La Joconde ~ The Mona Lisa
French Listening Comprehension
Study Guide
Take a look at the following for help with any vocabulary and grammar that you might not
have understood in La Joconde, then take
the test.
| Vocabulary | |
| s'accentuer | to get worse, become more pronounced |
| affluer à | to flock to |
| approfondi | in-depth, thorough |
| cerner | to determine, gauge |
| constater | to notice |
| la déformation | warping, distortion, deformity |
| emporter | to take, carry |
| entourer | to surround |
| s'étonner | to be surprised |
| fortuit | accidental |
| franchir | to cross |
| mince | thin |
| un panneau | panel |
| le peuplier | poplar |
| quasi | almost |
| restreint | limited, restricted (past participle of restreindre) |
| retiré | removed |
| susciter | to arouse, incite |
| tenter | to try, attempt |
| volé | stolen (past participle of voler) |
| Grammar - Click the links for detailed lessons | |
| aurait demandé | the conditional perfect indicates a hypothesis |
| Il lui fit franchir | causative |
| fit | passé simple |
| sera retrouvée | future tense, passive voice |
| Notes | |
| un écu d'or | gold crown (coin with armorial bearings on one side, at one time worth three francs) |
| la Joconde | The French title for the Mona Lisa comes from her husband's name, Francesco del Giocondo |
| Salle des États |
The refurbished Salle des États is to open again in spring 2005, with the Mona Lisa installed behind a special glass screen alongside Veronese's Marriage at Cana. A sign of the huge Japanese interest in the painting, the work was paid for by the Nippon Television Network Corporation. As a footnote to the painting's travails, it is interesting to note that when it was stolen in 1911, suspicion first fell on the poet Guillaume Apollinaire who had recently called for the Louvre to be burned down. He and his friend Pablo Picasso were arrested but later released. It turned out the work had been taken as part of a con under which a well-known forger was to turn out counterfeits and sell them around the world. The Mona Lisa turned up in Italy in 1913. Since then it has only left France twice: in 1962 on a trip to the US organized by De Gaulle's culture minister André Malraux and in 1974 when it went to Tokyo and Moscow. |
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La Joconde ~ The Mona Lisa French Listening Comprehension Exercise |
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| Listen | Study | Test | ||
| Transcript Translation | ||||
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Sound files, transcript, and notes about People and Characters were originally published in Champs-Élysées audiomagazine (read my review) and were published here with the permission of Champs-Elysées, Inc. |
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