MetaFilter posts tagged with French

J'aime le GIF

swift — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:44:56 -0800

J'aime le GIF, le site qui aime bien les GIF. [NSFW]

Et quand au paradis il arriva...

vacapinta — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:18:44 -0800

Eskimo Grasshoppers - French Children's books of the 1930's and 1940's.
Also, Cornebuse et Cie (1945). Also, Animaux domestiques articulés (1941). Also, Histoire de Perlette (1936) Also, gymnastique scolaire (1933).
And finally Baba Yaga (1932)

MétaFiltre!

Shepherd — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:21:54 -0800

The Canadian Government’s Translation Bureau recently made its French/English/Spanish technical terminology database, Termium, free to access after over a decade as a subscription-based service. While off-the-cuff translations are often available from free services like BabelFish, Termium focuses on technical terminology such as scientific, medical and legal terms. Of equal interest to the core service are other tools like The Canadian Style, the government’s official rules for how to write "Canadian" (an odd hybrid of British and American styles), HyperGrammar 2, a series of educational grammar modules developed for self-directed learning, and Word Tailoring, an attempt to create a translation database for idiomatic French words and expressions that don't necessarily offer a single literal translation. There are also a wealth of French-language tools for learning grammar, improving your writing style, and seeking alternate terms for common verbs and expressions. Also worthy of note is the always-free Grand Dictionnaire, the product of the Quebec government's Office de la langue française, which is far less robust than Termium but has a stronger focus on "proper" language for Quebec. And, if you're struggling to improve your French writing skills, Bon Patron is a (frequently slow-loading) Java-powered tool that will check your French spelling and grammar and offer correction suggestions in real time.

Keeping Celtic languages alive on TV and the Web

joeclark — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:21:14 -0800

Since 1980, the Celtic Media Festival has brought together people who broadcast, and now Webcast, in Celtic languages. Videoblog Gwagenn.TV provides a report (with autoplaying video) from the 2009 festival whose clips and interviews are spoken and subtitled variously in Breton, French, English, Welsh, Scots Gaelic and Irish, Catalan, and Basque, not all of which are actually Celtic. Special feature: Man-on-man kiss during Catalan soap opera. (Poke around at Gwagenn.TV and you’ll find such amusements as a rocket launch carried out entirely in Breton with Beastie Boys soundtrack, an interview with an Occitan-language reggae band subtitled in Breton [Flickr snippet], and a report from a Manx-language workshop.)

Two baguettes, lettuce, teeny tiny man...

markkraft — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:40:41 -0800

Christopher Moore has been to Paris lately, and has decided to share some of his vacation snaps, and, most amusingly, teach us a bit of French.

Rhymes with blahg

zippy — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:31:42 -0800

Nouvelle Vague covers New Wave and Punk (MLYT) Nouvelle Vague (no, not this one) does Bossa Nova covers of New Wave and Punk songs, including: Dance with me (Lords of the New Church), Master and Servant (Depeche Mode), Love will tear us apart (Joy Division), Making plans for Nigel (XTC), Blue Monday (New Order), This is not a love song (PiL), The guns of Brixton (The Clash), and one NSFW title Too drunk to fuck (Dead Kennedys). Previously: 1, 2, 3, 4.

"I am feminist, neo-feminist, post-feminist and alter-feminist."

nonmerci — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:14:09 -0800

"If you were to describe me without anyone being able to see me, they would think I am a monster (Guardian video + article), that I am not fuckable. But if they see me, that could perhaps change." While French artist ORLAN's work spans decades and mediums (FR, may be NSFW), she is perhaps best known for her 1990s performance series "The Reincarnation of Saint-ORLAN" wherein ORLAN filmed herself receiving seven different plastic surgeries (NSFW) while entirely conscious. ORLAN's exhibit caused quite a stir (NYT) at its inception, with art critics such as Barbara Rose grappling with "the disquieting question of whether masochism may be a legitimate component of esthetic intention, or whether we are dealing here not with art but with illustrated psychopathology." Wherever your opinion may lie, it is hard not to be fascinated by this interesting and eloquent (both FR) woman.

