Creative Polyglot alias Polyglutton

I wonder if Polyglot is on the way to become a Polyglutton. I am about to cross all the limits and boundries to obtain this award. My poor stomach was crying out in agony and urging me to halt but I did not listen and continued to devour my master creation. If my husband would not have stopped me to finish the last bit of this silky smooth dish I would have achieved this honour today only. This morning I tried a new recipe of Butter Chicken and the result was marvelous, I was in heaven for few minutes. The aroma is still lingering, can't you feel a sweet odour is pouring in through the internet in to your house? I hope one day it's possible. Believe me if you prepare this dish it will create an explosion of flavour and saveur and take you to a realm where you are the king. Leave a comment to get a ticket to this kingdom.

Gourmandise

Hi all! Normally I don't like Mondays but today it was different. I was so eager to try a new recipe that I could not wait for Monday morning. I have not even prepared new French lessons since last 2-3 days as I am so busy on this gourmandise mission. A mission I am sure everybody would like to go on. Pineapple Pastry made my day on Saturday and today I am lost in Prawn Biryani's delecious world. Send me a mail or leave a comment if you wish to receive the mission report I mean the recipes. :)

Garden news

Few months ago an association called 'Yannick aux champs' invited people of our neighbourhood to join 'Le jardin partagé' that means a shared garden. Luckily we got one place and began our garden adventure. In our vegetable section me and my husband planted tomatoes and sowed peas and carrots. Unfortunately in our abscence poor tomatoes and peas dried up but carrots continued to grow and here is the first little one I picked up yesterday. Isn't it beautiful? The joy of eating the first home-grown vegetable is unimaginable.

Ask some questions

I am watching 'Julie & Julia ' simultaneously while writing this post. I am absolutely in love with this film. I have already seen it 5-6times. Why? because I am connected to these ladies in some way. I live in France, love French cuisine and married to a very nice guy like them. One more common factor 'blogging' so let's start rolling this blog. You learn faster if you ask questions. It is true for anything, so be curious, ask QUESTIONS. After four years of fruitless attempts and experiments to teach an European an Indian language I finally had my first success. Of course that European is my husband and I am proud to tell that now he can speak few sentences of Hindi because I taught him to ask questions. We will do the same.

1. Bonjour!

Je m'appelle Creative Polyglot.

Comment tu t'appelles? (What's your name?)

Je m'appelle....................

( It's your turn to answer.)

Bonjour, Je m'appelle Julie.

Comment tu t'appelles?
Je m'appelle Julia.

2. Bonjour Julie!

Qui est-ce? (Who is it?) (की एस?)

C'est Julia. (It's Julia.)

Bonjour Julia!

Qui est-ce?

C'est Isabelle.

Keep asking questions!

Publish some articles first

Articles are very important in French because all things living or non-living have a gender and if you do not know which article to put you change everything. Boy becomes a girl and girl becomes boy, it's serious, isn't it? Don't worry! We will see what are the most important articles. I am giving the Hindi phonetics beside the French word for my Indian readers, I am also trying to upload an audio file so that you can hear and practice.

The articles are divided in two categories, definite and indefinite. The indefinite articles are Un एं(masculine singular ) ,Une इयून (feminine singular) and Des दे (Plural). The definite articles are Le ल (masculine singular), La ला (feminine singular), L' ( words starting with a vowel either of masculine or feminine gender) and Les ले (Plural).

Indefinite articles

1.Un café

2.Une révolution

3.Des cafés

Definite articles

1. Le mont Everest

2. La tour Eiffel

3. L'océan Atlantique

4. Les misérables (One of Victor Hugo's famous novels)

The difference between French indefinite articles 'Un,Une & Des' and definite articles ''Le, La, L' & Les ' is the same as between English 'a ' and 'The'. Un café could be any coffee shop but Le mont Everest because there is only one in this world. Send me a mail for more examples.

fig.1 The famous French daily newspaper 'Le Monde' ( The world)

Ready for an autograph?

Bonjour my French fans! Comment ça va? How to answer this question? Please check out the post on Friday 8^th October. Those who are following regularly, they already know the answer. I hope you impressed people around you with these two simple but very powerful words ‘Bonjour’ and ‘Merci’. Let’s move one step ahead. Today we will learn how to introduce yourself. Watch out because you are going to meet some famous people here. Be ready to take autographs!

