Aurore, l’aube

n. dawn
The French have trouble with my name (Dawn) since it’s not common here. Aurore is the word for dawn and l’aube or “à l’aube de” more specifically means just before, so in this case, just before the day. My name is usually pronounced as Down, but the other day someone actually pronounced it more appropriately, which in French makes it sound like “donne” from the verb “donner,” which means to give.

Most of the time people just assume I’m a man if they haven’t met me or they’ll use my last name (Erickson) as my first name since I guess it looks more familiar to them with the word Eric in it. My husband used to have trouble with his first name (Olivier) in the States. I never understood why and would always explain that it’s like Oliver, but with an “i.” Then someone once spelled it Oliveri so I realized that wasn’t helping.

Rather than saying my name is, here you actually say “je m’appelle” which translates to I call myself. This is a similar with bathing, sitting and remembering as in “je me lave,” I bathe myself, “je m’assoir,” I seat myelf and “je me souviens,” I remember myself.

On another level, to be, “être” and to have, “avoir” here are often interchanged. For example, you aren’t cold or hot, but rather you have cold or hot, “j’ai froid” or “j’ai chaud.” You also have your age rather than are your age, “j’ai 25 ans” or I have 25 years (well a few more in my case, but who’s counting). When you are finished, you say I have finished or “j’ai fini” vs. I am finished. And so I have with this little lecture of the day. Aurore or dawn will bring a new day tomorrow and with it continued observations on life and language in France.