Single Link Silent French Sureal Slapstick

hydrophonic — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:14:04 -0800

Artheme Swallows his Clarinet is a rather bizarre short film from 1912. Blatant padding: Twice a year, film archivist and preservationist Serge Bromberg (Lobster Films) presents a selection of shorts from the early years of cinema while providing accompaniment on the piano. This year, the Retour de Flamme fest is July 13. Can't make it to Paris? There are DVD collections, or you could watch a few more clips: Balloonland, The Fireman of the Follies Bergere (nsfw), and Le Cochon danseur (previously).

Bonsoir, Monsieur COK!

boo_radley — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:06:57 -0800

Bonsoir, Monsieur COK!
Dans un formidable élan de générosité notre patron adoré nous offre enfin la possibilité de voir son FILM sur la toile!
A short film about efficiencies in bomb manufacturing.

Learn to draw Les Animaux!

fings — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:40:46 -0800

Les Animaux tel qu'ils sont is a delightful 1920s French art instruction book, showing one how to draw various animals, from the previously discussed Agence Eureka.

Marilyn French has died.

Morrigan — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:32:17 -0800

Marilyn French, author of The Women's Room, among other works, has died.

Pac Man Havoc

manosthf — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:57:25 -0800

The Go Team might have done it first. But nobody wreaks havoc in a Pac-Man suit like the French!

Literary Political Protest, French Style

lucia__is__dada — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 09:06:20 -0800

The sales of a book by Madame de Lafayette, "La Princesse de Clèves", are up in France and there have been public readings of it in theatres and universities. The reason? Sarkozy hates it. As Sarkozy's popularity plummets, the "17th century tale of thwarted love" gets unexpected attention beyond the classroom. Badges inscribed with "I am reading The Princess of Clèves" were the most popular item at the opening of the Paris book fair this week. Mr Sarkozy, a man often ridiculed in France for preferring fitness to literature, has frequently expressed his disdain for "La Princesse de Cleves" (The Princess of Cleves), a novel by Madame de La Fayette which was published in 1678 and is taught in most French classrooms. from the Telegraph. Also, full text of "La Princesse de Clèves" at Gutenberg.

"The butchers never speak, and if they do, their words are hollow."

zoomorphic — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:49:52 -0800

Shockingly, a novel about a Nazi officer who abets murder squads, transports Jews to Auschwitz, has sex with his twin sister, possibly kills his parents and then dies rich, old and reflective has caused a trans-Atlantic controversy among literary critics. Published in the original French three years ago, the English translation of Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones hit American bookstores this week. Though French reviewers unanimously praised Jewish-American author Littell for his unscrupulously bare depiction of a pathological mass murderer, the British press is straddling the fence, and most American critics are just plain outraged. Kakutani brands the novel as "deliberately repellent," while Washington Post accuses Kindly Ones of shilling glorified "death porn." And for anyone jetting off to the bookstore this week to get their latest fix of controversial Holocaust renderings, be warned: the print in this gruesome 900-page brick is teeny.

La Revolution Des Crabes

Challahtronix — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:08:24 -0800

La Revolution Des Crabes (SLYT, French w/ subtitles) other short animated films of Arthur De Pins: Geraldine ("One morning Gerald awoke transformed into a woman....") L'eau de Rose: Low Quality subtitled, high quality French Alouette (somewhat long for the single gag payoff)

Déja vu ?

