Tourist Faux Pas

Bonjour tout le monde!
I have met many people who tell me that I get good treatment in France because I speak the language fluently.  I have heard their stories of how the French are so rude, and how they are treated in stores.  My first questions is, "Did you say hello?"
Saying 'Bonjour' is one of the most important things that anyone can say in France.  It sets the tone, tells the salesperson that you're tuned into cultural clues, and is really, really polite.  Even if you can't say anything more than that, you will be treated well, almost like a local.
Today, I ran across this from www.thelocal.fr (which, by the way, is an awesome website) about what the French think about tourists.  The first one is pretty funny - Don't get robbed - as if it is tourists' fault that they get pickpocketed. But then again...
Take a look, and then in the comments section, tell me which one jumps out at you...
http://www.thelocal.fr/galleries/travel/twelve-things-tourists-to-that-annoy-parisians

The Eiffel Tower as seen from Montmartre

Oops! What did I just say?

Bonjour tout le monde!
Being a world language teacher is always interesting.  One of the most challenging things we have to teach our students is that not all words and expressions go from one language to the other, and that it doesn't always work to use a familiar word and 'Frenchify' or 'Spanify' it.
The most interesting expressions have to do with being excited, as in 'excessively affected by emotion', but in most romance languages, excité means to be aroused.  I would always encourage my students to find another way to express their great emotion.
Tampon is another good word.  Students don't like to use it, although if you've been through immmigration at any international airport, you have had your passport stamped, or tamponné.  
Other fun words that are faux amis are préservatif (a form of birth control), attendre (to wait for), and douche (a shower). Of course, that is just the tip of the iceberg (or glaçon)
Do you have any favorite faux amis?  Please share in the comments section  

http://io9.com/not-every-familiarword-in-a-foreign-language-is-your-fr-1594409523?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

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D-Day 70years later

A visual of the D-Day Landings

Bonjour tout le monde!

American Cemetery in Normandy

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landing on the Normandy beaches.  Dubbed "Operation Overlord" by the Allied forces, over 9,000 men lost their lives that day.  In French, D-Day is le Jour-J, and marked the start of renewed Allied fighting against the Germans.   Many of our memories stop at June 6, but the Allies didn't enter Paris until August, 1944.  In between, the fighting and bombing continued between the two sides, leaving many towns, cities and villages in ruins.
Such was the case with the town of Caen, which lost many buildings that dated from the Middle Ages.  They rebuilt, then constructed the Caen Memorial Museum.  I have visited the museum at least three times, and each time I learn something new.  When you visit the museum, as you go through, you see original footage from the day, plus huge mechanical montages that show how the Allied forces worked hard to force the retreat of the Germans.  Now it is possible to go through a museum that has artifacts from the fighting that started in Normandy and ended in Paris two months later.
Here are some photos from one of our visits to the landing area of Omaha Beach, which included the Point du Hoc, where huge depressions in the land show what the entire region looked like during the war.

Omaha Beach

A part of the Cemetery memorial

If you make it  to the Normandy area, make sure that you see the museum in Caen, the Point du Hoc, and also the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach.

For more information on the Museum in Caen:
http://normandy.memorial-caen.com/

Photos of D-Day then and now:
http://golem13.fr/70-ans-liberation-de-paris/

Flags flying at the American Cemetery

Point du Hoc

Looking into one of the German bunkers.

I think this was a gun placement (a BIG gun)

the Monument of the Point du Hoc -
erosion has it now behind a fence to protect visitors