Printemps

n. – spring
Well I’m not the first and won’t be the last to say this, but Paris is really something in the spring. It’s as if the city literally opens up as the flowers and trees start to bloom. The sky reflects a rainbow of colors. Its soft blue background provides a palette for the floating white clouds which shift to shades of pale yellow, orange, pink, mauve and even red as the sun shines in all of its different spots before settling peacefully later and later. It’s during this time when Paris not only inspires great artists, but inspires the artist in everyone.

The luminosity and radiance of the day give way to an equally spectacular Paris by night. Sunlight is replaced by the lights of the city illuminating its monuments. Statues are bathed in iridescence with their gold accents shining brilliantly. The lights reflect off the Seine causing it to sparkle. And to top it all off, there is the hourly twinkling of the Eiffel Tower. We’re spoiled with not only a view of the top of the tower, but also a view of its reflection in far away windows creating a firework like effect when the lights are shimmering. I can stand gazing at it all for hours and it comes as no surprise how Paris got its nickname, La Ville-Lumière or City of Lights.

Pardonnez moi

exp. – pardon me
My lovely friend was just here visiting from New York. She arrived on Monday and on Tuesday, proceeded out to the Louvre. She doesn’t speak much French, but knows enough to get around so as she walked up to the guard who was blocking her entry to the museum, she said politely and appropriately, “pardonnez moi.” He gave her a look and pointed to the sign that explained that the museum was closed on Tuesday, which she actually understood, but with the confusion of jet lag thought it was still Monday. So she nodded in understanding and once again said “pardonnez moi” to try to get past him. Once again, he pointed to the sign and once again she nodded in agreement and said “pardonnez moi.”

After a few rounds of this, it finally registered and she sheepishly walked away. There is nothing quite like being so assured about something only to discover you have completely misunderstood. It reminds me of the many times I use the wrong word or mispronounce a word giving it an entirely different meaning.

I recently discovered the subtle difference between the verb “mourir” and “deceder,” both meaning to die. I stopped by to pick up more flowers for my window boxes since the ones I just purchased died suddenly. I don’t know if it was my accent or the way I said it, but when I used the word “mourir,” the florist looked at me strangely with his head cocked to one’s side so I re-formulated and used the past tense of “deceder” to explain what had happened.

He wasn’t surprised and in fact almost chided me for being disappointed that the flowers had deceased in such a short time. They were just spring flowers and not meant to last more than a couple of weeks. If this had been explained as clearly when I bought them, I would have made a different choice. In any event, when I told my husband the story later, he laughed because in fact “deceder” translates more literally to “pass away” which you would use to describe a person rather than a thing. But what made him laugh even harder was when I told him I had explained the story to his mother in an email. I told her I needed to take care of my “jardiniers” thinking I had used the word for flower boxes, “jardinières,” when in fact I had used the word for gardeners.

Where I get in the most trouble is with the words that sound like “koo.” The slightest difference in the way you purse your lips to emit the word can lead to vast confusion. “Cou” means neck, “coup” means blow, “coupe” means cup, “queue” means line and “cul” means ass. While the last word is spelled differently the pronunciation is as subtle as the difference between color and collar in English (two words that my husband often has trouble with). I took my time making a joke the other day about French people standing in line since mispronouncing queue to sound like ass would alter the context entirely. In English, we mispronounce “cul” completely when we say “cul de sac,” which literally means the bottom (or ass if you will) of a sack, or as we refer to it, dead end.

With “coup,” there are many uses: coup de bar, coup de mou (tired); coup de pompe (dead tired); coup de bourre (rushed); coup d’état (polititical coup); coup de grace (final blow); coup de foudre (lightening strike or love at first sight) and even un bon coup (good in bed). I suppose this last one is the only case where one could safely substitute “cul.” Pardonnez moi!

Plein à craquer

exp. – full
Or more specifically so full it’s about to crack open. This was the term used by the woman checking us in recently to describe our flight to New York. I couldn’t help but think that it probably wasn’t the best choice of words to use for a plane. After all, one doesn’t really want to think of a plane cracking open or cracking at all.

She wasn’t lying. The flight was indeed full and we had the same squished-like-sardine feeling common with most air travel. I took solace however, in the fact that the airline now offered almost 100 movies to choose from (I think it was 83 to be exact). Of course there is a downside to this since there are still many people who have not mastered the touch screen. Note to those – it is not necessary to push the screen into the back of my head, but merely to touch it, hence the name.

