Horse puzzles – horse play

Here are 2 horse puzzles, games based on Horses that we put together for the kids next door to whom we were "teaching" English over the garden wall during confinement. I stood up on a ladder to see over the top and they were in their front court. It was pretty funny to see. They enjoyed having some authentic conversation although they had trouble with my "odd" US accent as opposed to the British one they hear in school. It was a welcome distraction for us all. It was tricky to select a "program" as there are 3 girls ages 10 to 17 to entertain and challenge. They have such different levels of English amongst themselves and of course there is the age difference between them and me in terms of knowledge and pop culture. But I figured out that they like to ride horses. So one lesson was centered on horses and their "homework", sent by paper airplane over the wall, was these two puzzles and this nicely done worksheet which includes word searches and lots of horse vocabulary tha…

Voir Plus about Horse puzzles – horse play
  • 0

Banking Glossary French-English terms

Banking Glossary French-English terms What is the origin of the word "bank"? It goes back to Italian. In Medieval Italy a moneylander set up a bench in the town square and sat down behind it to do business. The word for "bench" in Italian is banca. When the banker ran out of money he smashed his bench, it was then a broken bench or banca rotta. Doesn't that sound like bankrupt? (makes one think of "rupture", interestingly in French the word is banqueroute) Here is a set of the most commons terms used in banking/finance in France along with their English equivalents to form a banking glossary French English. Actions : Shares ADI (Assurance Décès Invalidité) : Death and invalidity insurance Agios : Interest paid on loan or overdraft Annuité : Annual payment Apport :  Down payment or deposit you bring for loan or mortgage Approvisionner : To credit funds to your account Argent liquide/espèces : Cash Avis d’opération : Transaction receipt Avis à Tiers Détenteur : Not…
Voir Plus about Banking Glossary French-English terms
  • 0

CONTEMPLATIONS ON CORONAVIRUS CONFINEMENT, CONUNDRUMS, CONSEQUENCES (in France)

This would have been my annual Paris Marathon article. Marathon postponed (we hope--i.e., as opposed totally ash-canned for 2020). My local chocolate-shop is closed. We are allowed to shop for only basic necessities (achats [purchases] de première nécessité). Isn’t chocolate a basic necessity? We are authorized to go out and run, albeit for only an hour per day. If we had an older, fatter president who had an older, fatter prime minister who had an older, fatter health minister, that number would be zero hours per day. This generation of leaders knows that depriving exercise addicts of their workouts in addition to their general mobility would put them over the edge. We (the media, scholars, doomsdayers, fortunetellers, your grandmother) have for years been predicting that Planet Earth will be brought to its knees by terrorism, natural disaster, trade war, real war. It is being brought to its knees by a microscopic organism that has be…
Voir Plus about CONTEMPLATIONS ON CORONAVIRUS CONFINEMENT, CONUNDRUMS, CONSEQUENCES (in France)
  • 0

Moving in France?

This article is about moving WITHIN France, if you are moving TO France see our other article. www.fusac.fr/moving-to-paris/

If you're moving from Briaire to Le Falgoux or Limoges to Salers or some other place change within France a very practical website offered by the French Public Service allows you to officially update your address with public service and administrations when you're moving in France. In one fell swoop and a few clicks you can inform the EDF, vehicle registration, tax, social security, carte vitale, retirement, unemployment offices and other administrations of your new address.

Plus this form works not just for moving in France and your physical address but also for updating:

email address, landline phone number, mobile phone number

They call this service The Teleservice of Service Public.

You'll need certain ID numbers (client numbers, social security number, carte grise...) …

Voir Plus about Moving in France?
  • 0

Understanding the Municipal Elections in France

First: what is a Municipality? In France a municipality is referred to as a « commune ». The French word commune appeared in the 12th century, from Medieval Latin « communia », meaning a large gathering of people sharing a common life; from Latin « communis », things held in common. It consists of the municipal council and the executive which is the mayor and deputy mayor. The mayor, elected by the councillors, is solely responsible for the administration. But he can delegate some of his functions to one or more deputies. In Paris there is a council for the whole city and for each arrondissement. The term hôtel de ville designates the building which houses la mairie. The terme mairie designates the communal administration since the Révolution of 1789. In smaller towns mairie is used for both the building and the administration. Who is elected in the Municipal Elections in France? All French municipalities will elect their local councillors for 6 years all at the same time. …
Voir Plus about Understanding the Municipal Elections in France
  • 1

