French sessions in Nice, starting soon
A handful of people, one afternoon, and French as the only language in the room while you cook, taste or play chess. The first sessions are still being set up.
In the meantime, there are idioms to get you started. When it’s freezing, the French call it a duck cold, and when your voice goes, there’s a cat in your throat (English has a frog). Each idiom comes with what the words literally say, next to how English, German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese put the same idea.
Six French idioms that make no sense word for word
For when you know exactly what you mean
and can’t find the French for it.
- Il ne faut pas pousser mémé dans les orties lit. ‘don’t push granny into the nettles’ Don't push it, that's going too far
- Avoir une araignée au plafond lit. ‘have a spider on the ceiling’ Someone is a bit crazy, or is acting as if they've lost their mind
- Quand les poules auront des dents lit. ‘when hens have teeth’ It will never happen
- Courir sur le haricot lit. ‘run on someone’s bean’ To annoy or irritate someone
- En faire tout un fromage lit. ‘make a whole cheese of it’ To treat a small problem as if it were a big one
- Avoir la gueule de bois lit. ‘have a wooden mouth’ To feel ill the morning after drinking too much alcohol
Stories about learning by doing
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Who learns languages more easily, children or adults?
Everyone says children pick up languages faster. I think adults have the better tools. Children just have no choice, and that part works for adults too.
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The cow exploded
Growing up near Ramstein, early DVDs from the American base, and a friend who learned his English from movies and video games.
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Oh my, Apfelkuchen!
The second Language by Doing session in Berlin, where people who'd never made one baked a sheet of grandmother-style apple cake.