Listen…to the rhythm of life

It’s the time of the year again. Meng texted me in early Dec: “Bonjour mon amie, what happen to our Christmas lunch?” This year, I have delegated this task of organising Christmas lunch to Evelyn, I haven’t forgotten about it. I just don’t have time to organise it.

Everything went so fast this year, for me, many big events happened - my sis’ ROM, getting my own place and renovating it, getting married, moving to my own place, and on top of that, practically non-stop travelling throughout the year, for business and for leisure. My travel highlights have to be being ’smoked’ and horse-riding in Inner Mongolia, getting drunk in Champagne, fighting jetlag and workload in Washington, and finally, immersing in the Christmas market in Frankfurt! I took so many photos that I am so behind in uploading them into my picture trail website www.picturetrail.com/hooiping. I am behind by over 1 year!

Our last session of the year at AF was about les Journées européens du Patrimoine. We encountered this European Heritage Weekend while in Reims,  Champagne in September this year. All entrance to the museums were free-of-charge during these two days.  So I can relate very well with this topic According to our textbook, not only the museums are open for free, some of the governmental building or minitre that are usually closed to public are open to all during Journées européens du Patrimoine. Yannick asked whether any of us have visited the Istana during its open house.

• Albert: Oui, j’ai joué les chansons pour le PM.
• Yannick: Quelles chansons?
• Albert: “Anak”, une chanson Phillipine très populaire.
• Hsiu Mei: Pourquoi une chanson Philippine?
• Yannick: Peut-être il a bon souvenir de sa femme de menage?
• Classe:…..(laughs)….

Choon Hau visited us during la pause because he couldn’t make it for our Christmas lunch due to a prior arranged rendezvous. He is very much into playing golf now and hasn’t got any motivation to rejoin our class
After break, Choon Hau has kindly helped us to take our class photos before Yannick spreaded out a French game - Trivial Pursuit. The young-at-hearts (i.e. most of us except maybe Hsiu Mei) gathered around the game, some jumping like a kid, and some eagerly waiting to plunge into playing the game.

The aim of the game is get as many camembert as possible, by making the right move and answering correctly the quiz questions which are categorised into different continents in the world.

Albert, Evelyn and I were in the Jeune team. One of our question was:

“A Tahiti, à quoi sert la carton blanc de l’arbitre au foot?”

• Evelyn (giggling and whispering to Ping): Because they are all black, need a white card…..hahaha
• Ping: (immediately burst into laughter)

The correct answer: A expulser temporairement un joeur.

This year’s Christmas lunch was held at Au Petit Salut at Holland V. Ivy is almost 4 now. Add one more year and it’s an indication of how long we have been learning french, since we knew Ming before she was pregnant.  Ivy is gradually showing her talent in drawing and art, probably inherited from Meng. Her crab and illustration of me was …ehem…interesting.

Food was nice especially the starter and dessert. For main course, I ordered provençal pork ribs, and found that my pork ribs portions were less than the others. So I jokingly complained. They served me 2 scopes of sorbet during dessert to compensate for that!

Well, I am just very glad that this group of friends are still staying strong despite most of them are not leaning French anymore. Life won’t be the same without all of you.  Bonne nouvelle année 2009 mes amis!

New session. We are now at Taxi 3, unité 10. Our professeur is still Yannick. I missed so much of his lessons for the past 2 months!

Leçon 37: L’Esprit des lois

• Yannick: Deux par deux, vous discutez quels sont les sens du mot l’esprit. Deux minutes.
• (then he went out of the classroom)
• Classe: …(looked at each other)….esprit? Spirit loh…what else?
• Francis: I think he (Yannick) just wanted to go out.
• Albert: Yeah, he just wanted to pee so he gave us this to think about.

Yannick returned very quickly with 3 history-book-sized French-to-French dictionaries. And asked us to look up ‘esprit’.

