Laura K. Lawless's Blog: Lawless Languages, page 389

Chartreuse

La chartreuse est une liqueur très spéciale, avec une longue histoire et une recette secrète.

                

Sur

The preposition sur is often equivalent to "on," but has many other possible translations.

                

Affective Accent

In English, you can emphasize an important word or syllable by pronouncing it more loudly, as in "It's magNIFicent!" That's not the case in French, which uses the affective accent instead.

                

Train

Taking the train can be an excellent way to explore the country, so here's the French vocabulary you need to navigate the station, buy tickets, and arrive safely at your destination. Bon voyage !

                

Premier mai

In France, May 1st is la Fête du Travail as well as la Fête du Muguet. What's the connection between these two seemingly unrelated holidays?

                

Venir de – Recent Past

You can explain what happened in the recent past with the construction venir de + infinitive; for example, Je viens de terminer ce puzzle - "I (have) just finished this puzzle."

                

Prendre l’eau

Prevent leaks by learning the idiomatic French expression prendre l'eau.

                

Germinal

Read the opening paragraphs of Émile Zola's 1885 masterpiece, Germinal.

                

Feminine Nouns

There's no simple trick to knowing the gender of every single French noun (other than looking in a dictionary), but there are several categories of words that are always or usually feminine.

                

UIL

The letter combinations uil and uille are pronounced more or less like the English words "wheel" and "wee," respectively.