We Met in Paris, Grace Frick and Margueritte Yourcenar

They met in Paris, here's how YOU can meet your âme-soeur or just good friends in Paris https://fusac.fr/how-to-meet-people-in-paris/

We Met in Paris is the double biography of Grace Frick, the companion who created the world in which one of the best French authors could write, and of Marguerite Yourcenar the author of The Abyss and Memoirs of Hadrian (Selected as one of the "15 books to better help you understand the Hexagon" in our 2018 LOOFE). Yourcenar was also the very first woman inducted into the Academie Française in 1981. Joan E. Howard, the biographer, had the luck to not only meet Marguerite Yourcenar in the early 1980s but to become a friend and spend several summers with “Madame” before she died. In 2000, Howard, given her personal contact with Yourcenar, became the director of Petite Plaisance, Margueritte Yourcenar's home on Mount Desert Island on the coast of Maine. The home was labelled a “Maison des Illustres” in 2014. Ms Howard was also sel…

Voir Plus about We Met in Paris, Grace Frick and Margueritte Yourcenar
  • 0

Made in France, My 2019 Diary

For 2019 I decided to try to find Made in France products each time I made a purchase and keep a Made in France Diary.

Skip the intro and jump right to the latest entry.

The idea sprang from my exercise diary. I write down on my calendar each time I get some exercise, riding my bike, taking a walk for errands or fun or taking a class. Keeping a diary helps me to keep that focus and make sure I move. I have a nice record of my constitutional outings. It is very satisfying to be able to look back and see that I pretty much get my requisite 30 minutes each day, plus needing to make an entry on the calendar gets me up and out; I get both satisfaction and encouragement.

I decided to apply that to my Made in France year. I'm keeping a diary, technically a monthly of what I buy and if it is MIF. I'm not going to be obsessive and buy ONLY MIF, like this guy Benjamin Carle who in 2014 made a project of transforming his life and …

Voir Plus about Made in France, My 2019 Diary
  • 0

Interview: authors of 90+ Ways You Know You’re Becoming French

FUSAC: You two created 90+ Ways You Know You’re Becoming French, a very popular book that grew out of Shari’s article on the same subject. You have since received, read, listened to, overheard, gathered “becoming French” examples from countless non-native Francophiles, including residents of France, would-be residents, tourists, language teachers, students wishing never to leave, culture mavens and many people who have battled it out with each other in our comments section as to who has racked up more Becoming French badges of honor. But wait! What about YOU? You’ve both been here since the 1980s. It’s Turn the Tables Time! What are several ways that YOU know YOU’ve “become French”? (Or not?)

HAVE NOT BECOME...

Shari Leslie Segall: They say that one’s “formative years” end at the age of two--that after merely twenty-four short months on this earthly orb, you already are who you’re gonna be. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that, since my father …

Voir Plus about Interview: authors of 90+ Ways You Know You’re Becoming French
  • 0

Paris/France and… colors

Per our May 4, 2019, post, “Paris/France and…” is a new series wherein “and” leads us to categories (such as food groups, the classical elements, etc.) whose subcategories link to the city/country we know and love. Today’s entry focuses on Paris/France and Colors, per the spectrum that might have hung in your high-school physics class back in Blue Ash, Idaho or Yellow Pine, Alabama or Red Lick, Texas.

RED:

If you have not visited the legendary Moulin Rouge (“Red Windmill”) cabaret in person (or even if you have), certainly do so via their website. By the time you’ve clicked on absolutely everything--that’s: absolutely everything--that’s clickable on, you’ll feel as if you’ve just been treated to a whirlwind masterclass on Parisian history, culture, cuisine, facts, and figures (the latter in the numerical and, appropriately, corporeal sense). Whew!

And from author Dale Gershwin:

“On her way to the stairs Leslie …

Voir Plus about Paris/France and… colors
  • 0