• Francis: Souffle de Dieu (breath of the God)?
• Classe:…(laughs)…
• Yannick: Quais…
• Siew May: Aptitude intellectuelle
• Yannick: Quais, une capacité, une disposition…
• Albert: Réalité pensante (literally - reality thinking)
• Classe: ….huh….
• Yannick: Comment vous direz ça en Singlish?
• Siew May (after learning this last week): C’est trop CHIM!
• Albert: Better than ‘Souffle de Dieu’! 

So, after this exercise, the meaning of l’esprit des lois = la principe/coeur des lois.

Yannick also gave us a glimpse of ‘life after Taxi 3′ - available courses for us to continue.

1. Apprendre le français avec TV5
2. Une méthode Cadence 4
3. Le français dans tous les sens, tous les directions, avec des thèmes (cours modulaire)

Me, I think I want to repeat Taxi 3. My textbook and exercise book is barely used! Allison and Evelyn feel the same too.

I kept this blog in the closet for almost 3 months to complete a major milestone in life, and shockingly when I return, it changes face (by itself!). What happened to my nice simple layout?  I explored further and took 2 days to select the new theme and finalise the new look for my blog. With new features, I am still learning how to use it better.

It’s also a good timing revamping this blog, as I begin a new phase of life. I have chosed the picture of apple trees taken in Champcharme, Pays d’Othe near Troyes in the Champagne region of France. It’s my first time seeing apple orchards - that’s after 2 hours drive in the countryside to this little town not found in the map, and after asking at least 3 locals. The embarassing part was not this. I called the owner - Madame Dimanche (yes, Mdm Sunday) - of the orchard at 1.30pm saying that we would be coming from Troyes. She was expecting to see us within half an hour. And we arrived just before 3pm! But we did have a scenic drive and saw a lot of apple trees on the way.

Madame Dimanche and her apple orchard

Leçon 27, another chapter packed full of interesting discovery. Ever since Yannick took over Manu, I find that I learn much more about the French language as well as the culture/tradition, and am more driven to do homework! Pas mal!

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We read about a food review website and une bande dessinée (BD) on the norms of food preparation in restaurants. Some useful vocabs:

• Mitonner (v) = cuisiner avec beaucoup l’attention, d’amour et de temps
• e.g. Je mitonne cet recette pour toi.
• Se régaler (v) = avoir du plaisir, aimer le repas
• e.g. Il se régale à MacDo.

We came across a traditional French dish in the text - le cassoulet. Yannick asked if anyone of us tried it and what’s in it. Only Puay Siang responded.

• Puay Siang: Du canard, des laricots blancs (beans), du lard, des carottes, des saucisses.
• Yannick: Savez-vous les plats traditionelle Française?

The gourmets Puay Siang and the Chinese lady (don’t know her name) each spelt out a few dishes:

le canard à l’orange, le gratin dauphinois (avec du pommes de terre du fromage et crème), le boeuf bourguignon (originates from Burgundy), le coq au vin…

• Poh Lin: Ratatouille!
• Yannick: Ouai, et aussi le steak-frites, la blanquette….
• Bevlyn: Qu’est-ce que c’est la blanquette?
• Yannick: Je pense elle est rare à Singapour, du veau avec une sauce blanc et champignons.
• Yannick: Et la taboulé, une salad avec la semoule.
• Ping: ….(hungry!)…..

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I was asked to read the text on les interjections, the various words/sound the French use for exclaimation. Here are some interesting ones:

Exprimer

• l’admiration: Quah! (this one is quite universal)
• l’interrogation ou la surprise: Hein!
• le soulagement (relief): Ouf!
• e.g. Ouf! En fin un resto ouvert!
• l’difference: Pff! Bah! Pof!
• e.g. Vin rouge ou vin blanc, pff! Comme vous voulez.
• le dégoût: Beurk! Berk! (similar to yucks) Pouah!
• e.g. Pouah, c’est dégueulesse ce truc!

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The classe was made to repeat after the audio CD’s examples on using these words. We had to dramatise our voice trying to sound like the French. Albert was quite good at it!

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Did you know…

that spring roll in French is a direct translation: un rouleau de printemps!

Actually, the English version is literally translated from the Chinese 春卷!

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P.S. Can someone tell me where can I taste authentic plats traditionelle Française in Singapore??

