Classes
Classes Frenchness French Language
5 Reasons to Join AF Chicago this Fall!
Jess from Scotch & the Fox is one of our students! 1: It’s the place for all things French in Chicago! The Alliance Française de Chicago is the place for all things French in the city! It was established in 1897 and is part of an international network of over 1,100 Alliances and affiliated cultural centers worldwide. It is the second oldest Alliance Française in the U.S. and second largest after the one in New York City.
Read more »
Gazette de l'Alliance par nos étudiants !
As some of you might have seen this past week we have released our first edition of the “Gazette de l’Alliance,” our very own student-made journal available here. I am very proud to introduce this fantastic work realized by our students and I want to congratulate and thank them for their hard work, their perseverance and their accomplishments in learning French. I am thoroughly impressed by what they did and as a teacher I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to work with them. Bravo à Ashley, Kim, Lauren et Andres!
Read more »Verlan your French! How can your French sound more like a native speaker?
If you have ever learned a second language you probably have had the experience realizing that the language you are working so hard to learn might be very different from the way that language is actually spoken. Think of how in the English language, numerous words become trendy and other words fall out of fashion. Sometimes rather than a few single words changing, an entire separate grammar structure is born within a language. You may be familiar with pig-latin or cockney rhyming slang but did you know that there is a secret language that has become a big part of everyday spoken French? It’s called verlan!
Read more »The romance between French and English
No language is a completely static thing. In a way, a language breathes and grows, similar to a living organism. Over time, words are gained and words are lost. [caption id=“attachment_3328” align=“alignright” width=“339”] A language tree of Proto-Indo-European language relationships. The dotted line shows the influence of French on Middle English.[/caption]
Read more »Learning a new language makes you a better person
Imagine that you are on the train. You’re sitting down and trying to read an Alliance Française blog post on your phone but you can’t help but get distracted by those around you. The man across from you is loudly eating a ham sandwich. The woman next to you yawns and suddenly it strikes you how you also need to yawn.
Read more »Dolphins become bilingual in their sleep. What does that mean for us humans?
At the Planète Sauvage in Port-Saint-Père, France in 2011 it was observed that captive dolphins were talking in their sleep. While sleep-talking in general can be rather alarming, what made this even stranger was that they weren’t speaking the same dolphin language they speak during their waking hours. Instead they the sounds were closer to a whale language!
Read more »Cheesy cheesy melty food
In the mid-west we are known for our casseroles and hot dishes. If you grew up here you might have memories of eating mounds of tater tot hot dish or green bean casserole. These recipes probably involved some variation of vegetables and/or tater tots swimming in a pool of condensed mushroom soup.
Read more »