C’est dans sa loge qu'on a retrouvé Buridane
It’s in her dressing room that we caught up with Buridane
Caption 1, Télé Lyon Métropole: Buridane

Did you catch the interview with the lovely chanteuse Buridane? It took place backstage, in her loge, what we would call her "dressing room." However, on the other side of the curtain, loge can also refer to box seating, usually private, elevated, and not cheap—a nice place from which to watch the show. Sport and theater fans will recognize that we have the same word in English: "loge" seating areas offer a bird's-eye view in a luxurious setting. It's from this meaning that we get the common French expression être aux premières loges, which means "to have a great view," or "front row seats."

Where else will you find une loge? Out in the country! A rustic cabin (or "lodge") of the kind used by skiers, hunters, or park rangers is also called a loge.

Finally, if you enter a French building, bourgeois or not, beware of the loge du concierge or "caretaker's apartment." You won’t sneak past unnoticed, even if you tiptoe . . . so be sure to have a good reason to be there!

And just as loge can be "lodge," logement can mean "lodging," as in housing or a place to stay. Take this example, where retirement-age protesters point out that Sarkozy doesn't quite share their concerns:

Et lui, il a pas de souci de voiture, il a pas de souci de logement . . .
And him, he has no car worries, he has no housing worries . . .
Caption 22, Le Journal: À la retraite en France

There's also the verb loger, which, as you may now be able to guess, means "to house" or "provide accommodation for."

See if you can spot any other lodging-related words in our videos!

Soul Sisters

After watching her scour the desert Mad Max–style for clues to track down her amour perdu in the video for "Love Machine," we know that Melissa Mars is a romantic. Her "Army of Love" video also gives us a few clues—on how to speak the language of love, en français.

Petites fées du cœur / Accueillent les âmes sœurs
Little love fairies / Welcome the soulmates
Captions 26–27, Melissa Mars: Army of Love

If you know that the word âme is "soul" and the word sœur means "sister," you might think that Melissa is referring to her many Mini-Me's as "soul sisters." Actually, âme sœur is French for "soulmate," and even though the term is of the female persuasion, it can apply to any member of a happy couple. In French, guys can be soul sisters too!

The "Lung" of Things

Our favorite friendly tour guide, Daniel Benchimol, gives us a look in living color at the history-rich, up-and-coming Paris quartier of Belleville.

 As sometimes happens with urban areas which were once a bit on the sketchy side, Belleville has recently gentrified quite a bit. These days, it's home to a thriving diverse community. You'll see people from all walks of life strolling along the Rue de Belleville and the Boulevard de Belleville. (It's easy to know you're in the right neighborhood. Just look at the street signs!) 

There's even a Parc de Belleville:

Nous sommes ici dans le Parc de Belleville, qui est vraiment le... le poumon de ce quartier.
We're here in the Parc de Belleville [Belleville Park], which is really the... the lungs of this neighborhood.
Caption 10, Voyage dans Paris: Belleville

Notice that Daniel tells us the park is le poumon of the neighborhood—"the lung" of the hood—just as Central Park is sometimes called "the lungs" of New York City, thanks to the fresh air it offers.

Les Bellevillois are known for their distinctive fun and funky accents. Wondering what they sound like? Just listen to France's favorite songbird, Édith Piaf. La Môme hails from the streets—the rues and boulevards—of Belleville!

Give up? Start thinking in French. Do you see it now? They're all French homophones! So what are the tricks to distinguishing between mère, maire, and mer?

Let’s start off where life itself does—with our proud moms. In French, your mother is your mère.

Annie Chartrand, from Quebec, recalls the limited English ability of her own mère (as well as her père, her father).

Si je pense à mes parents, à mon père et ma mère, ils parlent anglais, mais c'est un peu plus, comme on dit en bon québécois, "baragouiner".
If I think of my parents, my dad or my mom, they speak English, but it's a bit more like, as we say in good Quebecois French, "baragouiner."
Caption 12–13, Annie Chartrand: Grandir bilingue

Charles Baptiste, from Paris, sings of something nobody wants their mother to do (nobody nice anyway) in the song Je Sais:

Tandis que ma mère se met à pleurer
Whereas my mother starts crying
Caption 21, Charles Baptiste: Je Sais

Let's move away from such sadness (we hope Charles's mère is feeling better) to our second homophone: maire (mayor).

One way to distinguish this word from its homophones: maire (mayor) is a masculine noun and so is preceded by the masculine article le. But la mère (the mother) and la mer (the sea) are both feminine. Note that more people nowadays are using “la” maire to refer to a female mayor (see our lesson about the feminization of professions in French), although the officially correct term is la mairesse.

The mayor of Groslay, a town north of Paris, is not very popular… He banned chicken in municipal lunchrooms because of fears of avian flu.

