get people to smile by asking them to say “Cheese!”

The word ouistiti [ˈwistiti] means marmoset in French, and is apparently imitative of the animal’s cry.

Another French word for marmoset is callitriche, which comes from callithrix, a genus of monkeys found in South America that includes some species of marmoset, and which comes from the Greek kallos (beautiful) and thrix (hair). The callithrix are part of the Callitrichidae family, which includes all marmosets and tamarins found in South America. The marmoset in the photo above is a Pygmy marmoset, or Cebuella pygmaea.

The word marmoset comes from the Middle French marmouset (gargoyle; small child), which probably comes from marmouser (to mumble) [source].

Other equivalents of “Say cheese!” can be found on: http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/saycheese.htm – additions and corrections are welcome (as always).

What do you say when you want people to smile?

Fosses and Sextons

By Simon

At the French Conversation Group last night one of the people had an old French language textbook from the 1950s which contains lots of stories in French. One of them contains the word “Le Fossoyeur” in the title, which is translated as “The Sexton”. As this wasn’t a word I’d come across before, I thought I’d find out more about it.

According to the Oxford Dictionaries, a sexton is:

A person who looks after a church and churchyard, typically acting as bell-ringer and gravedigger.

Sexton is a Middle English word that comes from the Anglo-Norman French segrestein, from medieval Latin sacristānus (sacristan), which comes from the Latin sacer/sacr- (sacred).

A sacristan is person in charge of a sacristy and its contents, and a sacristy is a “room in a church where a priest prepares for a service, and where vestments and articles of worship are kept.”

The French word fossoyeur can also mean “personne ou chose qui ruine, détruit” (sb or sth that ruins or destroys) [source], and comes from the word fosse (pit, grave), from the Latin fossa (ditch, trench), from fodiō (dig out, excavate) from the Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European *bʰedʰ- (to pierce, dig) [source].

The word fosse / foss also exists in English and means a ditch or moat, but is rarely used, except by archaeologist, for whom it means “a long, narrow trench or excavation, especially in a fortification.” [source]. Fosse also appears in the name of the old Roman road from Lincoln to Exeter – the Fosse Way.