Suivant les classes de la langue francaise...

Yesterday I had the last of the French classes I'd signed up for at Alliance Française, and they gave me a piece of paper that says I have:

...terminé la classe 11A23D - SPRING 2011 - et est admise dans la classes supérieure de notre programme d'enseignement de la langue française.

...finished the class 11A23D - SPRING 2011 - and is admitted into the higher classes of our French language programme.

So today, encouraged, I went back and signed up for two courses in July. I can't take the intensif because I'm going to work (albeit with reduced hours), so I signed up for the course that goes three times a week, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings, and then I signed up for a special Monday night class called Actualités sur internet where we look at web pages and discuss French news items, TV shows, and politics.

Not quite French immersion, but plenty of hours in a month. Don't expect me to do much else until August. I will be très occuppée.

I might not have been so eager to sign up again if I hadn't enjoyed the last class so much. We didn't use the text book, but a sheet the teacher handed out that had various French expressions on it, and we discussed their meanings. For example:

• Ça ne mange pas de pain = "that doesn't eat bread", meaning it doesn't cost anything
  
• Mettre la main à la pâte = "to put your hand into the batter", meaning to help someone finish something
  
• Ce n'est pas du gâteau = "that isn't cake", meaning it's difficult
  
• Mettre de l'eau dans son vin = "to put some water in his wine", meaning to mellow with time
  
• La moutarde lui monte au nez = "the mustard got into his nose", meaning he got angry
  
• Metter son grain de sel = "to add his grain of salt", meaning to stick his oar in
  
• Ça tourne au vinaigre = "that turned into vinager", meaning it went sour ( like a relationship, something that was formerly good)
  
• Mi-figue, mi-raisin = "half fig, half raisin", or something where opinions are evenly split
  

And then teacher put ten sentences on the board. Each had at least one error, sometimes of spelling, sometimes of verb agreement - various things. And we were challenged to find the errors. As a group we were terrible but it was fun, like a game.

Then we were given expressions which mention animals:

• un vrai tête de cochon = "a real pig's head", meaning stubborn
  
• nous n'avons pas gardé les cochons ensemble, tout de même = "we haven't kept our pigs together, all the same", meaning "you're showing unaceptable familiarity"
  
• c'est du travail du cochon! = "that's pig's work", meaning "it's a botched job"
  
• c'est vraiment donner de la confiture aux cochons! = "it's giving candy to the pigs", meaning the gift won't be appreciated
  
• un vrai temps de cochon = "real pigs' weather", meaning terrible weather
  
• ils sont copains comme cochons = "they're friends like pigs", meaning very good friends
  
• arrêtez de manger comme des cochons = "stop eating like the pigs do", meaning, stop eating like a pig
  
• il est moche comme un pou = "he's ugly as a flea"
  
• il est têtu comme un âne = "he's stubborn as a donkey", meaning he's stubborn as a mule
  
• il a une vie de chien = "he has a dog's life", meaning a terrible life
  
• il fait un temps de chien = same as "temps de cochon"
  
• il fait un froid de canard = "the weather's a duck's cold", meaning it's freezing
  
• elle m'a posé un lapin = "she handed me a rabbit", meaning she stood me up
  
• il a une araignée au plafond = "he has a spider on his ceiling", he's very depressed
  

I love this kind of thing.

I don't know if French Canadians use any or all of these expresions - I'll have to ask my local friends.

White Collar: "Where There's a Will"

Loved this one... It had all the White Collar traits I most love: good lines, good banter between Peter and Neal, the two of them working together ... I'm seeing the season's theme as being Neal needing to choose ( needing to choose... )