French Word-A-Day

machine à coudre

 This picture may help illustrate what the shop (in today's story) looks like. Replace "Blanchisserie" with "Chez Janine" and the blue panels with dark lacquered wood... et voilà! Note: the next post goes out in one week, on Monday....

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une machine à coudre (ma sheen ah koodr)

    : sewing machine
 

Audio File: hear Jean-Marc pronounce these French words: Download Wav or  Download MP3

Savez-vous opérer une machine à coudre? Do you know how to operate a sewing machine?

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

I set out to write a journal entry today, but a writer's fingers sometimes have a mind of their own! The following story is fictional.... Enjoy it. Meantime, time to pack for les vacances!   

"Chez Janine"

Immobilized in front of the little Parisian shop window, I stared at a handwritten note taped to the glass door, just above the iron handle from which a rope with cow bells hung. The words, in typical French curlicue cursive read: Cherche Quelqu'un pour le mois d'Août.

Looking for someone for the month of August... The words made their way over my tongue like a sweet pastille of possibility. Cherche. Quelqu'un. Mois d'Août.

I stood back to study the seamstress shop.  The window was framed in lacquered wood. Two columns flanking the vitrine held a larger, boxy, three-dimensional sign. The heavy letters protruding from the wood spelled Chez Janine.

My eyes trailed back down to the sign-printed window where a menu proposed the following prestations:

- réparations 
- retouches 
- création
- couture
- anecdotes...

To the bottom right of the window, a painted carte de visite read:
Janine, "couturière et conteuse"

Beyond the window pane, in the immediate display area, was an old Singer sewing machine. Baskets full of striped, floral, and unicolor linen flanked the machine à coudre. Inside one of the paniers, a calico cat napped.

Beyond the work station, I saw shelves and drawers lining the walls of the small shop. Buttons filled tall glass jars, lace and other trim were gathered on large wooden bobbins. There were giant scissors too!—so large my eyes tired beneath their weight. In the corner, a dressmaker's mannequin loomed, its hourglass figure a little more curvy than those belonging to the Parisian woman passing behind me, on the trottoir (I could see their reflections in the shop's window, where my nose now flattened up against the glass). I raised my hands and cupped my eyes, straining to discover more of the shop's personality. I could just make out some stairs in the corner... where an antique escalier en colimaçon took up a minimum of space. The steps turned abruptly, ascending within the tight, rounded stairwell, one so narrow that it took four complete turns to reach the upper level.

I wriggled my shoulders, freeing them from the heavy pack on my back. I set down the sac à dos on the cobbled sidewalk in time to reread the curlicue announcement but no sooner had I translated the first word than the shop door flew open setting off a commotion of cowbells. 

A whiskey-worn voice sounded before even the bell chimes had settled: 

"Je peux vous renseigner?" the voice inquired.

***

:: Le Coin Commentaire ::

Would you like to read another chapter of this story? Note: The next edition goes out in one week....
Click here to comment.

French Vocabulary

une prestation = service offered
une retouche = alteration
le panier = basket
le trottoir = pavement, sidewalk
Je peux vous renseigner = Can I help you?
une conteuse (un conteur) = storyteller 

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 A Day in a Dog's Life by Smokey "R" Dokey

As you can see, I have been doing some growing up lately! Now that my face is almost full-size, I will be getting some shee roo roo gee, to finally fix my left cheek!

 
 
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moeurs

 Please take a minute to read my interview with Janet Skeslien Charles. Click here. Photo taken in Cassis. Many more Cassis photos in the weekend edition of Cinéma Vérité. Please join me.


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les moeurs (lay muhrs) noun fpl

    1. morals  2. customs  3. manners, ways

c'est entré dans les moeurs = it's become normal practice
avoir des moeurs simples = to lead a simple life

Please help me welcome guest columnist David Shaby, (pictured below, right). He talks about a few of the differences he has noticed since arriving in France, on Saturday. 
 

 Hello, my name is David Shaby. For the last couple of days, I have been living in the Espinasse home. My good friend, Maxime Espinasse, invited me to stay with him on his family's beautiful vineyard. Throughout my stay in France, I have noticed two differences between French and American culture.
 

One of the major cultural differences is the type of commercials. During second night in France, Max and I were watching  TV when a few peculiar commercials came on. In the first commercial, a man and women were laying down in a meadow cooing to each other. Being from Los Angeles, I was expecting some corny body spray commercial. To my surprise, the commercial was advertising cheese.  In the second commercial I saw, there was a young child who appeared to be depressed. His mother called him over for lunch, the depressed child sadly walked over to the table until he saw his mother take a warm baguette out of the oven. His heart leaped with joy, and the boy was no longer sad. In France, instead of perfume, make-up, and deodorant, there are more food commercials trying to appeal to emotions rather to looking good.
  

The second major contrast I noticed between French and American culture is the food. Wednesday, I was taken to a French McDonalds where I noticed a major difference in the taste of fast food. I ordered two double cheeseburgers, expecting to taste what I would taste at an American McDonalds. At the French McDonalds, the Double Cheese Burger actually tasts like a double cheeseburger. Unlike in America, there was minimal grease, not very salty and the meat tasted a lot fresher. I believe that the McDonalds in France is overall healthier because the animals in France are more active and better treated than in America.

***

:: Le Coin Commentaires ::
Would you like to comment on David's article? Click here. You might also help me to thank him for sharing his impressions.

 Thank you for visiting our sponsors!

Les portes tordues (The Twisted Doors): The Scariest Way in the World to Learn and Listen to French! Check it out (if you dare).

Hotels in France. Visit EasyToBook.com to find the cheapest hotels in almost all France cities.   

***

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composite

                                               Chez le dentiste in Morocco. 

   
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 composite dentaire (kom poh zeet dahn tair)
    : a type of dental filling made up of composite materials
 

Audio File hear these French words via Wav or MP3

Un composite dentaire. J'ai perdu un composite dentaire.
A filling. I lost a filling.
 

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

I was flossing my teeth the other day when the minty thread caught... and something disengaged. An ever so slight ting! had my eyes following sound down into the sink....

I bent over to study the object. Was it a composite? Forlorn, I reached for the jagged form (no bigger than a peppercorn). 

Was it a tooth or a filling? The thought had me faint, heart reeling.

Staring at the little lost limb (or so it might have been!) I wondered about age, loss, and whether or not to give a toss? 

Hair, belly, teeth, and all that striving to keep them neat! Brush after every meal! Careful what you eat!

I looked into the palm of my hand where all those life lines meet... There sat the toothy thing, menacing like middle age, haunting like hormonal heat.
 
  

:: Le Coin Commentaires ::

 Comments, corrections, and stories of your own are welcome. Click here to leave a message.


 :: Toothy Expressions ::

croquer la vie à pleines dents = to fully live life
 avoir les dents longues  = to have long teeth = to be ambitious
faire ses dents = to cut teeth (new teeth emerging from the gums)
œil pour œil, dent pour dent  = an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
avoir une dent contre quelqu'un = to hold a grudge against someone

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