While my husband and I were relishing our airplane food and wine (free on international flights so we took full advantage), others were already starting their line-up for the free film festival. As our bad luck would have it, by the time we were ready to start watching, the system was so overloaded from the full flight that we couldn’t access any of the movies at all.

My husband brought this to the attention of the flight attendant who said he would take it up with the chef de cabine – when she woke up from her nap! It’s not like we were flying to Tokyo, the flight is barely eight hours. I would feel more comfortable with everyone on the crew being awake and present during that time. I don’t even know how to sleep on a plane although I have seen it done. Oh well, at least nothing cracked open except another bottle of wine.

Ici le client est roi…

phrase – here the client is king…
We say that all the time in the US, but here the sentence continues to say “ mais surtout ne croyez pas que le patron fera la reine.” “But certainly don’t think that the server will act as the queen.” I’ve already covered the prickly topic of French service, but seeing the expression written out like that sums it up perfectly.

Last week I was having a leisurely lunch (as they mostly are) with a friend. Leisure time was over though and after waiting 20 minutes for my beloved café gourmand, I signalled to the waiter as if to say “Where is the coffee?” “C’arrive!” he practically shouted at me “It’s coming!” I am no longer intimidated by waiters as I was when I first arrived. I have recovered from the sting of abandonment I used to feel if I wasn’t ready to place my order when they first came to the table leading them to huff away and not return until tracked down. I wanted to reply to him “So is Christmas!”, but it doesn’t pack the same punch in French so instead I just mumbled something about needing to leave.

The French like a good confrontation so rather than end it there, he walked over to the table to confirm that I ordered a café gourmand and throwing his hands up and rolling his eyes tisked that it takes time to prepare. I order café gourmands every where I find them and trust me, I’ve never had to wait 20 minutes for them.

Anyway, it finally arrived – not one of the better ones I might add. There was a brownie like wedge next to a slice of tart of some sort. So it was not worth the wait or the attitude, but the trouble is there’s no recourse. You can’t deduct the already included tip so all I could think of was to simply not say good bye upon leaving. Take that!

Gelée

n. - jelly
Surgelés
n. – frozen food
Congeler
v. – to freeze
Dégrivrant
adj. – frost free
The first word in this list really has nothing to do with the rest other than it sounds similar.

Since we needed to buy a refrigerator for our new apartment, a critical component for me was one that was frost-free. This is not always a given especially when dealing with a small space because the smaller units are more often the kind you need to defrost. Luckily, we had enough space – just – to fit a frost-free variety.

The freezer is on the bottom, something that was very important to my husband since he felt that you don’t go into the freezer as often as the other part so this way you bend down less. Of course, he’s French so things like ice aren’t a priority to him. However, we did just discover the most wonderful store that sells only frozen foods.

I’m not talking about some horrible frozen food TV dinner as you might imagine, but rather every single type of entrée, vegetable, dessert imaginable. We bought lovely little canapés of savory pastries, blanquet de veau (veal stew with mushrooms), tomates farci (tomatoes stuffed with meat), haricots beurre (yellow string beans) and more!

Since the apartment doesn’t have room for a proper oven, we bought a portable one that sits on top of the refrigerator. So we’ll be doing a fair amount of stretching between procuring our frozen goods out of the bottom of the fridge and popping them into the oven above. Between that and walking up our stairs this summer during the elevator repair, we should stay in good enough shape to enjoy our surgelés without guilt. Bon appétit!

Ascenseur

n. – elevator
Elevators in Paris come in various sizes, small, smaller and smallest. On average, there’s room for two people to fit in comfortably, small people that is. Paris is not welcoming to the rotund. In fact, our friends live in a building with an elevator that’s so small, their pregnant neighbor has to fit in sideways.

They are not as automatic as we’re used to at home. Most of the time, you need to open the doors, which can be quite heavy. Some don’t have memories either so since we’re on the top and 7th floor if we get in with someone living on a floor below, they have to push their button first and then we push ours once they’ve gotten off.

