Bandes Dessinées – Astérix

It's Friday! Time for a little fun!

Astérix is one of the most popular comic strips (Bandes Dessinées or BD) in France. In fact, the first French satellite was named Astérix-1. Enough said – this BD is deeply engrained into French culture. Astérix is the best selling French comic strip, popular the world over though it is less well known in the United States.

(Photo courtesy Google Image search)

The synposis from the French Wikipedia article:

« Nous sommes en 50 avant Jésus-Christ ; toute la Gaule est occupée par les Romains… Toute ? Non ! Car un village peuplé d'irréductibles Gaulois résiste encore et toujours à l'envahisseur. Et la vie n'est pas facile pour les garnisons de légionnaires romains des camps retranchés de Babaorum, Aquarium, Laudanum et Petibonum… ». Ce village gaulois d'Armorique résiste à l'envahisseur grâce à la  préparée par le druide Panoramix, qui procure momentanément une force surhumaine à quiconque en boit.

The official Astérix website is a great place to wander around practicing your French. (Yes, this site is available in English, but even if it detects your language and switches you over to the English version – don't be tempted! Click on the French flag at the right of the screen and stick with French!) The site has a cool collection of free online games including a logic game. You know: "so-and-so lives in a blue house, but does not live next door to a green house; the person with the dog lives in the red house."

Some key vocabulary to help with the game:

les Nationalités :
goth = Goth
grec = Greek
ibère = Iberian
romain = Roman
viking = Viking

les Matériaux :
le bois = wood
le chaume = thatch
la pierre = stone

les Objets :
un bouclier = shield
un chaudron = cauldron
un coffre = chest
une enclume = anvil
une lyre = lyre

les Directions :
à côté de = next to
à gauche de = to the left of
le milieu = the middle
premier/première = first

Click here to play: Astérix Logic Problem (You have to register, s'inscrire, but it's super easy. It's free and it doesn't even require an email address!)

 

So? How'd you do?

Oh, and if you're interested in reading the first Astérix book, check it out at Amazon:

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=D7A407&t=aegtra-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&asins=201210133X

TV5 Conjugating Verbs 2

Conjugating in neat little exercises and tables is helpful, but that's not really the goal. What counts is being able to conjugate verbs in real sentences – in the context of actually expressing something.

In this previous post we looked at a verb conjugating game at TV5 which offers drills in verb conjugation. There's another similar game at TV5 which is a harder, but also far closer to real-life use of the language.

TV5 Conjugaison en contexte

 

In this game you are given sentences with one verb left in the infinitive. It is up to you to determine the correct tense, mood, and subject and to conjugate the verb accordingly. At the end you'll get a printable scorecard like this:

A few things to know about this game:

– It's pretty hard; even at the easiest level you'll be expected to conjugate the conditional and the subjunctive. (At the harder levels, the verbs themselves get harder – more irregular.)

-As you can tell from my results, a missed accent will make your answer wrong. I just accepted this and personally count these answers as correct since it can be difficult to type the accents with an American keyboard.

* * *

So, did you try it? How'd you do?

Jeux d’enfants – les Genies

I love discovering French songs and games for children because they are great way to learn basic vocabulary and grammar. GeniKids is an intriguing site for very young children.  I just discovered it and I haven't had time to explore all the games, but it is worth checking out. So far I've discovered some great games as well as others that I'm less sure of. If you visit, let me know what you think!

You have three options if you want to visit the site: "Jeux Gratuits" if you just want to see some of the free games, "Inscription Gratuite" if you want to log in and access every free game, or "S'Abonner" if you want to pay and have access to every game. I just have an "inscription gratuite."