The other day I recited my favourite French poem for my French teacher.
It était une fois,
Une marchande de foie,
Que vendait du foie
Dans la ville de Foix.
Elle se dit : Ma foi
C’est la dernière fois
Que je vends du foie
Dans la ville de Foix.
For those of you who don’t know French or why this poem is funny, the last word in each line is pronounced the same but the meanings vary from “time” to “liver”. I don’t know the author, but if anyone else does, please let me know so I can credit them, and thank them for such a great poem.
I wanted to share this poem with my teacher because I think it’s funny and the poem was a great learning tool to help me remember vocabulary.
Why did I share it here again? Well I shared because after hearing the above poem my teacher challenged me to write one of my own, but based on a different word that is giving me difficulty in French right now. I took up the challenge, and while my grammar may not be perfect I am quite proud of the result. It isn’t as light as the poem above, but I like it and it did help me with the various meanings of “tout”. Hopefully when I show it to my teacher he wont have too many corrections for me…
Á tout moment, à tout àge,
je les entendes,
Les espoirs, les besoins, de tout enfant.
Tout près mais tout tranquillement,
ils me parlent.
Je ne peux pas répondre à tous leurs besoins.
Ils ne savent pas que je suis ici.
Pour toutes ces raisons, je prend le temps, j’écoute.
S’écria-tous, tous les combien?
Écoutez. Dans la grand Tout, je sais tout ailles bien.
Writing Exercise:
In the language of your choice, choose a word that has several homonyms (words that have the same sound, but mean different things). Write down all the meanings of these words, and any phrases you commonly hear the words use in. For example: Pair, Pear, Pare. Challenge yourself to write a poem or short story using each of these words. Try to make the words flow with your text. Spend thirty minutes exploring your homonyms.