It was an interesting leçon about table manners, how eating habits evolve in the recent 2 decades, how your eating behavior reflects your social status.

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We read the transcription on leçon 26.

• "Heureusement, les clivages ne sont plus aussi tranchés qu’au 18e."
• Yannick: Mademoiselles, Monsiers, les clivages en Français ce n’est pas la même chose que en Anglais.
• Yannick: Ici c’est les differences.

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We had a little quiz.

1. Quel légume pouvez-vous saisir avec vos doigts?

• l’asperge, la carotte, le concombre

2. De quel côté du convive devez-vous servir le vin?

• à sa gauche, à sa droite, face à lui

3. Lequel de ces aliment peut être coupé avec votre couteau?

• le pain, la salade, l’oeuf

Why can’t one cut the salad with a knife? There is a historical reason. In the past, the knives are made of silver. It is believed that the vinegar from the salad will erode the silver in the knife. So, what can you do if the leaf is too huge? The French recommends folding the greens using a piece of the bread and a fork! Then, we asked: "Aren’t the fork made of silver as well in the past??"

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Behaviours to avoid:

• Se jeter sur son assiette (dive into your food)
• Parler la bouche pleine (talk with a mouth full of food)
• Passer le bras sur sa bouche pour s’essuyer (wipe your mouth with your arm)

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I am so happy to see Choon Hau, Mei Chen (and her better half), Meng, Ming and Ivy arriving for lunch at Olio. It’s been a while seen we last sit together à la table. Somehow it feels like a family is back for lunch again. Cela m’a fait chaud au coeur! Ming has rejoined Taxi 2 class in the morning and Meng is doing Studio. This lunch was suggested by Mei Chen, to catch up with me and everyone before I get married. It’s a good chance for me to distribute the invite cards!

Mei Chen even brought along a polaroid - we just managed to snap one shot before it got stuck.

Taken by Choon Hau

"Ping, did you bring your camera?" Puay Siang asked me as I entered the class. "Oh…I didn’t. Today is the last lesson?" I suddenly remembered. "Our last lesson with Manu," said Puay Siang. I was shocked: "You mean we are changing teacher?" "Yes, a teacher whose name starts with Y, I think it’s Yannick.." Puay Siang told me.

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Yannick! Yeah!! He is my favourite, April’s favourite, Evelyn’s favourite too!! With Manu gone, Meng may come back to our class, since he finds Manu’s teaching ‘unstimulating’. We have been so slack with Manu, but he is really easy going, very patient and sometime sentimental (typical of a Piecean, FYI, his anniversaire is one day later than mine!).

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Everybody got a little present from the professional Queen of piracy (Evelyn) who duplicated the CD with selected french songs for La fête de la musique. It has been a long time since we had something to munch too, thanks to Allison who brought us pickled plums from Shanghai.

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We didn’t do much that lesson, but had fun finding out ce que les autres aimeraient faire avant de mourir and trying to guess that person.

• Manger la cuisine dans le monde - Allison
• Devenir un millionaire - Kevin
• Attendre un enlightenment - Albert
• Voir mes enfants grandir - Poh Ling
• Avoir un café qui ouvert trois jours par semaine - Evelyn
• Voir le Northen Lights et visiter le Ice Hotel en Suéde - me!
• Aller au Easter Island - Manu

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Poh Ling was looking at the course brochure and pointed out the ‘Yoga in French’ class.

• Manu: Le professeur de cette classe toujours attend les étudiants, il devient skeleton! (meaning the class never took off)
• Manu: Il est un professeur de yoga, il à proposé à mon directeur un cours de Yoga en francais pour apprendre le francais…mais le noms de technique sont très amusant…il y a la technique de l’escargot fou…l’éléphant malade…
• Classe: ….(laughs)….
• Kevin: Je propose nager en francais. Underwater french…(then he mimicked the sound of speaking French underwater with heavy nasal tone)
• Classe: ….(laughs)….

Luckily Manu didn’t take offence.