L'interdiction du maire a également déclenché la colère des agriculteurs.
The mayor's ban has also triggered the anger of the farmers.
Caption 9, Le Journal: Le Poulet dans les cantines

However, some mayors are less cautious than others. The mayor of Lille, for example, not only supported protesters who recklessly (and illegally) switched off street lighting in the city center, she joined their rally, French flag in hand!

Et c'est toujours au nom du service public que la maire de Lille soutient les agents d'EDF en grève.
And it is still in the name of the public service that the mayor of Lille supports the EDF agents on strike.
Caption 18, Le Journal: Grève de l'EDF à Lille–Part 1

Let's move on to our last homophone: la mer (the sea).

La mer is often a romantic image in popular songs. (Who doesn't love a little Charles Trenet?) Lyon-based ska band Babylon Circus sings about the sea in a song about dreams and lost hopes:

Les rames étaient trop courtes pour atteindre le niveau de la mer
The oars were too short to reach sea level
Caption 12, Babylon Circus: J'aurais Bien Voulu

So now, no more confusion between la mère (the mother), le maire (the mayor), and la mer (the sea)!

An accent, or the lack of one, can sometimes determine the meaning of a French word.

For example, let's take ou, the common conjunction that means "or." After his extensive travel abroad, Chef Rachel Gesbert likes to use exotic ingredients when he returns to France "or" to Europe:

Et quand on revient en France ou en Europe... on a envie de mélanger certains produits.
And when you return to France or to Europe... you feel like mixing certain products.
Caption 25, Le Journal: Gourmet en Bretagne

Ou bien also means "or," plain and simple. Anglophones, seeing the extra word bien, might be tempted to translate ou bien as "or even," or to add some other nuance. But in fact, ou bien is used pretty much interchangeably with ou, as we find in the report on the recent discovery of Saint-Exupéry's lost plane, near Marseilles.

Mais personne ne sait s'il s'agit d'un accident, d'un suicide ou bien d'un tir ennemi.
But nobody knows whether it's a question of an accident, of a suicide, or of enemy fire.
Captions 24–25, Le Journal: Saint-Exupéry–Part 1                                        

However, when we draw a simple "accent grave" over the u in ou, we get the adverb où, which is used to indicate "where." Anne Liardet, mother of three, racing solo around the world on the "Vendée Globe," tells us:

J'suis bien, là où je suis...
I'm all right where I am...
Caption 22, Le Journal: Les navigateurs du Vendée Globe–Part 2
                       
In their worldwide hit "Senegal Fast Food," Amadou and Mariam, the singing-songwriting duo from Mali, ask:

Dakar, Bamako, Rio de Janeiro: où est le problème, où est la frontière?
Dakar, Bamako, Rio de Janeiro: where is the problem, where is the border?
Captions 25–26: Amadou et Mariam: Sénégal Fast Food

Another meaning of où is "when," indicating time. Notice the way French movie star Agnès Jaoui uses it when talking about dreams and fame:

C'est bien... de rêver, mais y a un moment où il faut juste se récupérer soi-même.
It's good... to dream, but there comes a time when you have to go back to who you are.
Captions 29–30, Le Journal: Le Rôle de sa Vie.

So, there you have it: the short story of ou!

In her song "Diesel" (extremely popular with Yabla viewers!), Elea Lumé declares:

Et si il y a eu maldonne, je me fais mon propre prud'homme
And if there was a mistake, I'll take responsibility for it
Captions 33–34, Elea Lumé: Diesel

When we are playing cards, la donne is "the deal." It comes from the verb donner, that very common French verb that means "to give." It also means "to deal," which is not hard to see since cards are "given out" to the players. Sometimes the dealer (le donneur—literally, "the giver") screws up, and hands too many or too few cards to one or more of the players. In the poker rooms of Paris this is known as a fausse donne (false deal), mauvaise donne (bad deal), or maldonne—which we get when we preface donne (deal) with mal ("bad" or "wrong"): a "wrong deal." In English the common term for all of these is "misdeal."

Cards are ripe metaphors for life, as anyone who's ever been "dealt a bad hand" or suffered "the luck of the draw" knows. In French, the phrase il y a maldonne has drifted from the cards-specific "there is a misdeal" to the more general "there is a mistake."

A quick aside about another of Elea's lyrical selections here: if you look up prud'homme in the dictionary, you find that it is a member of a labor court, one which decides disputes between management and workers. So when Elea says je me fais mon propre prud'homme (literally something like, "I'll be my own jury"), she is saying that she'll assume full responsibility; she's not going to take it to a third party for help—she'll stand on her own.

Besides signaling a mistake, Il y a maldonne takes on another metaphorical meaning: "There is a misunderstanding." The exuberant chanteuse Cassandre expresses a negated variation of the phrase when she sings:

Mais non, y a pas maldonne / C'est super romantique!
But no, there's no misunderstanding / It's super romantic!
Caption 33, Cassandre: Je te saoule

So make no mistake! As in English, French words or phrases often evolve from literal to metaphorical meanings, and their meaning can change based on their context. Getting to know these subtleties is not a bad deal at all!