Tag: Cross Cultural Comments

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When I first began teaching English in France, I heard an expression I had never encounterd before: False Friends. What in the world could that mean? Only a Frenchman would know … that he meant look-alikes or even worse, imposters or traitors!

There are quite a few words which, in French and in English, have the same or similar spellings, maybe the same roots but which are not used in the same ways in the two languages.  As with wild mushrooms … some look-alikes … are dangerous.

If you hear a Frenchman say “actually” in English … you can be suspicious. The word slips into a sentence easily and isn’t illogical in most cases. If the Frenchman knows that the word means “in fact” and he uses it that way … that’s fine. BUT if he thinks that “actually” is the faithful translation of the French word “actuellement” … we’re mistaken and into … look-alikes: A fair translation of the idea of “actuellement” would be “now, at the present time.”

We are thus facing not just two words but two different concepts.

The French word, actuel, expresses a concept in TIME; the English word actual expresses the concept of fact, of ACCURACY.

Misunderstandings are born of … assumptions. Beware of look-alikes!

Fortunately … “false” friends aren’t the only kind … There are thousands of real ones, those you can count on, including the TV series …

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By now you probably know that I, like you and most other domesticated animals, am sensitive to the weather: clear, sunny days are the ones I like best but the cloudier and cooler, I’d say brisky, ones give us the opportunity to put on our warmer jackets and scarves and hats and crunch leaves under our shoes as we walk down the streets, too.

Springtime is bye-bye to the winter everywhere; in France, summer is … oh! just take it all off! … and winter, well, according to where you are … in the winter, we appreciate being warm and dry at home and there are very nice winter days … if you’ve got warm socks and shoes and gloves and all that … but we’re not there yet. Today is September 21st.

Today is the first day of autumn. Fall.  We must all have memories attached to a season. It’s the air, the colors, the sounds, the light of day, of dawn, of dusk. It’s the moderate speed of the season. And among my fondest autumn memories is going mushroom hunting in the Limousin. The Massif Central. Les Monts d’Ambazac. For my American readers, this is the countryside around Limoges. A landscape of briar-covered hills and old stones; stone-lined Roman paths coming from who knows where crossing forests, deep dark green-forests where the ferns grow tall and the oak trees grow high. These are hills and woods you wouldn’t want to explore without a guide.

I had the best guides anyone could ever have: Maurice, my father-in-law, knew where the cèpes would be … if there were any to be found… and IF we could spot them just beneath the golden, brown leaves where they blended with the terrain just OUT of the ground  … he knew when the girolles might break through the moist earth … he knew that after the rain a day or two earlier IF the sun were to warm the earth just as the moon was in phase, well, maybe we’d come back with a few … maybe with a basketful. I remember so well wearing high boots so as to be protected against snakes, stepping hard so they’d slither away with the vibrations – and I remember so well, joyously bringing our treasure back to the little stone house, that thick stone house, cool inside no matter what the weather was like outdoors, with a big oak table, a fireplace and a wood-burning stove … where, after we’d meticulously scraped the earth off the stems and cleaned off the caps of OUR mushrooms… with a moistened cloth or tissue,  my mother-in-law would then cook up those only-in-the-autumn cèpes with garlic and parsley … and, because it was Sunday, an autumn Sunday, a special autumn Sunday because we were all together … serve them with a leg of lamb …

Lucky Days in France.

They sure made me feel welcome. More than welcome. Loved.

There’s nothing like a little emotion to help you remember an autumn day.

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Speaking to a group of people – often an audience, participants attending a seminar, a conference, a meeting;

What is the most common thing that you need to overcome?

Fear …

Gaining the essential self confidence and mastering your time in front of … one very important person or several hundred people is our objective.  If some of our politicians can do it,  you can, too.

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Here is a link to one of the best and most famous cheese sellers in France. Savour.

In English … and other languages!

androuet.com

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Mid-September is invigorating. Fresh. new. The hot, humid lazy summer’s behind us. It’s an encouraging month. It’s a forward-looking month.

