If you haven’t done so already, read over the introductory lesson on gender in French grammar.  Once you get the basic principal of all nouns having gender and start to memorize the various French words vocabulary for ‘the’ and ‘a,’ you’ll be ready to move on to…
… Gendered pronouns!  Get ready folks, ‘my,’ ‘your,’ ‘his,’ [...]

Okay, last one on grammar for a while.  If you haven’t already, go ahead and read an introduction to masculine and feminine, so you have a firm understanding of le, la and les.
This is the last lesson in a short series on gender in French.  Once you understand that every noun is either masculine or [...]

What on earth is ‘ben’?

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Or ban or bin or bink, depending on whom you ask or what you read. Ben is a filler word; it is ‘um,’ ‘er,’ ‘well,’ ‘hmm,’ and ‘but’ all rolled together. In short, ben is what you say when you’re not [...]

Okay, I know, grammar (to people who aren’t nerds, like me) is not very exciting, but there are some distinct differences between English and French grammar that must be addressed.
All nouns in French (and their associated pronouns, articles, and adjectives) have a gender.
That is to say, every person, place or thing is either masculine or [...]

LES JOURS DE LA SEMAINE – THE DAYS OF THE WEEK
“Nous sommes mercredi.”
“We are Wednesday.”
This is the way I learned to announce the day of the week in French class; according tomy middle school text book, in France, we are the day of the week.I have never actually heard anyone [...]

When Americans think of suburbs, we tend to envision rows of look-alike houses, white picket fences, and sprawling lawns where 2.5 children play as their adoring parents look on. Er, well, that’s what we would have envisioned in the 1950s with the introductions of places like Levittown. In any case, we still picture a [...]

“Avec ceux-ci?” [a-v?k' sø-si’]
“With these?”
This is a favorite phrase uttered by pâtisserie [pastry shop] employees all over France.  Even if you order just one croissant, the pâtissier [pastry maker] will undoubtedly ask you, “With these?” rather than, “With this?”
So what’s the big idea?  The French, you see, are a proud people, and [...]

Les Rues de Paris: Partie Deux – The Streets of Paris: Part Two
“Demander son chemin”
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“To ask for directions”
You’ve arrived in France and made it to your hotel.  You’re jetlagged, but determined!  With a copy of Paris Arrondissments in hand (you picked one up at an outdoor presse on the way [...]

“Une chambre, deux lits”
“One room, two beds”
When my boyfriend and his brother were traveling by bike through the south of France, this was the phrase they lived by.  It was simple, to the point, and got them what they needed as far as accommodation was concerned.
At the end of a long [...]

“Faire la bise”[fer la biz]
“To kiss on the cheek”
To faire la bise is to greet someone in the traditional French fashion: with a kiss on each cheek.
In some regions of France (and in other Francophone countries), three or more kisses is on par, but generally speaking, two is the [...]