French Word-A-Day

lavoir

lavoir (laah-vwar) noun, masculine

    wash house, washing place

Audio File & Example Sentence
Listen to my daughter's dear friend, Sonia, pronounce these French words:
Download MP3 sound file

On lave son linge sale au lavoir.
We wash our clothes at the (community) wash basin.

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A Day in a French Life...
by Kristin Espinasse

At the old stone lavoir* in Saint-Maurice-sur-Eygues a man is doing the washing.  There is a plastic bucket beside him and box of sugar in his hand. He is sprinkling the white powder over the linge sale,* which drips from the centuries-old stone below. When the laundry begins to froth at the surface, I realize that not sugar--but laundry detergent--is responsible for this sudsy chemical reaction.  Turns out our washer man has recycled the plastic box of sugar into a soap recipient, so as not to carry a much bigger box to the launderette each time.

I study the ancient wash room from across the street, where I have finished a photographic journey around the Provençal village. I am headed back to my car, content with the images I have captured, only, the man at the lavoir is the most precious picture of all! As a rule, I do not point my lens at the locals. It seems intrusive--if not exploitative. However, just as with French grammar, there is an exception to every rule and, in this case friends are that exception.

After all, the man and I had established some sort of rapport* (you might say we were des connaissances*) back at the fountain when first I arrived to the village. Seated on some steps, he had been feeding the birds... and I had been setting out, from the municipal parking lot, to discover the village. 

Locking my car door, I had paused to witness the scene across the way:  the joy on a stranger's face, the happiness that only a dance with Dame Nature* can bring. The dance, in this instance, was no more than the doting relationship between man and wild animal: Monsieur was feeding the pigeons.

How his face lit up with delight, bite after bite, on feeding the feathered friends to his right! When one of the pigeons flew up--to land at the top of the fountain--a friendship was born: that's when I pointed my lens at the pigeon and snapped the photo. Monsieur smiled at me, as if I had photographed a member of his very own family. He pointed to his bag of bird feed (a small sack of rice, premier prix*). I nodded in affirmation. Hunger is hunger, black, white, or feathered, and he who gives to the poor is priceless.

...Priceless as the scene before me of a lone man washing a lone shirt in a lonely French town. Of the many remarkable scenes I had viewed from the other end of a camera lens, none were so picturesque as this. But how to proceed? It occurred to me that I might simply ask Monsieur's permission for his photo.

Permission granted, I watched as Monsieur thoughtfully rearranged the bucket and the box of soap before returning to his chore. I could now see his working hands, as they kneaded and scrubbed, and I now had a better view of the soapy subject:
"Ma chemise,"* Monsieur explained, and his accent was as foreign as my own.

"Je suis marocain,"* the washer man offered.
"And I am American," I offered back.

But what to say next--apart from "do you come here often?" And so it was that I asked the clumsy question:

"Do people actually use these old washbasins?"
"Vous savez,"* Monsieur said simply, unassumingly, "on n'est pas tous les riches."*

I set my costly camera aside... and wanted to crawl under the stone lavoir and hide. I had an urge to become small, petit as the pigeon back at the fountain--and with an appetite as all-consuming as its own: an appetite for amour* and approval from the man sans machine.

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Thank you for your comments & feedback.

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~~~~~~~~~French Vocabulary~~~~~~~~
le lavoir (m) = wash basin; le linge (m) sale = dirty laundry; le rapport (m) = connection, relationship; la connaissance (f) = acquaintance; la Dame Nature (f) = Mother Nature; le premier prix (m) = first (bargain) price; ma chemise (f) = my shirt; je suis marocain = I am Moroccan; vous savez = you know; on n'est pas tous les riches = we are not (all of us) rich; l'amour (m) = love

Book (photo above): Lavoirs: Washhouses of Rural France
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Postnote: Monsieur, sensing my malaise, offered a kind conclusion to our conversation:
"Besides," he said, "Je n'ai pas de femme," I don't have a wife... and not alot of clothes to wash.... Je n'ai pas besoin d'une machine à laver.

colis

Today's story, by guest author Arnold Hogarth, takes place in Paris, on the charming Ile Saint-Louis....  Speaking of Paris, mille mercis for the fun and inspiring Paris suggestions that you sent my friend, Greg-- who sends you his remerciements.

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Today's word from French Word-A-Day. (...sign up if you haven't already!):

colis (ko-lee) noun, masculine

    : parcel, package

Audio File & Expressions:
Download MP3 sound file and listen to my eleven-year-old daughter pronounce the following:

par colis postal
envoyer/recevoir un colis

Trois jeunes de 17 à 20 ans ont été placés en garde à vue après le vol de 46 colis postaux. Three youths, aged from 17 to 20, were placed in police custody after stealing 46 postal parcels. --Le Parisien

Book: Tune Up Your French: Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Spoken French

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P  E  R  C  E  P  T  I  O  N  S
by Arnold Hogarth

What is America’s fascination with France? Beyond the museums, walking tours, monuments, cafes----just what is it? Well, for this American, it’s the difference in values, attitudes, and perceptions submerged in the deep waters of each culture.
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When, on occasion, one surfaces – there can be confusion, sometimes angst, but many times great humor, and even moments of sweet poignancy. This story is true . . . (more or less).

