Now that les beaux jours arrivent (the nice days are coming), how about celebrating le printemps (spring) with a lesson on this time of growth and renewal for humans and nature alike? So, let’s look out for signs of spring in the natural and the human world and explore some spring-related vocabulary.
People like to celebrate spring in different ways. For some, it’s a great opportunity to refresh a winter wardrobe with something fleuri (flowery) and printanier (springlike). In this video, a boutique offers sustainable fashion, like this ethical robe fleurie (floral/flowery dress):
Hein, c'est joli? -C'est très fleuri. -C'est printanier. -Ouais.
It's pretty, don't you think? -It's very flowery. -It's springlike. -Yeah.
Caption 28, Alsace 20 La chronique Mode de Caroline: mode éthique
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For the practically minded, le printemps is an excellent time to start un nettoyage de printemps (spring cleaning):
Les gens courageux et motivés font un nettoyage de printemps tous les ans.
Motivated and hard-working people do a spring cleaning every year.
In any case, most of us like to fêter le printemps (celebrate spring) and the arrival of nice weather by venturing outdoors. Sophie and Edmée even enjoy seeing others profiter du beau temps (enjoy the nice weather):
On vient de fêter le printemps le vingt-et-un. Du coup, c'est assez logique qu'il fasse beau... et c'est génial de voir des gens en terrasse prendre des cafés, profiter du beau temps.
We just celebrated spring on the twenty-first. So it's quite logical that the weather is nice... and it's great to see people on the terraces having coffee, enjoying the beautiful weather.
Captions 30-31, 39-40 Sophie et Edmée Le beau temps
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As for Marie and Sandra, they too are excited to see that le soleil est sorti (the sun is out).
Oui, oui, oui, ben là le soleil est sorti
Yes, yes, yes, well now the sun is out
Caption 6, Marie et Sandra Atelier d'art - Part 4
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Which reminds Sandra that Marie, her art student, wanted to dessiner des feuilles et des fleurs (draw leaves and flowers):
Et je me souviens que tu m'avais dit que tu voulais dessiner des feuilles et des fleurs.
And I remember that you had told me that you wanted to draw leaves and flowers.
Captions 8-9, Marie et Sandra Atelier d'art - Part 4
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Marie decides to draw some flowers that she picked (cueillies) on her way to class, among them a dandelion (un pissenlit):
Donc en venant ici, j'en ai cueillies... Ben, ce que j'ai trouvé dans la rue en fait, un pissenlit...
So coming here, I picked some... Well, what I found in the street in fact, a dandelion...
Captions 10, 13, Marie et Sandra Atelier d'art - Part 4
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She might have picked some primevères (primroses) or jonquilles (daffodils) had they been available:
Elle n’a pas trouvé de primevères ou de jonquilles.
She didn’t find any primroses or daffodils.
Sometimes people simply dream of beautiful jardins (gardens) with fragrant pivoines (peonies) and roses, like the lucky lady in this video:
J'étais dans un jardin avec des odeurs formidables. Avec des fleurs, des pivoines, des roses...
I was in a garden with wonderful smells. With flowers, peonies, roses...
Captions 19-20, Micro-Trottoirs Rêves et cauchemars
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While some dream of spring gardens, others might compose a poem with a spring theme. In her beautiful words, poet and novelist Suzy Le Blanc depicts love as an ephemeral rose qui est éclose (that opens up) in spring and qui se fane (that withers) in winter:
L'Amour est comme une fleur. Il est comme la Rose
Qui au matin est éclose et nous éblouit. Mais quand viennent l'hiver et la nuit
Elle se fane et on l'oublie.
Love is like a flower. It is like the Rose
Which in the morning opens up and dazzles us. But when the winter and the night come
It withers and we forget it.
Captions 1-3, Suzy Le Blanc Romancière, poète
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In any case, it’s best to enjoy spring while it lasts. Parisians do just that. They fully appreciate their local garden avec ses arbres tout en fleurs (with its trees in full bloom):
Au beau milieu des tours du treizième arrondissement, faites une petite halte repos au Jardin Baudricourt avec sa jolie fontaine et aussi ses arbres tout en fleurs.
Right in the middle of the towers of the thirteenth arrondissement, make a small rest stop at the Baudricourt Garden, with its beautiful fountain and also its trees in full bloom.
