French on Fridays: Top 10 French Music

As adults, we're sometimes afraid to learn like children. But when it comes to absorbing a language, I'm convinced we need to remember how kids first find their way to linguistic comprehension, speech, and later to reading and writing.

It all begins with sound— not textbooks, or tests, or flash cards (can you imagine mom and dad welcoming the newborn with an "I love you" flash card in the labor room? :)

Adults have the advantage of being able to use multiple kinds of materials, even flash cards if they have a penchant for them. So of course I use texts, poems that I translate, kids books, and Frenchpod.com.

But because sound is so foundational, I try to give myself a good dose of French music each day. Here's my Top-10 French Music Playlist (okay, with a bonus 10, which brings it to 20. I am still working on counting in French.)


Top-10 French Music Playlist

1. Amelie les Crayons
2. Jeanne Cherhal
3. Emilie Simon
4. France Gall
5. Mireille Mathieu
6. Olivia Ruiz
7. Keren Ann
8. Claire Denamur
9. Ariane Moffatt
10. Anais


Bonus 10

1. Vanessa Paradis
2. Camille
3. Emily Loizeau
4. Little
5. Loane
6. Pauline Croze
7. Julie Delpy (this is a single; I wish I could find more of hers in French)
8. Stromae
9. Zaho
10. Carla Bruni


Well, okay, if you insist. One more...

1. Sandrine Kiberlain

Amelie les Crayons photo, by L.L. Barkat.

The Child Philosopher

It never ceases to amaze me what children have on their minds. Why do we think we have so much to teach them? Why don't we trust?

For me, home education has become, more than anything, a challenge to remember that children are not little pieces of clay we are supposed to mold. Or, if they are in some way, well they bring their own form inherent in the clay, and we would do well to let it inform the way we hold and shape.

Today I found this from Sonia. I didn't tell her to write it. I didn't ask her to pose big philosophical questions. She did it on her own...

The Beginning or the End

A question that can't be answered
by anyone, but can be answered
by everyone,
which is better, the beginning
or the end?

The beginning is a new baby
born, a new friend,
an end is when things
stop.

Which is better,
the beginning of a book
or the end?

The beginning is when you
are intrigued, when you know
it keeps on going,
the end is when you're satisfied
and slap your book down on
the table with a triumphant
BANG, or sit alone thinking
or cry.

Which is better, the beginning
or the end?
There can be a new beginning,
yet a new beginning is the end,
the end of the old beginning,
they're the same.

Which is better? Neither?


Poem by Sonia, 11. Ruby Falls underground photo, by L.L. Barkat.

French on Fridays: Learn in Your Sleep

Want to optimize your learning? Go to sleep. That's what John Medina suggests in Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School.

I particularly love how Medina discusses differences in sleep patterns. Some of us are larks, some of us owls, and others a mix. If you're a lark, your best learning and working time will be in the morning. By nine o'clock p.m. you're going to want to turn in for the night (and forget about joining a late-night study group).

Owls, on the other hand, begin to heat up around 6 p.m. Bedtime before 3 a.m. is unappealing. Flex people like me can manage morning and night fairly equally (though we are generally up for a 2 p.m. nap :). For me, it's catch as catch can. If I feel inspired to study, I should. Though it couldn't hurt to study in the evening, since dreams might solidify learning.

These days, I try to study French at both ends of the day. A morning dip into my French text (hey, I just finished French One! :) and an evening dip into a French children's book or poem. French music is my mid-day companion.

This week, I thought it quite fitting to compose a little poem based on the French saying, "Who has a good neighbor, has a good morning." I do think that the neighbor might be better or worse depending on how he's honoring his particular sleep patterns.


Qui a, Who Has

Qui a bon
voisin, who has
a good neighbor,
qui a bon matin,
has a good morning.

Qui a bon matin,
may, after nibbling
raisins and cinnamon,
coffee and cream,
be that sweet neighbor

who brings your
sweet morning in.

For more on sleep and learning, check out Brain Rules: sleep.

Apricot Peach Tea (doesn't keep me up at night) photo, by L.L. Barkat.

---

Want to participate in French on Fridays, but don't know French? Type any English word here and get a translation into French. Include your word in a poem or vignette. Or just write about anything French (music, history, art, food, family stories). We're flexible. If you feel comfortable doing so, link back here in your post. That way we have a meeting place.

