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Hi friends! For your Christmas listening practice, I'll be reading the short version of The Nutcracker story, in slow French! This is part 1 of three parts. If you'd like to have subtitles while listening, you can head over to my TikTok page and find the video version there :) (it also has soft background music.😊) I will probably post the complete short version in one Youtube video eventually, as well. I hope you enjoy this first audio, and stay tuned for part 2!
August 19, 2025
I have not forgotten about this blog! After graduating college, I had some troubles in the workforce. I started at a job that I thought was going to make me happy, only to find it draining and unsatisfying. I ended uo quitting due to the hostile work environment and the boss constantly berating me. Needless to say, it has been a ride.
Since quitting, I have had time to myself again to make art, which I haven't done in almost two months. I have not created or learned since taking on that job. Despite graduating, I do not think my time of studying and learning is over. I've applied for a job to work at a local college. I love the school environment so much that I really think I want to go back into it, but this time, helping the students rather than being one.
I am one of many candidates that they have, so I do have quite a bit of competition, but I want to remain positive.
I haven't practiced my French either, and I'm getting a bit rusty. I've been rewatching Intouchables, however hardly any U.S. streaming platform ever has French subtitles. I can listen to it in French, but I want to be able to read what I'm hearing rather than defaulting to English. It really stunts me a little.
I'll be waiting to hear back from this college to see if I have passed on to the second round of interviews before proceeding with other jobs. I have submitted probably around 60+ applications by now, but have only heard from a small few (mostly rejections). I'm hoping for the best.
Learning French #1
Hi everyone, I did something silly and started studying french at uni level without knowing any french. Hehehe.... Anyway, right now I've survived the first exam but I have to survive the other ones so I am going to log my learning progress here so that I can review stuff.
I'm going to essentially try to focus on my weak areas and maybe someone else out there is also struggeling, and this will help.
Okay first on the agenda:
Verbs that you speak with:
Expressing having done something:
Aka when you speak, You usually start a sentence like this: I have studied today. = J'ai étudié aujourd'hui.
You use the past form called "Passé composé" in this instance which is usually equal to when you in english say "I have + (verb) this". So you can say, I have called mom today = J'ai appelé maman aujourd'hui.
The Passé composé form of the verb is usually constructed with the verb AVOIR which is to have and a nonchanging form of the verb in passé composé form.
So the passé composé of chantir (to sing) is chanté with present for of AVOIR like this.
J'ai chanté = I have danced. Tu a chanté = You have danced. Il/Elle chanté = He/She has danced. Nous avon chanté = We have danced. Vous avez chanté = You(plural) have danced. Ils/Elles ont chanté = They have danced. Here you can see the verb chantir actually dosent change based on person. But the verb avoir does thats connected to it. ______________________________________
Common Verbs:
Other sentences that one use is for example: - I did this/X - I worked a lot. - Can you do X? - I want ice-cream. There is many verbs we use when speaking in english. Primary did (to do), can (to can/able to), going (to go), and want (to want). These verbs are; To do = FAIRE To can = POUVOIR To go = ALLER To want = VOULOIR The issue with many of this verbs is that they mostly have irregular verb conjugation. Which means they don't follow the common pattern with many verbs for example like PARLER (to speak): - Je parle -- parl + e - Tu parles -- parl + es - Il/Elle parle -- parl + e - Nous parlons -- parl + ons - Vous parlez -- parl + ez - Ils/Elles parlent -- parl + ent (some verbs also use ont instead of ent as common spelling) The redux "parl" is combined with the common conjugated form of the present, which is very often: (e, es, e, ons, ez, ent/ont) The issue with the previously mentioned verbs is that they dont have common spelling. In french grammar they catagorize verbs in 1st (premier), 2nd (deuxieme) and 3rd (troisieme) category. And FAIRE is and irregular -re verb which is usually in the 3rd category. TO BE (être) and TO HAVE(avoir) is also verbs that are so irregular they are in the 3rd category. FAIRE: (to do, also works as to make in french) - Je fais = I do (X wrong, faise) [ fai + s ] - Tu fais = You do (X wrong, faises) [ fai + s ] - Il/Elle fait = He/She do (X wrong, faise) [ fai + t ] - Nous faisons = We do (Standard, faisons) [ fai + sons ] - Vous faites = You do (X wrong, faisez) [ fai + tes ] - Ils font = They do (X wrong, faisont) [ f + ont ] I added wrong (inside here), which would be what would happen if you were to follow standard spelling but it dosen't. It even changes its redux at "Ils" where fai becomes f to account for the + ont. POUVOIR: To can/be able to - Je peux -- peu + x - Tu peux -- peu + x - Il/Elle peut -- peu + t - Nous pouvons -- pouv + ons - Vous pouvez -- pouv + ez - Ils/Elles -- peuv + ent Here you can see the redux (the start stem) of the verb changes several times, and 1-3 person uses x and t for its bending, which is not regular. ALLER: To go - Je vais -- va + is - Tu vas -- va + s - Il/Elle va -- va - Nous allons -- all + ons - Vous allez -- all + ez - Ils/Elles vont -- v + ont VOULOIR: To want - Je veux -- veu + x - Tu veux -- veu + x - Il/Elle -- veu + t - Nous voulons -- voul + ons - Vous voulez -- voul + ez - Ils/Elles -- veul + ent
I'm not going to lie, I keep confusing the difference between aller and vouloir when people are speaking, because my hearing ear is not very good. This is one of the things I am going to try to work on probably in the next text because I can't currently understand a lot of what people are saying because of the sound in my head getting mixed up. Please comment and correct me if you find any mistakes, I am very new to french only (2-3 months) so I don't know if there is any mistakes yet.
Petit à petit, j’avance.
La conjugaison sera ma mort.
trottoir
/TrohTwahr/
(masc. "un/le" pl. trottoirs)
-> sidewalk
~Le trottoir est trop étroit pour deux personnes.
~ The sidewalk is too narrow for two people.
22.03.23
Ce mercredi, j'ai étudié français!
I studied French today, and this language caught me off guard by how much I have enjoyed it. My grammar is always my weakest point in my studying journey; even if it has never stopped me. I think once you move past caring if you get something wrong, it becomes so fun. Learn, work, and get better each study session. It's important to remind ourselves that in our own languages we say things grammatically incorrect everyday. It's supposed to be fun, so make sure it is!
🎵 Anna Karina - Sous le soleil exactement
chancellor green library during a tornado warning- Princeton University
13/100 days of productivity
last night i had a revelation, which tends to happen. ive decided to study french on my own, and studying japanese at school. i just really want to learn kanji, and it’s hard to learn on my own. today was better than yesterday in terms of organization and time management. im having a lot of fun learning