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ça c’est super-hyper-mega cool Manu King

Oh dear, the frequency of my blog is really monthly now, and I foresee it won’t get better until perhaps après septembre. Please bear with me for a couple more months…

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The format of our class has now advanced from asking questions and interrogating, to improvising a dialogue with a given scenario. One has to have some kind of imagination/creativity within one’s vocabulary’s limitation.

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Saturday’s lesson was about humanitarian project. Manu picked a pair or three to improvise conversations on the following subjects:

1. Vous voulez réaliser un projet. Vous en parlez à un ami

2. Vous voulez réaliser un projet mais vos parents ne sont pas d’accord.

3. Vous allez partir en Vietnam pour reáliser votre projet et votre ami veut vous accompagner.

4. Vous êtes parti(e) en Vietnam pour reáliser votre projet. La classe vous pose des questions.

Before my seats was warmed (i.e. I just arrived), I was picked to be the mum in scenario no 2 and Meijia being my daughter. I remember asking questions like "Est-ce qu’il y a des hommes dans ce voyage?"

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Halfway through our lesson we were distracted by loud French music played from the lobby. Manu opened the window and shouted at a group of students playing some games celebrating La Fête de la Musique! Then out of curosity, we also peeped out the window to watch what’s going on (yes, our salon 200 has windows that open out to the lobby below, I only found that out on Sat).

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After la pause, Louisa came back raving about the new French librarian.

• Louisa: Hey, there’s a cute guy in the library.
• Kevin (doubting the inclincation of the guy): But he wears a pink shirt!
• Albert: He’s a gay.
• Louisa: How do you know that?
• Albert: From the look, his complexion, his eye-brows…I have gay friends.
• Louisa: Just because he is better looking than you, you say he is gay!
• Evelyn: Ask Manu to check him out.

Manu walked in to continue the lesson. We told him about Louisa’s new found love.

• Manu: Il est un étudiant, il travail dans le biblio pendant le vacance…err je pense il est seize ans.
• Classe: …ohh….(then silence)
• Manu (asking Louisa): Quel age avez vous?
• Louisa: Vingt et un.
• Manu (volunteering): Je peux le demande son age pour vous.
• Classe: …(laughs, while Louisa kept waving her hand to Manu saying no)…

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En suite, in keeping with the mood of La Fête de la Musique, we listened to popular French pop songs, while Manu kept teasing Louisa and le bibliothécaire (librarian) with the song titles and lyrics. Most of us like Christophe Willem’s Double Je.

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And strangely, me, Evelyn, Vanki and Kevin ended up in the library after the lesson. We burst out into laughter when we saw each other near the reception. Kevin claimed he was checking out the CDs of Christophe Willem. For Evelyn and I (and perhaps Vanki), we were curious of how the librarian looks like!

It’s so good to be back - after almost 2 weeks of nomad-y life transversing Inner Mongolia, almost daily inhalation of second hand smoke, and the constant danger of being hit by the spitting locals. On the flip side, it was an economical trip where we get to experience various mode of public transportation in less developed parts of northern China, and a local insight of the way of life there.

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Back to AF, I am most happy that we are back in our favourite classroom - salon 200! Manu is still ‘trying’ to teach us but most of us have given up ‘trying’ to be on time. I was told that at 9.20 am, there were only 4 étudiants in the class!

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Leçon 21 était sur le thème de la ville, notre ville Singapour. After asking around the table ‘dans quelle partie de ville habitent-nous?’, we went on to more interesting questions:

• Manu: Quels sont les endroits que vous aimez le plus dans votre ville?
• Poh Ling: Les endroits avec colonial architecture comme le Chinatown.
• Albert: Ma maison.
• Manu: et ceux que vous détestez le plus?
• Kevin (without doubt): Le bureau!

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It’s role play time - Kevin and the new student Qing Qing played boy and girl friend who stay together. The girl friend tried to convince the guy to move to the countryside while the guy preferred staying in the city.

• Qing Qing: Il y a moins de stress à la campagne, tu peux encore organiser des réunions avec tes amis quelque fois par mois….
• Kevin: Mais je n’aime pas d’avoir une vache!
• Classe: …(laughs)…

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Then, the story continues with the girl friend (played by Ping) telling her mum (played by Poh Ling) about her new life in the countryside one month later.

