Matisse: In Search of True Painting

04 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by in Culture, Francophonie

≈ Leave a Comment

An art review from the NYT:

“Matisse: In Search of True Painting” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is one of the most thrillingly instructive exhibitions about Henri Matisse, or painting in general, that you may ever see. As ravishing as it is succinct, it skims across this French master’s long, productive career with a mere 49 paintings, but nearly all are stellar if not pivotal works.

Organized at the Met by Rebecca Rabinow, a curator of modern and contemporary art, this exhibition, sheds new light on Matisse’s penchant for copying and working in series. (It was seen in somewhat different versions at the Pompidou Center in Paris and the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen.) To this end, the paintings proceed in pairs or groups aligned by subject: two still-life arrangements with fruit and compote, from 1899; two versions of a young sailor slouching in a chair, from 1906; four views (1900 to 1914) of Notre Dame seen from Matisse’s window across the Seine; three portraits (1916-17) of Laurette, a favorite dark-haired model, seen from various distances in a voluminous green robe from Morocco.  Continuez.

Young, Educated and Jobless in France

04 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by in Culture, Students

≈ Leave a Comment

From the NYT: Justine Forriez wakes up early to go onto the computer to look for a job. She calls university friends and contacts; she goes to the unemployment office every week, though mostly for the companionship, and has taken a course in job hunting. She has met with 10 different recruiters since May and sent out 200 résumés.

Ms. Forriez, 23, is part of a growing problem in France and other low-growth countries of Europe — the young and educated unemployed, who go from one internship to another, one short-term contract to another, but who cannot find a permanent job that gets them on the path to the taxpaying, property-owning French ideal that seemed the norm for decades.

This is a “floating generation,” made worse by the euro crisis, and its plight is widely seen as a failure of the system: an elitist educational tradition that does not integrate graduates into the work force, a rigid labor market that is hard to enter, and a tax system that makes it expensive for companies to hire full-time employees and both difficult and expensive to lay them off.  Continuez.

Pushing Science’s Limits in Sign Language Lexicon

04 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by in Language

≈ Leave a Comment

Imagine trying to learn biology without ever using the word “organism.” Or studying to become a botanist when the only way of referring to photosynthesis is to spell the word out, letter by painstaking letter.

How does a language generate new terms?  Expressing scientific terms through sign language has long been difficult, but the Internet and online videos are helping to broaden the available vocabulary.

Continue here.

«Watture», mot nouveau de l’année 2012

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Culture, Language

≈ Leave a Comment

From Liberation: «Une watture» is the new French term for an electric car.  (Think watt + voiture.)  Some other recent additions to the French language include «humanicide», «chaudard», «ordinosaure», «aimeuse», and «phonard».  What’s going on?  As Victor Hugo noted, a language cannot survive if it doesn’t invent new words.”  Continuez.

Old-Car Owners in Paris Bristle at Proposed Ban

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Culture, Paris, Politics

≈ Leave a Comment

From the NYT: By proposing to reduce air pollution by banning vehicles made before 1997, Mayor Bertrand Delanoë has angered vintage car owners and motorist groups and raised concerns among those who say they cannot afford new cars.

Mr. Delanoë’s proposal is part of a wider push by local authorities to comply with European regulations and establish a low-emission zone around metropolitan Paris, including many suburbs, by 2014. The plan would extend the mayor’s efforts to make the city more pedestrian-friendly by reducing the number of cars. These efforts include introducing the Vélib’ bicycle rental program, establishing the Autolib’ electric-car rental system and cutting vehicle traffic along the banks of the Seine.

But the ban would include many of the most recognizably French cars, including the Citroën 2CV, known as the Deux Chevaux; the Citroën DS, celebrated for its clean, distinctive design; the Renault 4L, a practical Everyman’s car of the 1960s and ’70s; and many classic Peugeots.  Continuez.

Quebec Irks Retailers over Language Laws

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Culture, Francophonie, Language

≈ Leave a Comment

From the NYT: Quebec’s stringent language laws, passed in 1977, have long meant that regardless of the name out front, all large retailers serve customers in French and post signs that are predominantly, or entirely, in French along their aisles.

Now, after decades of permitting a plethora of English-language trade names on signs, the government agency responsible for enforcing language laws has changed its mind.

Its efforts, accompanied by threats of legal action and fines, to add French phrases and slogans to those trade names prompted six major U.S. retailers to take the province to court last month.  Continuez.

Learning A Language Makes The Brain Bigger

16 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Language, Students

≈ Leave a Comment

By peering into students’ brains, a recent study, published in the journal NeuroImage, found that learning languages can help bulk up the brain.

The researchers, from Lund University, compared the brains of students from the Swedish Armed Forces Interpreter Academy, who become fluent in languages within 13 months, to science students at Umeå University, who also study hard.

They took MRI scans before and after a three-month period of studying for these two groups of students. The brains of the science students did not change or grow but the brains of the language students experienced growth in areas of their cerebral cortex, which is related to language, and in their hippocampus, which is involved in learning new things.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/language-learning-makes-for-bigger-brains-2012-10#ixzz29TtFHAhU

Speaking in Tongues: Top 10 Foreign Language Songs

12 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by in Culture

≈ Leave a Comment

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO7cD6qmydo&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

From the Jesuit Post: If you’re somebody who gets it when words fail then this list of the ten best American pop songs sung in a foreign languauge is for you.

It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then a truly great song, one sung in a foreign language, tops the charts in the USA.1 – 300 million people singing along, with no idea what they are saying.  Tower of Babel indeed!

Like every good (American) list, first we need some ground rules… uhhh, rule.  Here’s mine:

  • The only rule: for a song to be eligible the whole song, not just the refrain, needs to be in a foreign language.
  • Clarification of the only rule: not to get into an argument about the (non-existent) official language of the USA, (after all, this is for Fun.), but TJP is written in English,2 so we’re defining “foreign” as “not-English.”  Trust me, I understand that there are places where English is clearly NOT the dominant language in the USA – my own house, for example.
  • A joke in relation to the only rule: what do you call someone who speaks three languages?  A Polyglot… Two? Bilingual… One? American.3

Listen to the music.