Tuesday, February 05, 2008

French Lessons ( Leçons Françaises)

Having decided that my learning of French is not coming along fast enough with my present methods (watching Underworld: Evolution in French with French subtitles, and trying to translate my letters from Spacelaw , and asking my Boss things like "How do you say " I am going insane" in French) I have aquired a Book and CD system.

"Learn French in 10 minutes a day"

The idea is that each lesson takes about 10 minutes and you do them once a day. So simple.

HA! The ten minute lesson, tonight, took me about an hour. I can now say "Je voudrais un patisserie" (I want a doughnut) Which , I suppose of some more use than "Matrice, vous bâtard de loup-garou! Vérifiez mes balles argentées!" (Die, you werewolf bastard! Check out my silver bullets!)

I also dug out my "French for Cats" book. (All the French your cats will ever need) and am teaching Freaky Venus and Madame Malena Mim how to say things like "Look, I can run senselessly from room to room" and "here comes a hairball!" and the ever popular "This is MY terriory, I like to sit in it and defend it from all evil"

Poor Spacelaw (who is coming from Italy for my Birthday shows) We will wander the streets of Stillwater, dragging poor Rubius (who is coming from Canada, one hopes, the English part) along behind us, with having such conversastions as...

Spacelaw: When do you play?

ME: I don't know. Je voudrais un patisserie. Vérifiez mes balles argentées!

Spacelaw: What is that river? Does it empty into your mighty Missisippi?

ME: I don't know. Je voudrais un patisserie. Vérifiez mes balles argentées!

Rubuis: I want a doughnut too.

Amour et leçons françaises,
Lorraine

25 Comments:

At 6:10 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

LOL

And now I have Eddie Izzard phrases in my head "..le sange est disparu!"

I gotta find that French for Cats book now.:)

 
At 6:14 PM , Blogger Malena said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 
At 7:09 PM , Blogger ivenotime said...

snort, snicker, too funny - wish i could go to your bday shows! french - not a clue - 3 years in high school which i promptly forgot. i used to be able to swear in finnish, but its been so many years since hearing my grandpa, i don't remember much. and yes, i want a donut, or rather a paczki (it is shrove tues. after all!)

 
At 7:56 PM , Blogger Malena said...

Let me correct you, you cheese-eating surrenderer lover...

"Crève, sale bâtard de Loup Garou...donne le bonjour a mes balles d'argent" !!! and “Je veux un beignet”

Oh, I'm feeling the night kick in muffin!

 
At 8:00 PM , Blogger FabulousLorraine said...

French for Cat. Amazon, it's so funny.

Hmm...Between me knowing how to ask for a doughnut, and knowing how to say Die Werewolf Bastard, and you with that phrase, we are COVERED!

Or perhaps not. Maybe Spacelaw can tell us some truly useful things like "My false eyelashes are killing me" or "When do we get to sleep again?" or "Is it chocolate?"

 
At 8:04 PM , Blogger FabulousLorraine said...

Cheeseeating surrenderer?????

You SLAY me!!!!!

Night indeed.

Nous tuerons les mauvais ensemble.

( Spacelaw is going to wake in a few hours and snort coffee.)

 
At 9:19 PM , Blogger Rubius said...

eeeeheheheehhehehehe.... can't wait. Looking forward to it!!!

what movie is that from.... cheese-eating surrenderer lover...???

 
At 7:18 AM , Blogger spacedlaw said...

ROFL. Snorfle.
(In French: Ouahahah. Hihihi. Somehow it feels different).
I am snorting TEA. Ginger tea and it HURTS. Mon ordinateur n'est pas content non plus.

In just a week's time: All you wanted to ask about French language and were scared to ask...
I really NEED to make you this little picture dictionary.

Malena! I am impressed with your French!

 
At 7:26 AM , Blogger spacedlaw said...

And one important word in French (apart from the swearing, I mean): MIAOU! Especially if you are trying to make Venus a French speaking dominatrix.

 
At 7:34 AM , Blogger ariandalen said...

And to think, I took German and Latin. ::SIGH::

Actually, I'm understanding some of the French, just from having taken Latin. Though I did have a few weeks of French back in eighth grade. I can ask you, "Quel et le date des votre naissance?" but I already know the answer. (I really hope I got that all spelled correctly.)

And I bet you thought everybody in Texas learned Spanish in school. ;)

What I really want to learn is Welsh. ::sigh:: Maybe after both girls are in school?

 
At 9:03 AM , Blogger Kitty Cat said...

goodness graacious but this blog has taken a turn for the hilarious.
cheese-eating-surrenderer...what!?!
i took Chinese in college for 2 years, my French is limited to French TOAST.
but ....donuts....mmmmmmmmmm

the storms in the southern states are devastating.
i ran right through before they were bad. sad for the people who have lost life & home. be grateful kids,
we are so lucky.
Quiche, i declared it NATIONAL BE NICE TO BATMAN DAY but unfortunately Mister Kitty is not speaking ENglish today and he is ignoring my declaration. Did you know he is half-Bengal? really! so pretty a boy, so mean to my boy. BOOOO

 
At 11:16 AM , Blogger FabulousLorraine said...

Malena has a secret weapon in that she has a French Houseguest just now. I'll get my French Houseguest next week. Do we live the same life or what?

Once again....

See I need a French Houseguest. Or something. Babel Fish is NOT the last word in translating...

Batman is half Bengal??? How cool is that. Goes a long way to explaining a lot of things.

