SayBonjour Recent Posts

12 Sep 2016

Consistency

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Make it a habit! Consistency is more far more effective than cramming and then taking long breaks. We often start off so excited, set big goals, and then quickly fizzle out. Set reasonable goals and build it into your schedule—you can always...

11 Sep 2016

Relou

Posted BySayBonjour

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TagsFrench, Slang, Verlan

That sucks! The French love to create new words by reversing and/or inverting syllables and letters, a little like pig-latin. This form of slang is called verlan (which itself is a verlan/slang for l’envers which means “reverse”). Relou comes from the word...

1 Sep 2016

…to be Born in Paris

Posted BySayBonjour

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TagsInspiration, Literature, Quotes

Victor Hugo’s famous Les Misérables is considered to be one of the longest novels in history, and later became one of the longest running Broadway Musicals of all time. These Parisians came, one from Toulouse, the other from Limoges, the...

29 Aug 2016

Prioritize

Posted BySayBonjour

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TagsFrench, Learning

Not everything is important… right now. The brain can only learn so much at once, so overloading it won’t get you any closer to your goals! It can be helpful to create a plan (or follow one created for you)...

26 Aug 2016

Biscuit

Posted BySayBonjour

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TagsFranglais, French

Cooked twice. From Old French (12th Century) bescuit. It literally means twice-cooked or twice-baked and derives from bis (two) + cuire (to cook). The American sense of “soft and fluffy bun” is recorded from 1818, whereas everywhere but America, France...

18 Aug 2016

A Movable Feast

Posted BySayBonjour

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TagsInspiration, Literature, Quotes

Ernest Hemingway’s famous A Moveable Feast is a memoir surrounding his years as a struggling, young, expatriate journalist and writer in Paris in the 1920s. The book, published in 1964 after his death, was actually a compilation of notes and...

12 Aug 2016

Compete

Posted BySayBonjour

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TagsFrench, Learning

To be in rivalry with. While “compete” comes from Latin, when it entered into the French language, its definition changed to be practically the opposite of its original meaning. The Latin meaning was “to strive in common, to come together,” whereas...

8 Aug 2016

Reuse It!

Posted BySayBonjour

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TagsFrench, Learning

Review, reuse, repeat. Reusing and repeating the same idea in different situations and contexts will help you make it your own in a way that you will be able to use it in your own situations and real-life contexts. Instead...