“Le” or “la”? Even the French can’t decide

by Anna Brones on

If you’ve ever dabbled in the French language, you know the difficulty of memorizing which gender goes with which noun. Why is a beard — la barbe — feminine? Why is a bicycle — le vélo — masculine? Well you shouldn’t have to feel bad about your French language difficulties; turns out even the French can’t agree on which gender goes with which word.

A recent study conducted by Dalila Ayoun at the University of Arizona found that, “Fifty-six native French speakers, asked to assign the gender of 93 masculine words, uniformly agreed on only 17 of them. Asked to assign the gender of 50 feminine words, they uniformly agreed [on] only 1 of them. Some of the words had been anecdotally identified as tricky cases, but others were plain old common nouns.”

Put simply, even native speakers have a hard time distinguishing between le and la. But I’m not surprised, French is after all très difficile.

Via LanguageHat

French prez Nicolas Sarkozy tells man, “Get lost, you stupid bastard”

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Is Nicolas Sarkozy the new “Leave Britney Alone” guy? Following the success of his Youtube video “Sarkozy drunk at G8,” the French president is now starring in a new video that has already become an internet sensation:

If your French is rusty, here’s what happened in the above video: Sarkozy was walking through a crowd at an agricultural show in France, when he approached a man who told him, “No, don’t touch me. You disgust me.”

Sarkozy responded with “Casse-toi alors, casse-toi alors pauvre con,” which translates roughly to, “Get lost, you stupid bastard.” Various news organizations have reported the translation differently. Reuters replaces “stupid bastard” with “dumb ass”; the AP chose “total jerk”; the BBC went with “bloody idiot.”

Any native French speakers out there care to help out with the translation?

Oscar nominated shorts: A world tour

by Jamie Rhein on

Every year as a member of the Columbus Academy Motion Picture Pickers (CAMPP) I embark on a movie going frenzy to see all the movies nominated in every major category. Not on the list of my obligatory must-sees were the films nominated for Short Features and Short Animation, but I saw them anyway and highly recommend them as a way to enjoy the scope of humanity and art.

For the past three years I’ve seen the nominated movies in both categories all in a row, one after another–10 in all. This is one way to travel from country to country, from sensibility to sensibility in a few hours. What strikes me is that, although there are often cultural influences and differences particular to each country from which the movies hail, there are many thematic similarities among them. What this shows to me is through the diversity, we can always relate. Terrific stories are terrific in any language.

These movies are making the rounds. Check out film festivals or independent cinemas to see if you can catch them. Here’s the list of the films and which country they are from:

Short Film (Live Action)

Short Film (Animated)

For clips of the animated shorts, head to BuzzSugar.

Why the French aren’t fat

by Anna Brones on

Sometimes I think we have an obsession about pondering over the reasons that France offers such rich, indulgent food but that its population remains incredibly trim.

How do they do it? I can of course come up with a few of my own opinions on the subject, but for the time being I will leave it to the most recent study done by Cornell University Food and Brand Lab.

The study found that despite all those baguettes, brie and accompanying wine, the French stay svelte because they use internal cues — such as feeling full — to know when to stop eating. Americans however use external cues — such as when their plate is clean or the TV show that they are watching is over.

Basically we Americans are mindless eaters. So if you want to truly enjoy French cuisine, without the pounds, maybe it’s time to start listening to what your body tells you.

French wine: China does Bordeaux

by Anna Brones on

Although climate change might be having a negative affect on wine, France still managed to come out on top for 2007. The land of wine and cheese saw record scores for exports, $13.8 billion to be exact. Where were the big buyers? China.

China purchased a whole $364 million worth of French wines, cognac and other spirits, encouraging us to ask, is China going à la francaise? The country’s growing middle class discovering the delights of wine has made China France’s 11th largest market. And the Chinese aren’t just sitting at home sipping on Bordeaux; many are investing in French vineyards.

A company from Qingdao, an eastern port city famous for its beer, recently paid $3 million for a Bordeaux chateau. This isn’t child’s play; the company outbid a countess from Luxembourg to put its name on the chateau’s Bordeaux bottles. Seems like we will be looking forward to truly globalized vino.