La bière is what we’re talking about. French [...]]]> OK, so it’s not exactly an online French class – you can’t answer back or pass notes to each other – but I hope this little insight into French beer will give you a slightly better command of the language. It will help you get a drink too!

La bière is what we’re talking about. French beer is mostly a light, lager-type brew and quite weak – around 3%. It’s also not huge on taste, but the french aren’t big beer drinkers. It’s something to satisfy a thirst on a warm day – if they want thoughtful, complex drinking, they have wine.

There are exceptions, of course. The north east is well-known for its beer and you can cross the border into Belgium for all manner of brews – some of which are black as night and strong as whisky! If you go into Paris or any of the large cities you’ll find bottled beers to satisfy the connoisseur too.

Out in the countryside though, in the majority of towns and villages, you’ll normally find just a choice of one on tap, and maybe a couple of others in bottles. The beer on tap is invariably cheaper.

French beer is usually served by the 1/4 litre. You can ask for a pression (which means draught) but it’s more common to ask for a demi – which confusingly means half, although it’s a quarter litre. Don’t ask me why! By the way, that’s une pression or une demi because beer is feminine.

You never hear people ask for un verre de bière which would be a glass of beer (un, because the glass is masculine and comes before the beer).  A bottle of beer is une bouteille de bière (une because bottle – bouteille – is feminine). It’s more likely that you would ask for the beer by name if you are asking for a bottle – une bouteille de Kronenbourg, par example (for example).

In most parts of France you can also have half a half. Confused? You can get half a demi which is known as a bok. You’d probably get a funny look if you asked for une bok in a bar in Paris but out in the sticks, drinking with your French friends, it’s a politely small amount to have if you’re just about to leave but someone insist they buy you a drink. Une bok, merci.

You can also get half litre and even litre glasses in towns and cities. You’ll seldom see the French drinking out of one, so basically it just marks you out as a tourist!

That’s about it for today’s online French class, except a little note about French beer prices and how they vary depending on where you sit. Sound strange? I’ll explain.

Normally you don’t need to go to the bar. Find a table and sit and a waiter will come over. Not always quickly – but that’s France. If you sit inside the bar you will get charged a certain price. If you sit outside the bar – on a sunny terrace or a  street corner – it’s quite normal for you to be charged extra – even if it’s only a couple of feet further away. If you go to the bar and stand there to order your drink, and drink it at the bar, you will pay less than at an inside table – but you might well get frowned at! The bar owner and the waiters will often try to intercept you and steer you to a table.

As a general rule I’ll sit at a table at first, until I get to know the staff. If I go in with friends we’ll sit at a table. If I’m just popping in on my way past, having a quick beer on the way home, I will probably stand at the bar – but only once they’ve got to know me.

There you go – an online French lesson in French beer etiquette – whatever next!

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I don’t mean anything dirty or smutty here – I mean the fact that when you’re learning to speak French you need to remember that everything is either masculine or feminine. It’s either le (male) or la (female) for “the” [...]]]> One of the biggest problems I have had with learning to speak French is the sex!

I don’t mean anything dirty or smutty here – I mean the fact that when you’re learning to speak French you need to remember that everything is either masculine or feminine. It’s either le (male) or la (female) for “the” – or un (male) or une (female) for “a”.

If you’re Spanish, Italian or Portuguese this is no big deal (those languages are constructed in the same way) and Germans have even add a neutral tense so that’s worse – but for us English speakers it’s something completely new. We just say “table” or “knife”, we don’t have to remember it’s Mrs Table and Mr Knife!

What would be useful would be if there were some pointers you could use – like all words beginning with “P” were masculine, for example.

No such luck. What’s worse is that things you would think were one thing, are the opposite. I don’t want to be sexist here but you would think a bra would be feminine, wouldn’t you?

Nope. Not in French. It’s masculine, le soutien-gorge. How can that be!!!?

So unfortunately there really is no way around it. When you learn the French for something you have to learn it’s gender too. It’s not the end of the world, and most times it doesn’t matter, but it can cause confusion on occasions because sometimes words can have le and la variations.

For example, le tour means a tour – like the tour de France cycle race or a tour around the countryside. La tour is a tower – the Eiffel Tower is la Tour Eiffel.