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A Paris Lady

Post Office on Ile. St. Louis:
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As I reached for the aluminum glass door to the tiny Post Office located on Ile. St. Louis in central Paris, an old lady carrying a cardboard box, of dimensions approximately 18” x 18”, rushed in front of me and at the last minute crowded between my extended arm and the aluminum handle I was reaching for—and  inserted herself and her box between me and the door. The box could not have been heavy, as she managed it easily with ungloved hands that showed the ash and wrinkles of a very old trooper.
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The temperature was approximately 40 degrees. With neither gloves nor a scarf, she warded off the moist chill with only a worn wool coat, a crown of wiry snow white hair, a black and white checked cotton dress, black leggings and brown boots of the working type, not the fashion type.
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She peered at me through glasses more resembling goggles, and said something in French. I speak no French, so spoke back in English -- and she just looked at me. Just then a teenage girl approached and said, “excuse me please,” nodded politely to the old lady, and said something to her in French. The old lady smiled thinly and the teenager then turned a sweet gaze on me and asked if I would permit the old lady to precede me.
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I smiled at the old lady and she went to the postal counter on the right. The counter to the left had a young man heavily engaged with the clerk. I estimated his transaction would take a long time; so, I lined up behind the teenager, who insisted I go in front of her because I arrived before she had.

“Do you know who that lady is?” the teenager whispered to me in a lovely French accent.
“Why no,” I replied.
“Oh,” she said, “that’s Madam de Gerverseux,” as if I would immediately know who she was.
“Madam de Gerverseux?”
“I think she’s almost 90 now,” the teenager said, “she lives just around the corner in a small ground floor studio apartment.” Madam glanced around at us while the clerk went to the back room to fetch something. From her curious expression, I think she sensed that we were talking about her, and I think she understood some English. Taking a good look at her, I realized that she was quite attractive and her eyes were not old, but crystal blue and very penetrating. She smiled sweetly at me with a long and sturdy gaze.

She didn’t look close to 90--closer to 70--but because of her worn clothes and somewhat bent posture and movements of an older person, I didn’t think twice about her at the door; but, as I say, upon closer inspection, she was very pretty. The clerk returned and there was immediate reengagement regarding madam’s cardboard box.

“So, who is she?” I asked the teenager.
“Before the second war, around 1938,” the teenager said, “when Madam de Gerverseux was around twenty, she was the toast of Paris, a dancer, singer, and one of the great beauties of the era. She was an understudy to Josephine Baker, the famous, American Black entertainer, and worked with her many years at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysèes. All the children in Paris learn about Madam de Gerverseux life. She was also a hero in the French underground movement during the war and responsible for saving hundreds of French lives. Everyone knows who she is and what she has accomplished.”

“But,” I said, “she seems so bedraggled, almost like a street beggar.”
“Oh, no,” said the teenager, “she made a fortune during her time, and as far as anyone knows, she has a lot of money. It is said, though, that she lives like she does, because money is of little value to her. She tells people there’s nothing it can provide that isn’t available without it. We learned all about her in school, and every school child in France knows how wealthy she is.”

The clerk took Madam’s cardboard box from the counter top, cradled it easily on his hip and gently patted the top of Madam’s hand, and said something in French. She smiled radiantly, turned, nodded kindly to me and the teenager, and walked proudly with quick steps and pushed through the aluminum glass door. We watched through the window as she stepped briskly down the sidewalk. The sun was out and shown on her face as she turned and smiled at us through the window.

“I wonder what was in the box,” I said, “such a big box and so light.”
“Oh,” said the teenager, “there’s never anything in the box. She comes almost everyday at about this time, with a similar box and mails it to herself. Sometimes, you will see that the box is torn and scrapped where she has repeatedly removed the old label – and she brings the same boxes in time after time until there are in tatters, and then she replaces them with new boxes.”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to disparage the great women. Just then the clerk said something to me in French, and I shrugged.

“Yes, Monsieur, what can I do for you?” he said in broken English.
“Do you have a box like the one the madam just carried out?”
“Oui, Monsieur,” and he went to the back room. I could hear him rattle around and he soon reappeared with an identical box. “And what,” he asked, “do we put in the box?”
“Just this,” I said, handing him a note I had quickly scribbled.
“And where do we send the box, Monsieur” the clerk asked.
“Do you have Madam’s address?”
“But of course,” Monsieur.
“Please address the box to her,” I said.

As I went to leave, the teenager asked, “Do you mind if I ask what you wrote?”
I reached out my hand and held hers, and told her that I had written - "I love you".
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Arnold Hogarth, 77, was raised in So. Cal. and currently lives in Fallbrook, San Diego county. He is retired and spends two months in Paris each year.

Please help me to thank Mr. Hogarth for his story by leaving your feedback and comments in the comments box! A simple "merci" might really make this writer's day, qui sait?

