French
Fashion of the Belle Époque
The Belle Époque period lasted from 1871 to 1914, the end of the Franco-Prussian war to the beginning of WWI. It is also known as the Edwardian era and the Gilded age. This period was known for luxury and excess for some people, and this was especially evident in the fashions of the time.
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 »La francophonie behind the scenes
During the entire month of March, we at the Alliance Française de Chicago have hosted a variety of events as part of our Festival de Francophonie. By the end of the month you’ll have had the opportunity to learn about Russian and French cultures influencing each other, hear about books from around the world, eat amazing food, and see films that explore a variety of Francophonie experiences. While we have a lot of fun presenting you with these events and we hope you have fun attending, we thought it would be good to also give you a little bit of background on why exactly we celebrate Francophone cultures and International Francophone day beyond just the fun of experiencing new cultures.
Read more »Finding Love at the Alliance Française
By Monica Fredette (With input from Yves Fredette) I met the love of my life on March 10, 2007 at Le Festival de la Francophonie at Chicago’s Alliance Française. It all started with a look at current events in a “Time Out Chicago” magazine while awaiting my hairdresser, Parto Nadiri. As I searched for upcoming events, I circled quite a few things of interest, but quickly honed in on the French event since I felt very at ease using my language skills learned in college and while studying in France.
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 »Read our interview with Sophie Loubière!
[caption id=“attachment3110” align=“alignleft” width=“231”] _Sophie Loubière[/caption] Sophie Loubière is a French journalist and writer who already published more than ten novels. She is urrently working on a new one, B__loody Coffee and this one will be set in Chicago! Before listening to her next week, come read about her in our exclusive interview;
Read more »Fun facts about Tales of Hoffmann
Jaques Offenbach composed the opera The Tales of Hoffmann in the late 1870s. Before dying he apparently had a premonition that he would not survive to see his opera performed… He ended up being right as he died only four months before the opera was performed for the first time! As a result, many different editions of his original score have been altered and this means that there are many different editions in existence. Recently there have been efforts to reinstate the opera to a close approximation of the original.
Read more »