Le poêle is a stove but La poêle is a frying pan. Probably the worst is le mari, husband and la mari, marijuana!

Make the effort though and most French people will either politely correct you or ignore it. It’s frustrating at first if you are putting an effort into learning to speak French but it comes with practice.

Working the other way it’s usually easier. If it’s got an e on the end it’s usually feminine – la chaise, the chair. Stylo is pen. No e on the end so masculine – le stylo. Of course if the word has a vowel at the start they’ve got you again because they hide the le or la. L’enveloppe (yep, envelope) is actually femenine. L’éléphant (yep, elephant) is masculine.

So how can you tell? You can’t, but if you look at the ‘a’ or ‘an’ version it’s some help because an elephant is un éléphant, hence masculine. An envelope is une enveloppe, hence feminine.

Confused yet?

The point of all this, I suppose, is that when you start out learning to speak French you need some kind of structured help. Like the free lessons you can get from either of those two ads on the right. Just coming here and learning French on the fly can be done – but you’re making it more difficult for yourself than you need to.

Learning French in France helps enormously, of course, there’s no better way than immersing yourself in the culture and talking to French people every day. That’s not really practical for most people though – and even then I would still recommend some kind of course or lessons first, just so you get the basics down.

Learning a new language is always a challenge but it’s much easier now than when I was a kid and if you’re going to spend time here it’s well worth it. Not learning French means you miss out, not just on what’s going on around you, but also on a certain je ne sais quoi of French life.

Take advantage of the modern learning systems available and you’ll not only learn quicker, you’ll have more fun.

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I don’t mean people visiting France on vacation, you’ll get by fine in most places (although a bit of French will help no end), I mean people who come to [...]]]> If there’s one thing that makes me growly about living in France it’s the number of ex-pats who make no attempt to learnt the French language.

I don’t mean people visiting France on vacation, you’ll get by fine in most places (although a bit of French will help no end), I mean people who come to live in France permanently.

Not only is it downright rude, you would miss out on so much of French life and culture. OK, in reality there are so many English, Americans and other English speakers over here now that you can just about get by without speaking French – but why? You want to live in France but not communicate with the French? Give me a break!

Told you I get growly

I’m not suggesting it’s easy. I’m in my late forties and it’s a long time since I failed French badly at school, but even a few words make a huge difference. The French will treat you a hell of a lot better and you’ll save a fortune.

To instal fosse septique, dig big hole!

I’ll give you a real-life example.

A couple of friends of mine bought a French farmhouse that needed renovating. First job is the drains and, like a lot of French rural properties, there are no mains so you need a septic tank (fosse septique). To cut a long story short they got three quotes (never go for the first quote you get).

First guy is French but speaks English: 16,000 Euros. Second guy speaks no English: 9,500 Euros. Third guy speaks no English: 6,500 Euros. That’s a 9,500 Euro difference! I don’t care if you convert that to dollars or pounds that’s a lot of money. If my friends hadn’t been able to speak French they might just have got the quote from the first guy…

Was the first one trying to rip them off? Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was just maximizing his advantages.

There’s actually a funny conclusion to this story. My friends, not unsurprisingly chose quote 3 and on the appointed day the workers arrived. Monsieur Frenchman number 3 was there to oversee things, but the guy who actually did the work? Monsieur Number 1 – the guy with the highest quote – sub-contracting for the guy with the lowest!

After five years here I wouldn’t say I’m fluent in French but I get by. Because I work in France I’ve had to deal with all kinds of medical, insurance, banking, accounting, you name it… and the French are rightly famous for the amount of paperwork they generate!

Anyway, I’ve learned a bit and while there’s no way I would attempt to teach French I will be doing a few posts on common French language things that trip people up.

In the meantime, if you’re looking into how to learn French I do have someone I would recommend. During my time here I’ve tried a couple and best value by far is Rocket French. You learn from a French person as well, where some of the others – quite expensive courses – have English or East European teachers.  Seems odd to me but there you go.

Last I checked Rocket French have a special offer to learn French for free for 6 days so you can try it for nothing. Seems like a great deal to me!