French 3: Thursday September 20 2012

DUE: Les Devoirs: Expand the in-class verb grammar practice by writing five present-past-imperfect triplets. Par exemple:

• Je détruis l'Étoile de la Mort.
• J'ai détruit l'Étoile de la Mort.
• Je détruisais l'Étoile de la Mort.

[30 minutes] Reading Practice: Paris bike map!

• Open this downloadable PDF map and guide to bicycling in Paris.
• Students take five minutes to read map, circle words/expressions of interest.
• CAH checks homework at this time!
• Discuss highlights
• Read and translate guidelines on page 2!

[30 minutes] Present/Past/Imperfect practice!

• Students type triplets on Google Doodle Page!
• Do pp. 24-25, Exs. 34 & 35 together.

Les Devoirs:

• Révisez pour un petit examen des verbes: présent, passé composé, et imparfait. L'examen sera lundi, le 24 septembre. 
• Find an interesting French-language document that includes a map of Paris or some part of Paris.
  1. Possibilities: guides to Le Metro, parks, museums, government buildings, train stations, public facilities...
  2. Save a copy on your computer that you can mark up, zoom in and out on, and include in a presentation. (One option: paste screen shots into a Word/OneNote/PowerPoint document.) You should be able to transfer this document to CAH's flash drive.
  3. Highlight at least ten sentences that you can translate from French into English without much help from the dictionary.
  4. Show CAH this document and map with your highlighting lundi, le 24 septembre.
  5. Prepare to make a presentation on this document and map mercredi, le 26 septembre!

Faire du vélo... à Paris!

Here's a great website about bicycling in and around Paris. It includes a link to this downloadable PDF map of bike routes in the French capital. The map offers some useful tips for biking in the big city:

• Vérifier le bon état de marche des éléments de sécurité du vélo: éclairage, freins, pneus...
• Respecter la signalisation routiére
• Ne pas dépasser les véhicules lourds par la droite (risque d'angle mort)

...and my favorite:

• Ne pas téléphoner ou utiliser un baladeur!

Raccrochez et roulez!

Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity on Bikes in Paris

[Originally posted on the Madville Times, wee hours, Sunday morning, July 22, 2012]

The Tour de France concludes here in Paris tomorrow morning… after my plane leaves.

I rode a bus yesterday down the Champs Élysées, I returned later and walked by the finish line where the well-to-do will sit in white tents to view the racers.

But I’ve still seen plenty of bikes around the City of Lights, regular folks zooming along amidst hard-charging city traffic on two wheels and joie de vivre.

No, they aren’t all stunt riders like the dude above hopping his two wheels around the Trocadéro across the Seine from La Tour Eiffel.

Take, for example, this perfectly sane woman who got off the street to cross the Seine via the Pont des Arts (Bridge of the Arts).

Oh, and all those things on the side of the bridge? Locks:

Amorous Parisiens and visitors have taken up the Venetian custom of writing their names on locks, fixing them to the side of the bridge, and throwing the key in the river as a sign of their eternal love. I saw a bike lock in the mix (alas, that pic is on my other camera!). And for those of you who think Europeans have given up on capitalism, a gentleman has joined the traditional bouquinistes on the Left Bank to sell padlocks at the south entrance to the bridge.

(By the way, see that other bridge through the locks? Pont Neuf.)

Love in Paris means riding together in downtown traffic:

The couple shown above is riding right next to our tour bus, in a busy downtown street. They are riding Parisian Vélib’, two of over 20,000 public bikes available for rent at 1800 stations around the city.

On the Boulevard de Rochechouart, cyclists riding through Montmartre looking for the Moulin Rouge get their own lanes. Crossing the street from north to south you cross car lane, dividing strip, bike lane, wide shady pedestrian median, then bike path, divider and car lane.

…and the occasional show-off. Riders ring their bells, and they expect you to cede them their lane.

Speaking of ringing your bell, this young woman was out taking a spin by the Pont du Carrousel tonight. No one will be wearing those shoes in the Tour de France.

But easy, fellas: this belle parisienne already has a boyfriend… who was bicycling with her along the Seine.