Captions 22-24, Voyage dans Paris Le Quartier Asiatique
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Spring is also a time when fruit trees like cerisiers (cherry trees), abricotiers (apricot trees), and pêchers (peach trees) are in bloom. To learn about other types of trees in French, check out this lesson:
Les arbres fruitiers comme les cerisiers, les abricotiers et les pêchers sont en fleurs en mars, avril, mai.
Fruit trees such as cherry trees, apricot trees, and peach trees are in bloom in March, April, and May.
As for vines, la floraison (flowering) comes later in June in France:
Vers le... début juin, mi-juin, ça dépend des années, on a la floraison qui va se faire.
Toward the... beginning of June, mid-June, it depends on the year, we'll have the flowering that will occur.
Captions 32-33, Provence Domaine Rouge-Bleu - Part 2
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People are also on the lookout for the first bourgeons (buds) of the season. In his song "Bienvenue chez moi" (Welcome to My Home), Stromae makes a passing reference to spring to describe his home, a dichotomy of good and bad, à moitié bourgeons (half budding):
À moitié bourgeons, à moitié fortes
Half budding, half going strong
Caption 10, Stromae Bienvenue chez moi
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To wrap up this fragrant lesson, below is a list of the spring-related words and expressions we covered:
le printemps: spring/springtime
fêter le printemps: to celebrate spring
profiter du beau temps: to enjoy the nice weather
éclore: to open up, bloom
faner: to wither
un bourgeon: a bud
la floraison: the flowering
fleurir: to flower, to blossom
fleuri, fleurie: flowery/floral
une fleur: a flower
printanier, printanière: springlike
(tout) en fleurs: in (full) bloom
cueillir des fleurs: to pick some flowers
une pivoine, une rose, un pissenlit, une jonquille, une primevère: a peony, a rose, a dandelion, a daffodil, a primrose
un cerisier, un abricotier, un pêcher: a cherry tree, an apricot tree, a peach tree
un jardin: a garden
le nettoyage de printemps: spring cleaning
Wishing everyone un printemps ensoleillé (a sunny spring)! Thank you for reading.
This lesson is brought to you by the letter Z. Why the letter Z? Because few French nouns contain the letter Z. On the other hand, most verbs do, which is a handy thing to know when playing French Scrabble, as the letter Z is a high-scoring letter.
Almost all verbs in the second-person plural vous (you) end in -ez, as in vous savez (you know). What’s more, this is the case in pretty much all moods and tenses.
In the present tense:
Et toujours, vous savez, la langue est toujours liée à la culture.
And always, you know, a language is always tied to its culture.
Caption 42, Allons en France Pourquoi apprendre le français?
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In the imperfect tense:
Le saviez-vous?
Did you know?
Caption 1, Le saviez-vous? L'art culinaire français
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In the future tense:
Maintenant vous saurez que à chaque fois que vous entendez un verbe qui se termine par le son "é", c'est un verbe du premier groupe
Now you will know that each time you hear a verb that ends with the sound "é," it's a first-group verb
Captions 42-45, Le saviez-vous? Les verbes du 1er groupe
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In the conditional mood:
Sauriez-vous jouer au Scrabble en français?
Could you play French Scrabble?
While most verbs conjugated with vous (you) end in -ez, there are not as many nouns ending in Z. But a few of them are very commonly used, such as chez (at/to the home of), le riz (rice), le nez (nose), le raz-de-marée (tidal wave), and le rez-de-chaussée (ground floor):
Bienvenue chez moi
Welcome to my home
Caption 7, Stromae Bienvenue chez moi
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Elles mangent du riz.
They are eating rice.
Caption 28, Farid et Hiziya Boire et manger
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ce Milanais qui vous peignait une courgette en guise de nez
this Milanese man who painted you a zucchini as a nose
Captions 23-24, d'Art d'Art "Les quatre saisons" - Arcimboldo
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Mieux encore, les racines des palétuviers amortissent les effets des raz-de-marée et des fameux tsunamis.
Better still, the mangrove roots absorb the impact of tidal waves and notorious tsunamis.
Captions 19-20, Il était une fois: Notre Terre 9. Les écosystèmes - Part 7
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J'habite au rez-de-chaussée, donc je n'ai pas besoin de monter les escaliers.
I live on the ground floor, so I don't need to go up the stairs.
