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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Nine French expressions to help you celebrate the Swiss sunshine

With summer well and truly making its presence felt in Switzerland, here are some sun-filled French expressions to celebrate the season.

Published: 5 June 2019 11:20 CEST
Nine French expressions to help you celebrate the Swiss sunshine
After the rain, good times...File photo: AFP
Le soleil brille pour tout le monde
 
“The sun shines on everyone” is used to talk about benefits that anyone can take advantage of. This saying goes back to the Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew (5:45), when Jesus says “for He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good”.
 
Un bain de soleil
 
You may well be taking one of these this weekend: “a sun bath”, or “sun bathing”. The term can also be used for the long deck chairs dedicated to this type of activity.
 
Se faire une place au soleil
 
Like the English “find your place in the sun”, but puts more emphasis on the willpower and effort necessary to achieve that socially enviable position.
 
Un rayon de soleil
 
As in English, “a ray of sunshine”, besides being an emission of light/energy from the sun, is also somebody who brings joy to your life.
 
Fondre comme neige au soleil
 
“To melt like snow in the sun”, or to dissipate rapidly. Despite the luminous language, this phrase is often used when talking about money, or rather the disappearance thereof, as in toutes mes économies se sont fondues comme neige au soleil – “all my savings melted away like snow in the sun”.
 
Avoir des biens au soleil
 
“To have goods in the sunshine” most often refers to one particular type of good: property, though it need not actually be in a sunny place.
 
Il n’y a rien de nouveau sous le soleil
 
“There’s nothing new under the sun”, this is probably the most pessimistic expression on our list. It can be equated to “nothing ever really changes” and, once again, has biblical origins, in the Book of Ecclesiastes (1:9): “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun”.
 
Après la pluie, le beau temps
 
Meaning “after the rain, good weather”, this proverb is actually not usually used to talk about what’s happening in the sky, but more generally about life. It suggests that bad or difficult times will inevitably be followed by better times. So keep your head up, and enjoy the beautiful weather in Switzerland while it lasts.

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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