Practice Makes Perfect

dans/en (général/spécifique; time): Celebrities usually fly in a private jet; I am on a plane 

bound for Paris, I study French Demystified by Annie Heminway; I must master the pitfalls and 

the challenges of the French language before landing. In two hours, I read “Chapter 14: All about 

prepositions.” In four hours, I’ll be in Paris, prepositions polished!

There are temperamental prepositions that flirt with verbs, no formula:

de/en: Jeanne Gonzalès began to sob when she saw the portrait of Berthe Morisot by Édouard 

Manet; she was foaming with rage and she burst into tears. Did her rival burst into laughter, or 

did she laugh her head of or until she cried when she dissected this portrait?

de/au: Édouard Manet’s mother loves to play the piano; to tinkle away; she escapes from 

daily life; she has no desire to play golf, a useless pastime, in her opinion.

Verbs have just as much fun as prepositions do, no rule:

Gervaise, Zola’s laundress, does everything: she does the dishes, she does the laundry, and she 

washes the linens at the washhouse. Please note, this is laundering, it is not money laundering.

I glance at the wardrobe of our dear author, Alain Mabanckou, and I give him a wink.

And there are verbs that fiddle around with their prepositions:

Keep your feet on the ground: if you are ever struck by an earthquake, you fall to the ground; 

we don’t want to put you into the ground; we fall flat on our face; we want the ground to swallow 

us up (from shame); we don’t want to land.

The meaning of a verb can change with the introduction of a reflexive pronoun:

Eva Gonzalès, pupil of the celebrated painter Manet, overshadows her sister Jeanne; sud-

denly, immediately following the master’s death, she slips away and dies.

We lay ourselves bare, like Ananda Devi; we are naked as the day we were born, like Amélie 

Nothomb at Burning Man.

We cannot neglect the position of adjectives: before or after the noun—figurative or literal.

Charles de Gaulle was big. He was a tall man—he measured 1.93 meters. In times of crisis, 

he really was a great man. He will remain in the annals of History.

And how about accents, the circumflex, for example?

She returned from her stay on the Île de Ré tanned; the sailors hauled a large whale on board.

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 Translations 

643

And homonyms, feminine or masculine? And euphoric homonyms?

In front of his wood-burning stove, my youngest son William finds a hair from his cat Aph-

rodite in the crepe pan; it’s not funny.

I’ve had just about enough: I hide under a veil, and I head off.

In verse, she writes about the life of a green worm in a glass of rosé in Ver-sur-Mer.

At my house, in the country, the ground is covered with pines, the basket is full of bread.

Erik Orsenna told me that the sea is his mother not his mayor.

That’s enough! I hope that my advice hasn’t spoiled your appetite for studying French!

Good luck, dear granddaughter!

With a big kiss, Lili

Lisa Ehrenkranz

(Translated by Ellen Sowchek)