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Cinéma Vérité: your weekend virtual French getaway!

l'accent tonique

Les hasards du métier: I have been hollered at...while photographing the locals...but this is the first time I have ever been mooned by one! Photo taken in the town of St-Maurice-sur-Eygues, coming soon to a Cinéma Vérité "theater" near you!

l'accent tonique (lah-ksahn toh-neek) noun, masculine

    : tonic stress (aka "accent d'intensité)

Audio File:
Listen to my son Max's definition: Download "accent tonique"
L'accent tonique c'est quand tu appuies sur une partie d'un mot, genre insister sur une syllable. Tonic stress is when you put stress on a certain part of a word, for example, by insisting on a syllable.

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Today we're going to talk about "tonic stress" à la français. In case you were wondering (as I was...), "Tonic Stress" is not a new fitness fad for forty-somethings. Non. And Tonic Stress is not an Anglophile cocktail-- served up with an olive and a twist of lemon--at the Bar Hemingway in the Ritz Hotel....

Be not mistaken: Tonic Stress is not a modern-day malady (you won't find the term in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, no SIR-ee ... or might that be sir-EE?). Again, Tonic Stress is not some Parisian potion to put on our hair spare heads, as if! Comme si! 

Finally, Tonic Stress is not a reaction, one undergone or suffered by French pigeons, when stalked by an uber-anxious American expatriate. No, tonic stress is.... well, it is...

(...the "pressure of finding a suitable definition for Tonic Stress" -- might that be what tonic stress is?).  Apparently not. Read on, in the following letter:
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Hi, Kristin,

Signing your “livre d’or”, in addition to reminding me that I owed you another story, also reminded me of an incident that casts some light on the difficulties of understanding spoken French.

I used to subscribe to the audio series “Champs-Elysées”, and on one of their tapes (yes, it was tape cassettes at the time), a word popped up which sounded like “dédor”.  It was in the context of an award being given in the fashion industry.  Of course, with “Champs-Elysées”, you get a transcript of the tape, so I looked it up.  The actual expression was “dé d’or”, meaning “golden thimble”.

My immediate problem was that I had not previously known the word for “thimble”.  But on a deeper level, a problem with spoken French is that, for various reasons, it’s very hard to separate the words in a spoken stream.

One reason is that most final consonants are not pronounced at all.  Another is la liaison, which attaches the final consonant from one word, modified, to the beginning of the next (running them both together).  But perhaps the major reason French words run together is the lack, in French, of what in linguistics is called a “tonic stress” (in French, “l’accent tonique”).

In English, the tonic stress is very important.  It moves around as a word is varied, and it’s important for speakers to get it right.  Thus, for example (showing the stressed syllable in capitals):

“Photograph” is pronounced /FOE-te-graf/

“Photographic” is pronounced /foe-te-GRA-fic/

“Photographer” is pronounced /fe-TOG-re-fer/

Which syllable is stressed is a major part of distinguishing these words when you hear them, as the actual endings added, “ic” and “er”, are themselves very short.  And if, in a sentence, you hear two stressed syllables, there’s a word division in between somewhere.

Alone among all the languages I know, French has no tonic stress on individual words.  Instead, in French, the stress falls on the last syllable of a group of words united by their meaning.  Other Romance languages have tonic stress on individual words.  In Spanish it’s so important that if the stress doesn’t fall in a standard position, the stressed syllable is marked with a written accent mark.  In Italian, it’s not marked (unless it’s on the last syllable), but you’d better know where it is (as in English).

Only in French is it lacking, which can cause all the words in a spoken sentence to run together, as if they were one word.  Showing the stress:

Je vais aller à l’université deMAIN.

If that were an English sentence, it would probably be read:

Je vais ALLer à l’uniVERsité DEmain.

For all the above reasons, if in a spoken French sentence you encounter a word you don’t know, then you don’t know where it ends.  Then you don’t know where the next word begins, and you risk losing the entire rest of the sentence.  In other languages, particularly Germanic languages like German and English, you have a better chance of actually hearing the divisions between the words.

Having studied French, Spanish, and Italian, I find them to be quite similar, and of about equal difficulty, in their vocabularies and grammar.  But French is much harder to speak and to understand when spoken.  This is for the above reasons, and also because it has a lot more sounds than Spanish and Italian, and some of them, for a native English speaker, are very odd and hard to produce.

Just some thoughts on the language.

Regards,

Larry

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Note: Larry Krakauer, a retired engineer, organizes a free conversation group every other Wednesday evening, in the vicinity of Wayland, Massachusetts (USA). Contact Larry at:  LJK@alum.mit.edu 

A Vous de Parler / Your Turn to Talk
Many thanks to Larry for his thoughts on language. Now, let's talk about "Tonic French"--that is: Let's get our French in shape by talking about l'accent tonique and more: share your comments about language learning. Do you have difficulty, as I do, pronouncing French? What are some questions that you have always wanted answered, about the French language? To all French teachers, students--and Francophones-- who may be reading: please help answer any forthcoming questions in the comments box. Merci beaucoup!

Don't miss an entertaining anecdote by Larry, here.

And check out the bestseller Exercises in French Phonics, by Francis W. Nachtman, for more on French pronunciation and how to pronouce French words correctly!

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