I made Batman a pillow case once. The ONLY thing I can sew.....

Adrianlana, Welsh??? Me too. I am not sure but I think that there might be easier ways to drive onesself mad than by trying to learn Welsh.

I have some friends who named their band a welsh name , which looks something like this mmmmswyaydhherywree and is pronounced " Do "

HOW are people going to google them, I ask you?

Our Malena is part Welsh, what does she think? ( they are a mad race, but magic, is what I think )

 
At 11:41 AM , Blogger spacedlaw said...

The same rule of inconsistency applies to Irish. What you see as letters is not what you get as sound.
Maybe Celtic folks really DO belong to another dimension...

On the other hand, my love always complains about the fact that we French have TONS of letters in our words that are not pronounced.
But he would, being Italian.

 
At 12:30 PM , Blogger Rubius said...

ah... see Italian and Japanese are the languages for me. I LOVE Italian as a language and every time I hear Japanese I say to myself 'one day, one day you will understand that'. I only had 4 years of French in high-school (oh.. not to mention several years before that... it is mandatory in Canada) and most of it leaked out already. I skipped French in Uni, taking Latin and Italian for only one year each. I have always hoped to learn Japanese by osmosis... meaning from the scads of anime I watch and the jpop I listen to.

Unwillingly I am picking bits of French up from my French-Canadian boss.. but it kind of hurts to type out letters.. including all the accents... in French when your boss has to spell it all out (because of the hidden letters).

If only language was translatable as a inborn trait... then I would know Latvian.

 
At 12:35 PM , Blogger Kitty Cat said...

Quicheyarta,
not Batman, he is all mixy but no Bengal.
Drew's cat, Mister Kitty, who i just took a bird away from. He's the half Bengal. which explains EVERYTHING> ahahahah
ps you were funny in the background of the phoone today "I need a LITTLE more information"

 
At 1:19 PM , Blogger FabulousLorraine said...

Yes, " send her some Things " did not seems to cover it. That's right, it was Mr Kitty who was part Bengal. My head is elsewhere...

The Irish and Welsh and all that lot are from elsewhere. Malena is proof to that.

 
At 6:17 PM , Blogger Malena said...

HEY! Madam Malena Mim is the dominant one. Let's get that straight RIGHT ********** now! Aren't I cuddly at night with my fangs and claws.
Yes, I am welsh, viking and a little italian.

Malena is short for Maria Elena. I can say really filthy things in Italian, but nothing good, well decent anyway. (Learned it from the male models and cab drivers while modeling in Milano.) They would say, "Bella Figa! Ahhhh, Maron!" and do the catholic cross over their heart. I had no idea what was going on so I just smiled and said thanks. Ooops!

Miles, sexy portuguese lover that that he is said, "Beautiful Fig? Must be slang for _____"
It takes a man to see things in that special way doesn't it?

 
At 10:19 PM , Blogger spacedlaw said...

It is, too. But is is also used to comment on the fact that a woman is beautiful...

 
At 8:20 AM , Blogger Julia Rios said...

You might check out livemocha.com for French lessons online. It's a free language learning website, and I've been doing German lessons over there with some success. I lived in France for two years and have abominable French skills, but one thing I learned in high school stuck so well that I was compelled to constantly say, "Oh, les belles pommes rouges! Et ces peches! Ce marche a le meilleur produit dans la ville!" I think every French market I visited had the best produce in town.

Also, a joke.

Quelle est la sauce preferee d'un pirate?

La moutarrrrrrde!

this joke is not at all funny to French people because French pirates don't say arrrr. Very sad.

 
At 8:41 AM , Blogger spacedlaw said...

No , they don't.
They say "à l'abordage!", though.
How can anyone survive in France without speaking the language fluently? The locals aren't particularly good at languages.

 
At 9:21 AM , Blogger ariandalen said...

Actually, Welsh is a lot easier than Irish. Like Latin, and German, all the letters are pronounced. That doesn't mean they are pronounced the same as in English/American. "W" in Welsh is often a vowel; literally a "double u." This made my learning of vowels, way back in first grade forty years ago, much more logical as I learned my vowels as "a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y and w."

 
At 9:21 AM , Blogger Kitty Cat said...

Q: what language do cats speak?
A: Purrrrrrrsian

from your friendly neighborhood dork!
It is Grammy week, maybe next year we will see our girls accepting one...? So lots of roadie friends are in town, last night I had dinner with the EGo Likeness couple who did a track on the tribute to our Boss.
Tonight I will see the Gothic Statue of Liberty.
hurray! Photo shoot!

 
At 10:52 AM , Blogger FabulousLorraine said...

French pirates don't say ARRRR????

Hmmm...Doesn't seem right somehow...

Thanks for the website tip!!!!

Glad you are going to somewhere exciting Miss Kitty! I will be home with my Kitties, attempting to clean my Spooky House, as they roll around in my wake, destroying it.

 
At 1:31 PM , Blogger Malena said...

yeah! I get to go out with Kitty! wehoooooooooooooooo
Going out with Kitty is always the BEST time! Yes, we will take photos, of course. Maybe this time she will let ME (with my poser camera skills) take a few of HER....what do you say Meow Meow?

 
At 4:11 PM , Blogger Dan Guy said...

I am seriously going to start re-watching all of my Kate Beckinsale/Milla Jovovich movies in French. They contain all the French I will ever need in life, I'm convinced.

 

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