• Poh Ling (as mum): Est-ce que ton petit ami déja trouvé un travail à la campagne?
• Ping: Oui, il..faire du cheval pour les tourists.
• Manu (correcting): Cette phrase donne un différent sens -> les tourists le regardent quand il fait le spectacle en cheval. Ça peut dire ‘il propose aux touristes de monter à cheval/faire du cheval’.

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Continuing the story one year later, the girl friend (now played by Louisa) can’t take it anymore and wish to return. She talked with her boy friend (now played by Meijia).

• Louisa: Je n’aime plus d’habite ici. Mes parents me manquent. Je n’aime pas l’occasion de voir mes amis, et je n’aime pas que tu toujours parle avec les femmes quand tu propose de faire du cheval.
• Meijia: Je peux changer le travail pour tu.
• Classe:….(ooh so accommodating)….

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For the first time in many many months, Manu gave us homework! I think it was because we couldn’t finish on time, since the class officially started at 9:30am!

For once, Saturday was a fruitful lesson, I learnt new verbs, new expressions, and hopefully, je les rapelle dans mon tête!

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To aid my retention, I am repeating some of them here.

• apte à faire qqch = capable de faire qqch
• e.g. Est-ce qu’il est apte à faire ce travail?
• être en dehors de = à l’éxtérieur de
• Nous sommes en dehors de la ville; c’est plus calme!
• du jour au lendemain = overnight
• Il est dans un système où tout peut s’arrêter du jour au lendemain.

Les verbes prominaux:

• Se moquer de qqn = to laugh at someone
• Se poser = to land/rest
• Se projecter = envisager

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Manu made us did some ‘fill in the blanks’ exercises.

An ‘Oh-so-Manu’ sentence:

Est-ce que tu as vu l’excellent film << Manu King is the king of the king of the teacher>>? Il _____ de quoi?

Ans: s’agit

• Puay Siang: Il s’git de n’importe quoi!
• Manu (pointing at Puay Siang): Ça c’est vrai!

A mean sentence:

Monsier, vous ____ mal votre vie: vous avez des dettes, votre femme vous a quitté, votre appartement a brûlé. Il faut que vous preniez des résolutions dès maintenant sinon vous allez vous suicider.

Ans: gérez

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We listened to the CD about the challenges faced by a person who has un contrat à durée déterminée (CDD), as opposed to un contrat à durée indéterminée (CDI). It seemed like many employers in France are abusing the CDD to curb the budget spent on employees’ salaries. Employees who take on CDDs are often trapped in the system and unable to jump out of it. Nobody likes it. Except, perhaps Meng…who doesn’t like to be institutionalised. I wonder how’s Meng doing now?

Grâce à cette leçon sur le thème du travail, on a découvert les métiers de notre camarades, c’est très intéressant!

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Apart from two étudiants (Louisa & Esther), I would say the rest of us have very different and interesting profession. Here’s the profile of our class:

• Evelyn - Jack of all trades and self proclaimed ‘high-class tea lady’
• Albert - The Russian who calls himself a ‘musician’, currently serving NS by playing violin in the string ensemble for army shows/parades, as well as recording songs in the studio (to save the army from paying copyright fees).
• Poh Ling - An ex-nurse from Tan Tock Seng Hospital who married a doctor (from TTSH) and is now a RTT (rich tai tai) with 3 sons, whose husband is now an epidemiologist working in MOH.
• Puay Siang - A pro-PAP accountant for SMU
• Meijia - A chemical engineering graduate working in R&D for Kotex(R), who finds having a male boss rather embarrassing.
• Julia - An engineerging graduate turned florist and now au chomage.
• Me - need I elaborate more?

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This time, we took the opportunity to interroger Manu. Qu’est-ce qu’il énerve dans son travail - les classes des enfants! Most teachers in AF dread taking children class, he told us. That’s because unlike us, most children didn’t come to AF on their free will - their parents made them come here. So, it’s difficult to get them to concentrate and participate.

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Hmm…this sounds familiar….