The elevators don’t reach the Chambres de Bonnes, which are on the very top floor just under the roofs. These are the old maid’s quarters that are now either owed by the people in the floors just below and assimilated into their apartments or rented out to students since they’re usually less than 100 square feet and as such are reasonably affordable. Of course, they’re uncomfortably cramped under the mansard roofs, freezing in the winter and boiling in the summer, but they offer some of the best bird’s eye views to be found. So for the non-claustrophobic, once the tenants have climbed the eight flights of stairs, in our case, on a temperate spring or fall day, they can enjoy their views over the city.

We’re far more spoiled living next to the top with more space, better protection from the cold and heat and elevator access. That is until the end of June when we just learned the elevator (there is normally only one) will be out of commission for repairs until mid-August. During this time, the bird’s eye view will come with an additional price, but again we have to be thankful that we’re only on the 7th floor.

Les étagères

n. – shelves
Les stagieres
n. – interns
I think you can see why I would mix up these two words and have been doing so lately when discussing our new apartment. We had the entrepreneur (the much prettier French description for handy man) come to the apartment to help us with some work. He kindly put up some shelving in the kitchen to maximize space. It’s a “cuisine Americaine” which again means open, but let that not be confused with large or grand!

In describing the work the entrepreneur had done, I kept confusing the word for shelves with the word for interns so as you can imagine, I got many a strange look indeed. Other words I have to think about are “épais” for thick, “épée” for sword (although I don’t use that all that often) and “épicé” for spicy.

Expressions can also be amusing when translating things literally. I always think of my friend Marie who used to say “great minds meet” in English rather than “great minds think alike” because the former is how it’s said in French “les grands esprits se rencontrent.”

There are many other examples. In English, we say “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” In French, they say “ la goute d’eau qui a fait déborder le vase” or “the drop of water that made the vase overflow.” Where we say, “you can’t have your cake and eat it, too,” they say “on peut pas avoir le beurre, l’argent du beurre et le sourire de la crémière” or “you can’t have the butter, the money from the butter and the smile from the milk maiden.” After all just look at what happened to Marie-Antoinette when she said let them eat cake. I think that may have been around the same time that the milk maidens disappeared as well.

“Avoir la pêche or “to have the peach” means you feel good, but “ne pas être dans son assiette” or "not to be in your plate" means you don’t feel good. Of course it doesn’t surprise me that feelings of well being are connected with food. On that subject, here you “take” something from the menu when ordering rather than “having” something. And if you want to ask someone if they want to “try” what you’re having, you use the word “goûter” for “taste.”

One last subtle difference to leave you with for now is that between “on” and “in” when it comes to planes, buses or trains for example. Once it was explained that the French use “in” it made so much sense to me. And ever since then when I hear someone say they were on the plane, I can only conjure up a hilarious visual!

“On” is a word better used for the relationship between the placement of things and shelves, but certainly don’t put anything on the interns.

Poisson d’Avril

n. – April Fish or April Fool
We are invited to a dinner tonight at someone’s home and in procuring a gift to bring, I learned about yet another French tradition. I’m used to April 1st being April Fool’s Day where if you are so inclined you can make a prank on someone else. Of course everyone else knows it’s April Fool’s Day so often times it’s difficult to pull off. I never asked myself why April 1st was the date of this tradition until now.

Here it is called Poisson d’Avril and while I still don’t know why the fool has been replaced by a fish, the tradition of making a prank is equally celebrated. In many cases, the fish comes into play in the form of a paper fish that children attach to each other’s backs and then cry “Poisson d’Avril!” Again, this must be difficult to pull off since everyone knows about it. However, I did have a good one pulled over on me this morning when a friend wrote on Facebook that she had died her hair platinum blonde to which I responded “welcome to the world of blondes.” I then realized it was a joke and felt very blonde myself as a result.

The origins of April Fool’s Day are said to come from the changing of the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1582, which moved the beginning of the year from April to January. People who still celebrated April 1st as the beginning of the year, whether it was because they didn’t want to change or simply were not aware of the change, were considered fools.

Well that all makes sense to me except again for the fish. The fish is how I made my discovery though as I entered the lovely chocolate store near us to buy the hostess gift. There were dozens of different fish-shaped chocolates. I didn’t understand what fish had to do with Easter which is coming up so I asked the shopkeeper who enlightened me. And so off we’ll go to dinner this evening with our lovely dark chocolate trout as a little offering for Poisson d’Avril.