nicolin — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:05:38 -0800

A tale of two countries Some time ago, the french & German tv channel Arte had created an internet extension devoted to audio only, Arteradio. This website contains hours of audio creations. This is the place where you can listen to The first radio drama /la première fiction radio /in two languages and one version /en deux langues et une seule version /a BBC-ARTE Radio coproduction /enregistrée à Paris et London /recorded on location /diffusée en hertzien /broadcasted on BBC Radio 4 on February, 4th, 2009 /online on arteradio.com. You can also listen to McKenzie Wark, or to the moment of silence created on September the eleventh 2002, to Steve, to English pupils in Paris, to Susan George, to Dean Hurley commenting his work, and then dive into the complete unknown, and pure French sounds, like these testimonies about masturbation, or about la chanson, like a Paris postcard, or even a street snapshot.

smash it up. please.

lapolla — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:37:05 -0800

For that headbangin' couple, the ones you owe a wedding gift... Sorry, no Damned, even though I borrowed their song title. But -- Misfits, ACDC, Metallica, galore!

Play with your balls!

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:33:49 -0800

Friday fun: The revamped Globulos! The French suite of cute, simple mini-games -- posted before -- has in its latest incarnation finally got rid of its annoying 15-minute limit for non-paying users. Now, simply register for free and bounce those Globulos! (You could play as a guest, I guess, but that would just be lame now, wouldn't it. Oh, and you can still buy Globbies if you want to give your Globulos a moustache or whatever.)

Le territoire des morts

Korou — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:22:56 -0800

Portraiture of the living dead. [some NSFW; via Bygone Bureau] The zombies are drawn by Frederik Peeters. Peeters makes bandes dessinées, equivalent to comics/graphic novels. This Swiss artist has published Pilules Bleues (Blue Pills), a quasi-autobiographical story of a couple falling in love and the HIV that changes their lives; Lupus, where a twenty-something goes on an intergalactic fishing trip; Koma, in which a girl explores hidden worlds under the chimneys her father cleans; RG, based on Pierre Dragon's crime fighting experience; and Ruminations, a collection of 20 short stories. Official bibliography.

Capucine tells a captivating tale

madamjujujive — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:04:32 -0800

Once Upon a Time - a filmed fairy tale starring baby monkeys lost in frightening trees, a witch, crocodiles, a tiger, a "popotamus" and a lion, and even a "tremendously very bad mammoth." (In French, English subtitles)

One Minute Languages

sveskemus — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 03:34:32 -0800

At One Minute Languages you can learn greetings, talking about names, counting, and more in Catalan, Danish, French, German, Irish, Japanese, Luxembourgish, Mandarin, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, and Russian.

Zip, bop, wizzzz!

taursir — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:35:14 -0800

Savez-vous que Jodie Foster parle et chan te en français?

Two scampering octopi

of strange foe — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:56:39 -0800

Oktapodi is a nice short from Les Gobelins, (last covered here). The 'Making-Of' is fun too.

Photographs at the very beginning of London's Swinging 60's

nickyskye — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:29:00 -0800

Forty years ago, Swinging London was yet to swing. Everything was in black and white and, in class-bound Britain, fashion photographers were trades-men – polite, smart, seen but not heard. A new breed of snappers changed all that – Terry O’Neill, Brian Duffy, David Bailey and Terence Donovan. Bailey and Donovan started their careers in the West End studio of the doyen of fashion photographers – John French. Celebrated East London photographers at that time. Terry O’Neill, about. Brian Duffy, a well known photograph of his, David Bowie. Terence Donovan David Bailey. A bit about him and his girlfriend, Jean Shrimpton, a popular model of the day. The Counterfeit Body: Fashion Photography and the Deceptions of Femininity, Sexuality, Authenticity and Self in the 1950s, 60s and 70s The Age of Sex: Bad Boys and the Sexualized Body in 1960s Fashion Photography John French at the Victoria & Albert Museum

Ten French soldiers killed in afghanistan

nicolin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:00:58 -0800

Ten French soldiers killed in afghanistan. A ceremony for the 10 soldiers took place today in Paris.. Caught in an ambush, the soldiers have been fired upon during several hours. Nato strikes are told to have been inaccurate. Survivors' testimonies seem to imply that the situation has been dealt with in an awkward way. The President's decision to send more troops in Afghanistan is discussed.