Caption 6, Joanna Son appartement
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As you can hear in the examples above, Z at the end of a word is almost always silent in French. So then why do we pronounce the Z in gaz (gas), for example? That’s because it's usually pronounced in words of foreign origin:
Factures: téléphone, gaz, électricité.
Bills: telephone, gas, electricity.
Caption 30, Extr@ Ep. 1 - L'arrivée de Sam - Part 1
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Le français a une bande passante qui fait mille, deux mille hertz
French has a bandwidth that measures one thousand, two thousand hertz
Caption 34, Lionel Langue sous hypnose
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When Z comes at the beginning or in the middle of a word, it is always sounded just as it is in English. Here are a couple of interjections starting with Z:
Allez, zou!
Come on, let's go!
Caption 111, Claire et Philippe La campagne
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Je pourrais dire "zut" aussi.
I could also say "zut" [darn].
Caption 8, Le saviez-vous? Les expressions inspirées de la musique - Part 2
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You'll also find the letter Z in certain numerals, such as quinze (fifteen), seize (sixteen), and zéro (zero):
Et voilà, me voilà parée pour, sortir par, moins zéro, moins quinze degrés.
And there we have it, here I am dressed to go out in below zero, negative fifteen degrees.
Caption 14, Fanny parle des saisons S'habiller en hiver
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Now that you’ve zipped through this lesson, we trust that you will apply this newfound knowledge with le zeste (zest) and le zèle (zeal)!
In this lesson, we're going to discuss a somewhat tricky aspect of French color words. Like the vast majority of adjectives, most French color words agree in gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural) with the noun they modify. Let's take the adjective noir (black) as an example:
Ils peuvent être noirs.
It can be black.
Caption 11, Le saviez-vous? - Le vocabulaire de la tête
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Ensuite vous avez mon écharpe noire, une simple étole.
Then you have my black scarf, a simple wrap.
Caption 9, Fanny parle des saisons - S'habiller en hiver
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In the first sentence, noir modifies the masculine plural noun cheveux ("hair" is always plural in French), so it takes the masculine plural ending -s (noirs). In the second sentence, noir modifies the feminine singular noun écharpe, so it takes the feminine singular ending -e (noire).
However, certain color adjectives are invariable—that is, they never change regardless of the gender and number of the noun. All of these adjectives are derived from nouns. Take orange for example. As in English, in French orange refers to both the color and the fruit (une orange). Though you can certainly have de multiples oranges (multiple oranges), the adjective form of the word never changes, even in the plural:
J'ai acheté des chaussures orange.
I bought orange shoes.
On the other hand, rouge (red) isn't invariable (since it's not derived from a noun), so it does change in the plural:
Tu as acheté des chaussures rouges.
You bought red shoes.
Another common color adjective that never changes is marron. Un marron is a chestnut, but when used as an adjective, it just means "brown":
Regardez ces chiens. Ils sont marron?
Look at these dogs. Are they brown?
Caption 52, Leçons avec Lionel - Couleurs
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The other word for brown, brun, is variable. In this example, it modifies the feminine plural noun feuilles (leaves):
De tas de feuilles à moitié mortes...
Lots of half-dead leaves...
Un jour vertes, un jour brunes
One day green, one day brown
Captions 9-11, Stromae - Bienvenue chez moi
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There's another word for "chestnut" too! It's une châtaigne. The related adjective châtain is variable and is often used to describe hair color:
Ils peuvent être châtains.
It can be chestnut-colored.
Châtain, c'est marron.
"Chestnut" is brown.
Captions 12-13, Le saviez-vous? - Le vocabulaire de la tête
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Some other invariable color adjectives are: abricot (apricot), ardoise (slate), argent (silver), azur (azure), brique (brick), bronze (bronze), café (coffee), caramel (caramel), champagne (champagne), chocolat (chocolate).
There's one more instance of invariability you should be aware of when dealing with color words. When you use more than one adjective to designate a single color (like "light blue," "dark green," etc.), neither of the adjectives changes according to the noun it modifies. For example:
Il a les yeux bleu clair et les cheveux brun foncé.
He has light blue eyes and dark brown hair.
But:
Il a les yeux bleus et les cheveux bruns.
He has blue eyes and brown hair.
As you may have noticed, like many other adjectives, color adjectives always follow the noun in French. See our previous lesson for more information on that. And for a good introduction to colors in French, check out Lionel's video on the subject.
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned and tweet us @yabla or send your topic suggestions to newsletter@yabla.com.
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