Here in Paris, after a hint of the weather to come, the air is a little cooler, the clouds a bit higher, the days not quite so long. September is the background to the beginning of the year.

September is a school month.

Who doesn’t remember having to wake up, getting washed and dressed, gathering books and notebooks, pencil, paper and ruler, just in time for a quick breakfast and … out: September waiting for you outside on the doorstep.

It was the same whether you were student … or teacher … or a mother or father getting ready for your day.

September is optimistic.

It’s organizational. It’s putting things into order. And planning on how to get everything done on time. By Thursday. Schools mean … tests, too! But that’s not yet. This is September. We’ve got time … We’ve JUST started!

There are hundreds of schools in Paris and thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of students. Paris is a student’s paradise. And the center of the paradise is the Luxembourg Gardens, haven of peace in the whirlwind of the city, where students young and not so young anymore, do what we need to do most: learn to live in the outside world. September is the background.

September is an autumn color month. Yellows and gold and shades of browns and reds and crimson. Dark greens.

September is, perhaps, the most hospitable month of the year over here. There’s the shade of the chestnut trees and the sun streaming through, just right, so you can sit outdoors and if it does get too cool … you throw on a sweater, a pullover, a jacket … or go into a nearby (yes, smokeless!) café where you can appreciate the aroma of coffee.

September welcomes the world.

Paris and Savannah are extraordinary places to be in September. We have so much to learn! From our pasts, from each other.

September is here. October’s not so far off. What’s on your schedule? Good luck! Study, work hard, you won’t regret it! There’s so much more to be said about September … but it’s already 8:30 …and I’ve gotta go!

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Creating signs must be one of the most challenging occupations a person could have!

[Show as slideshow]

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Charleston and Savannah are sister cities. Both are located on the Atlantic coast and were among the earliest towns founded by the British.

If you’re going to Savannah, you might also want to visit Charleston. If you’re going to Charleston, you MUST visit Savannah!

In either direction, be sure to spend the day in Beaufort.

Pronounce BEW FUR T

The New York Times just published …

36 hours in Charleston!

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While I strongly suggest you spend much, much longer in Savannah, here’s what the NYT suggested a while back  … This needs some updating but it might give a taste to some of readers who’ve never had the opportunity to spend …

36 hours in Savannah.

Here are just a few Savannah scenes:

paris savannah newsletter 10

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Some mornings the tide brings in lots of sand dollars. This is what it brought in this morning!

by Catherine Rendon,

This past weekend we went sailing on an old wooden boat, a 30ft Morris, named “Joy”.  The captain, Michael Richter, is the first mate of the R(esearch) V(essel) “Savannah” –Skidaway Oceanographic Institute’s boat.  Michael and Paul are diving buddies and friends.  “Joy” is heavy and slow and her teak deck is weathered.  I started and finished the last of Larsen’s Millenium trilogy, my feet overhanging the bow occasionally being splashed or having the water cover my feet. The water like wall paper with a design of random cannonball jellyfish patterned here and there.  On our first day out we saw four big old turtles swimming out at sea.  They saw us too, big and heavy and quiet.

In the evening when we anchored we were surrounded by dolphin and were so close we could hear them breathing.  They sound just like people.  It was odd, looking at the night sky up on deck and hearing these familiar sighs and breaths so close by and not know them. They probably felt almost at home with our similar noises just above them. Yesterday we sailed back at a steady six knots from Hilton Head. We saw dolphins,pelicans diving and terns sitting on an old floating log, plus plenty of fish jumping. We sailed into a late summer squall/  It was beautiful.  Turner would have liked all the greys.  Then it was sunny again and we docked. We got back and jumped into the pool and got all the salt off ourselves.  We had swum in the sea off of “Joy” but the current was ripping. We  anchored near a shrimper whose anchor dragged all night and by morning he
was a distant silhouette.

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