Write from Your Life

I found this in the car (see below). It made me chuckle. Did it happen? I don't know. I'm thinking it's probably an amalgamation of experience and imagination. The red and yellow black-eyed Susans are in Tennessee. We gave them to my father's wife for her birthday. They are indeed supposed to be deer-proof, fuzzy leaves being a bit unappetizing.

As I experiment with fiction, I realize that my daughter's approach is one way to go. Write from your life. But feel free to make things happen that you haven't done yourself. Because, if you're unwilling to travel untrod ground, you risk holding your story captive. In that case, you'd just as well stick to non-fiction, if you can't stand the anxiety of following your characters around, letting them do what they want to do.

Anyhow, the paragraph I found in the car this morning, compliments of Sonia...

A moth flew around her head, then started to descend. She kicked at it, forgetting she had only slipped her sandal on. The sandal flew and landed upside down in her mother's new deer-proof (but apparently not shoe-proof) red and yellow black-eyed Susans.


Yellow Black-Eyed Susans photo, by L.L. Barkat. Fiction by Sonia, age 11.

French on Fridays: After the Rain

I listened, as she told her son in French, "Here are your shoes." I lost the rest, focused on those few words I understood.

And each time I hear a French song, my mind picks out little things I've come to know... tomorrow, I love you, doll, don't leave me. I try to cherish moments of understanding, lose myself in the music, forget to be afraid of all I still don't know.

Today, the words of novelist Anthony Trollope echo my hopes for me and French. "A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules." Yes, yes. I want this to be true. And so I whisper to my French, Tomorrow, I love you, doll, don't leave me.

Here is another phrase I am tucking away, part of my small daily task of study. I will keep it, to whisper as I need...

Après la pluie, le beau temps. After the rain, good weather.


Après la pluie,
le beau temps

After the rain,
après la pluie. After.
Après the weight of grey,
words that stray, slant,
sending swallows
(hirondelles) to hemlock
arms— sway,
spring, sway. After
the rain, après.
Le beau temps come.
Good weather hurries in,
on heels of wind. So
they say.

---

Want to participate in French on Fridays, but don't know French? Type any English word here and get a translation into French. Include your word in a poem or vignette. Or just write about anything French (music, history, art, food). We're flexible. If you feel comfortable doing so, link back here in your post. That way we have a meeting place.

Invisible Red Cat

The Invisible Not Visible Cat

I sit across from an invisible
cat, if I could see it, it would be
red with black eyes, yes it
would look like that.

I know it is there, for it speaks
to me. It says, "Meow, meow, cry
and hiss." Not a friendly cat,
I'm sure, for on my foot it shut

the door! That tricky, not nice
thin red cat. That invisible,
not visible cat.

— Sonia


Invisible Cat illustration by Sara, 13. Poem by Sonia, 10. Used with permission.

French on Fridays: Clusters, Macbeth and Thunder

Use clustering to learn.

This is one suggestion in Harary and Weintraub's Right Brain Learning In 30 Days. There are other suggestions, many having to do with the use of dreams (hey, Gordon! :)

Today I am focusing on the idea of clusters.

Mostly, Harary and Weintraub suggest writing anything and everything you can think of regarding the subject you're trying to learn. I'm modifying this a bit by using my daughter's graphic play (above) as a starting place, then trying to cluster in French. This may not be what H&W had in mind, but it's my cluster. So! :)



Clusters lead naturally to poetry (I also tend to use them before I begin a new chapter when writing a book). I'm not going to claim that clusters always lead to good poetry, but they are an excellent way to free the mind and, if H&W are correct, to learn.

Le Temps

Did Macbeth raise his eyes to
le temps, the weather urging him
on. Did he hear le tonnerre, thunder
of threat, in witches' voices and

les èclairs (lightning-surge of
his heart). Did he feel le vent, swirling
wind, which would sweep his soul
to nuage and brouillard. A storm (l'orage)

stirred greying heath, la pluie (the rain)
bid tragedy's start.


nuage - cloud
brouillard - fog

Macbeth Graphic Play, by Sara, 13. Used with permission.

---

Want to participate in French on Fridays, but don't know French? Type any English word here and get a translation into French. Include your word in a poem or vignette. Or just write about anything French (music, history, art, food). We're flexible. If you feel comfortable doing so, link back here in your post. That way we have a meeting place.

Road Dream

Just a couple of road dreams, "painted" by Sara in Corel Painter. Nothing more. But I think that's okay...




Road Dream illustrations by Sara, 13. Used with permission.