Joyeuse fête nationale !

Feu d'artifice du 14 juillet 2008 ..., originally uploaded by y.caradec

I hope everyone had a wonderful Bastille Day whether in France, the United States, or any country! Treat yourself to some patriotic and classic French songs!

Prepositions

Prepositions in any language are words like "at," "on," "through," "along," "to," etc., that in a sense modify the following noun. Prepositions are really important, and misusing them can result in the wrong meaning. Here are some of the most important prepositions in French:

• à=to, at, in (a city)
• au=to the, at the (m.s. noun follows)
• aux=to the, at the (m.pl. noun follows)
• dans=in, inside
• en=in, into
• de=of, from
• du=of the, from the (m.s. noun follows)
• des=of the, from the (m.pl. noun follows)
• jusqu'à=until, up to
• avec=with
• sans=without
• pour=for
• sur=on, about
• vers=towards
• avant=before
• après=after
• pendant=during
• contre=against
• depuis=since
• entre=between
• parmi=among
• près de=near
• comme=like
• sous=under
• devant=in front of
• derrière=behind
• hors=outside
• au-delà de=beyond
• selon=according to
• à travers=through
• à côté de=beside, next to
• au lieu de=instead of
• à cause de=because of
• autour de=around
• au-dessus=above
• au-dessous=below
• au long de=along
• sauf=except, but
• malgré=in spite of

Verbs with prepositions built inQuite a number of French verbs, when translated into English, have a preposition built in, so to speak. That means when you use it in a French sentence, you won't need to add the preposition as you would in English.

• chercher=to look for
• demander=to ask for
• attendre=to wait for
• payer=to pay for
• écouter=to listen to
• descendre=to go down
• monter=to go up
• regarder=to look at
• enlever=to take off
• éteindre=to turn off
• sortir=to take out, to go out

I "Wordled" the French Corner!

I am really fascinated by this new tool called Wordle that everyone (and I mean everyone) is talking about! Basically, all you do is copy/paste a block of text into a box and a list like the one I created above shows up, showing you which words are the most common. I didn't need Worldle to tell me "French" is the most commonly word on this site (even more than "and" or "I"), but I found the design of my finished product so pretty, I made it the backdrop of the header graphic! Of course, I messed with the colors in my graphics program so it would match the site. You can customize the font, layout, color scheme, and lots of other attributes of your wordle. A lot of language educators are brainstorming how useful this tool could be. Read what Isabelle over at "My Languages" and Lisa over at "¡Vámonos!" had to say about it recently.

And to all my American readers...Happy Independence Day!!