1. Bonjour!

Je m’appelle Kareena Kapoor.

Je suis actrice.

Je suis indienne.

2. Bonjour!

Je m’appelle Meryl Streep

Je suis actrice.

Je suis américaine.

3. Bonjour!

Je m’appelle Steve Martin

Je suis comédien

Je suis américain.

4. Bonjour!

Je m’appelle Thierry Henry.

Je suis footballeur.

Je suis français.

Did you understand? Isn’t it simple to learn by examples? I wish I could teach by French-French method but for that I need to interact with you. For now replace the name,profession and nationality of any one of the persons who introduced themselves above with your name,profession and nationality and voilà! Here you are transformed in français!

Send me a mail to get a list of nationalities in French and ask me for your profession too. I am waiting.

fig:1 I was there to watch the shooting of Pink Panther 2 at Eiffel tower, Paris but unfortunately it wasn't Steve Martin who did the stunt otherwise I would have dashed in to get an autograph.

Merci is as gentle as flowers

Do you still have the yummiest chocolate taste in your mouth and smell of fresh bread that stayed with you whole day along ? If no then go to a bakery one morning just to preserve that flavor in your mind and remember it everyday when you wake up, there is nothing else like that to start a nice day with. And then one day you will say to me ‘Merci’ . This is the next key word in any conversation. Bonjour is the key to open any door and Merci is the handle to close that door gently so that you may open it again without any problem next time. We learnt to open and close but what is in between? How to fill in that gap? Let’s see.

There is a parcel delivery for Madame Gerbaud, she opens the door and here is a small conversation between her and the mail man.

Bonjour , Madame Gerbaud. Comment ça va ?

Ça va bien. Merci.

Could you guess what was the dialogue? Just think for a minute and then I will give you the translation.

Exactly! This is it.

Good morning Mrs.Gerbaud. How are you?

I am fine. Thank you.

So you saw how we opened the conversation and then closed it, still it’s a tini-tiny dialogue. We will see later on how to complicate it, mean while you can practise these two sentences with your friends or family.

Say the password get the chocolates

When I arrived in France I got a cultural shock. We Indians are not used to see girls in bikini or in a swim suit on a beach nor to find a couple kissing in a public place or even at home in front of others but I was aware of these cultural shocks. The one I got was more of a cultural difference. We will begin our first lesson with it. The word I am going to tell you is the key to all the conversations and a password to enter any place or get your work done. Can you guess? Yes, you are right the word is Bonjour [bɔ̃ʒuʀ].

You dream that you are gliding on a wave of something sweet and fresh except it is not a dream. You get up with the smell of fresh bread from a near by french bakery. You go there say the password ‘Bonjour’ and you have the most delicious bread in your hands. You get ready, wait for the bus say Bonjour to bus driver and you are in, go to a chocolate shop say 'Bonjour' and you get the yummiest chocolates, go to a bank say Bonjour and you have your money (not always ;-) ). Everything starts with a ‘Bonjour’ in France, if you do not say it you are impolite. What is the next key word? Can you tell me?

French is fabulous

But I was wrong. I never enjoyed learning anything as much as I did while learning French. The journey to France was fabulous. In the beginning sometimes I wrote the pronunciations in Hindi, listened French Cds ,read a lot and even sang songs in French. That’s how I did not have to pay for lip-reading classes. :-) I fell in love with French (and later on with a French guy but that’s another story), so it is important when you learn a new language to be passionate about it otherwise it becomes a burden or a work to be finished. Please do not learn it just as a student, an employee or a tourist. Learn it as it is your passion and then you will discover the French beauty and joy. Tomorrow we will start the first lesson so do not forget to log on.

Fig.1: Magnificent Galerie Lafayette at Paris

French makes you feel hungry?

One thing was sure that French made all the students in the class including my professor very-very hungry. Yeah it was a morning class and nobody had time to eat breakfast at 6a.m but still how it’s possible that a language can make you feel hungry? well they ate half of the letters in each word! I mean they did not pronounce them. Sorry,I may be exaggerating a little bit but most of the time atleast 2-3 letters in the end of a word are never pronounced. My national language Hindi and mother tongue Marathi are phonetic languages that means we read as it is written, English is everywhere around us in India and we learn it since our childhood so it’s not a foreign language for us. I thought French is going to be a trouble.....................

P.S. In the photo gorgeous 'Apéritif Buffet' at our wedding.