Phew, it's Friday again! And Edinburgh is full of interesting French things to do this weekend and early next week :-)

1. 08/01 | 13.35 Je veux voir
   • Only a couple of days for the opportunity to watch this film!
2. 08/01 | 20.00 2010 Mixer Party
   • 398th event organised by Edimbourg Français... 40 people are coming... What are you waiting for?
     
3. 09/01 | 15.45 Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno
4. 10/01 | 18.15 Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno
   • A film about a film... Mise en abyme extraordinaire! Not to be missed
     
5. 11/01 | 20.15 Sea Wall
   • An adaptation of Marguerite Duras' masterpiece.

 Hope you have a great time in spite of the snow!
 FrenchEdinburgh

French classes with Lise 2009

Here are some links to the summaries I email my students every week... It can give you an idea of the kind of things we do in class :-)

• Post-Beginner (Mon 6-7.30pm)
• Refresher French (Thurs 6-7.30pm)
• Elementary Wednesday (Wed 6-7.30pm)
• Intermediate French Daytime Conversation (Thurs 10-11.30am)
• Intermediate Monday (Mon 8-9.30pm)
• Intermediate French Tuesdays (Tues 6-7.30pm)
• Advanced Tuesday Daytime Conversation (10-11.30am)
• Advanced Tuesdays (Tues 8-9.30pm)
• Film Class Thursdays (Thurs, 8-9.30pm)

Overcoming the gender bias in French!

It's got to be said, one of the most difficult task for any student of French is to try and guess the gender of a noun... which seems to be without rhyme or reason!!

In French, a chair (chaise) is female, but an armchair (fauteuil) is male - which is fair enough, if you consider the virile attributes of the said "fauteuil"...
But what about this: a shirt (chemise) is female, while a blouse (chemisier) is male!

A tie (cravate) - surely this has got to be male! -- Nope! la cravate it is!

I could go on forever with the strange list of oddities, which also goes as far as including countries, believe it or not: you may or may not be pleased to know that Ecosse is female (as is France incidentally), whereas Denmark, Mexico or Wales are decidedly male!

Having said that, statistically, the odds are in your favour: you only have a 50% chance of getting it wrong... (or if you care more for the glass half empty routine, 50% of getting it right!)

Besides, the French just love the little gender mistakes - why ever else is Jane Birkin so popular in the Hexagone? You would think that after over 40 years of living in France, she would have got the gender of table right by now! But no, she seems to have cultivated the gender bias to perfection!!

In any case, should you be interested in discovering simple rules, easy to memorise, about French gender, you need to look no further than this web page: it will increase your chances of getting it right tenfold!

Enjoy!!