This week’s round up covers more than the last week this time, so here’s the latest round-up of news & articles that have taken my interest over the last 10 days or so with quite a few stories on the current state of the world economy:
Mrs Sarkozy meets Metallica on TV - from BBC.co.uk. Carla Bruni spoke to Jools Holland about her music and being married to the French President when she appeared on Later with Jools Holland.
French hold out against credit crunch - from BBC.co.uk. I can vouch that the banks in France are much stricter than they are in the UK. It was almost impossible to get overdrawn when I lived there and when I did, I had the wrath of the banks to deal with!
«Fusion Man» traverse la Manche en vol - from LeFigaro.fr (in Franch). ‘Fusion Man’ flies across the Channel today propelled by a jet engine strapped to his back. He did a similar stunt above the Alps in May. Today’s escapade took 9.5 about 13 minutes to cross the Channel!
Some readers of this blog may know that I studied French at university, which without revealing my age, was quite a while ago. At the time my French was quite fluent having spent a year in Toulouse as an ‘assistante’ and also having a few jobs in France afterwards.
Since living and working back in the UK for the last 15 years, I’ve had to find other ways of keeping it up. I have a few French friends but don’t get to see them that often as they don’t live locally and my husband doesn’t speak French so can’t really practice much when I do see them! I do, however, go to a French class most weeks which is a French conversation group where we more or less talk about anything in French, with help from our teacher. Over the last few years that I’ve been going, it’s really helped to maintain my French. But the challenges come when I don’t go for a while and this week proved that not having been since the end of June means my French was already a bit rusty!
The hardest thing I find is remembering vocabulary, especially words I don’t use very often. The grammar isn’t such a problem although I do make mistakes but pretty much remember the grammar as it was hammered into me at school/university. My French teacher at school was so good that nobody in my class failed the ‘O’ Level (that’s showing my age!) and she inspired me to carry on with it.
So what do you do to keep up your French? As someone not living in France who doesn’t get to visit as often as I’d like, do you have any tips that you think have helped you to maintain your language skill away from the country, particularly any good French radio stations that can be picked up over the internet. Any tips are gratefully received!
It’s been a bit quieter this week on the news front, if you don’t include politics! Here are my links on French/France related articles over the last week or so:
Borloo confirme la «taxe pique-nique» - Borloo confirms picnic tax from LeFigaro.fr (in French). Jean-Louis Borloo, French Minister of Ecology, confirms that a tax surcharge will be placed on disposable ‘picnic’ items such as plastic cups, plates, tablecloths etc to help pay for recycling.
Young ‘dreaming of living abroad’ - from BBC.co.uk. 7/10 young Brits would one day like to live & work abroad. USA & Australia are the most popular destinations with France & Italy at 35% of those asked.
I like wine, but it doesn’t particularly like me. Just sniffing the stuff can bring me over all headachey, not because I drink the cheapest stuff I can lay my hands on either! If I’m going to enjoy a glass of wine, I like to enjoy it with another wine lover. Unfortunately my husband prefers real ale, so I don’t drink it much at home any more!
However, one wine that doesn’t seem to affect me too much is rosé wine, which I particularly like and it’s nice to see that it’s becoming more popular. Rosé wine is like sunshine in a glass and as long as I don’t overdo it, I much prefer it to white wine!
I recently found out about Jamie Ivey’s blog Blue Sky Living Magazine and was fascinated to find that he’s been tracking down the palest French rosé he can lay his hands on. According to his blog, the palest rosé is Clos Landry from Corsica. He’s also written a book about his journey to find this wine called ‘Extremely Pale Rosé’ with a couple more books written since.
It’s inspiring to see someone changing their whole life from being a professional worker in the UK, to following a dream in France, which I’m sure hasn’t been without its challenges. So why not pour yourself a nice glass of rosé and take a look around the blog and his magazine, available to download from the site (in French & in English, so good practice for you). Santé!
One of the things that epitomises France for me is a French person going down the road on their vélo solex. Whenever I see one it always reminds me of the French countryside, they’re a great way to get around the country lanes!
In fact they still seem to be quite popular, perhaps because there aren’t many of the original ones around any more. Apparently they’re still made, although I haven’t found a website that seems to sell them other than Ebay, where there’s a new one for sale at a price of £250 (with 2 days bidding left).
The maximum speed is 35kms/ hr - they probably almost run on fresh air, but at that speed it would take quite a long time to get to your destination! I think the old ones are definitely the best if you can find one!
If you want to see lots of them in action, you can check out this video on YouTube - with some great French background music!
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This month's header image is of La Conciergerie viewed across the Pont Notre Dame & Pont au Change, Paris
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For more information and images, please visit the website for the property - Gassin Property
Charming House for Sale nr Agen
A friend is currently selling their house in the Nerac/Agen area, south west France. It's a very pretty property with about 5 bedrooms and plenty of land, just outside the village of Vianne.
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This week’s round up covers more than the last week this time, so here’s the latest round-up of news & articles that have taken my interest over the last 10 days or so with quite a few stories on the current state of the world economy:
Some readers of this blog may know that I studied French at university, which without revealing my age, was quite a while ago. At the time my French was quite fluent having spent a year in Toulouse as an ‘assistante’ and also having a few jobs in France afterwards.
I like wine, but it doesn’t particularly like me. Just sniffing the stuff can bring me over all headachey, not because I drink the cheapest stuff I can lay my hands on either! If I’m going to enjoy a glass of wine, I like to enjoy it with another wine lover. Unfortunately my husband prefers real ale, so I don’t drink it much at home any more!
One of the things that epitomises France for me is a French person going down the road on their 
