Stephanie’s daily commute in Paris

Our faithful Paris correspondent, Stephanie, took pictures of her daily commute from home to work and back. These are great pictures that really give the favor of the city!

My Commute – a set of pix on Flickr

Paris is getting quiet again… it must be the end of july

If you’re still going to Paris before “la rentrée” (the return to school and work), it is likely to look like these pictures. The title mentions “end of July” but it’s like this in August too.

Rion.nu | paris is getting quiet again… it must be the end of july.

Carla à l’Elysée, la République privatisée

Here is another article on Carla. This one is deeper, more acerbic, and in French. Edwy Plenel laments  Sarkozy’s marketing of his wife and marriage – what he calls the privatization of the Republic – and refers to the Vanity Fair article as evidence of it. It appeared in the August 20 edition of Mediapart.

Carla à l’Elysée, la République privatisée

France’s first lady – a new Jackie Kennedy or a new Princess Di?

A lot of us are fascinated by France’s new first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. A pop singer, Italian heiress and former model, she – and, actually, her husband – is the subject of Vanity Fair’s September cover story. If you’d like a good overview of one or both, you can click on Mareen Orth’s overview on:

Paris Match: Style: vanityfair.com

Dictionaries approve new French words

Various French dictionaries are keeping up with changing French life by including some brand-new words. Should we learn them… or will the very fact that they’re now accepted make the rebellious French not use them anymore? The columnist suggests the latter – that the French are so contrary that, now that the words are in dictionaries, his countrymen will stop using them. After all, he suggests, the contrariness was one of the reasons the French coined them in the first place. The observation is ironic albeit quite possible.  In any case, the new words do reveal much about today’s changing French culture.

If you can figure out the words – and the article suggests that even many French can’t, can you see different categories that these words fit in?

Ce que l’on peut dire – La république des livres – Blog LeMonde.fr

Father-daughter French class

Watch a father and his 7-year-old daughter learning French together. They’re preparing for a visit to France… Is Broadway next?  (Click on picture for 1.5 min video).