Narbonne
French Listening Comprehension
Study Guide
Take a look at the following for help with any vocabulary that you might not
have understood in Narbonne, then take
the test.
| Vocabulary | |
| allègrement | briskly, merrily |
| anéantir | to wipe out, destroy |
| s'apercevoir | to see, notice, realize |
| un archevêque | archbishop |
| le bénitier | font |
| le bourg | village |
| buter sur | to rest against, bump into |
| C'est dire | That goes to show |
| coasser | to croak |
| désaffecté | deconsecrated; disused |
| drapière | (adj) clothing |
| édifier | to construct, erect |
| entouré | surrounded |
| étonnant | surprising |
| faste | prosperous |
| flâner | to stroll |
| florissant | flourishing |
| le fond | bottom |
| guerrier | warrior |
| une halte | stop |
| inachevé | unfinished |
| lapidaire | lapidary, relating to stones |
| la peste | the plague |
| le procès | lawsuits |
| rayonnant | radiating |
| la réussite | usually means "success," but here: example |
| la sous-préfecture | subprefecture, town housing the offices of the subprefect, a civil servant responsible to the prefect who delegates certain administrative powers to him |
| supposer que | to imply, necessitate |
| torchis | unburned clay and straw |
| la vase | mud |
| Notes | |
| Aude | The department of Aude is not to be confused (though it often is) with the department of Aube. Aude is in the far south around the towns of Narbonne and Carcassonne, and is designated by the number 11 on license plates and postal codes. Aube is in the Champagne-Ardenne region east of Paris; its capital is Troyes, and its number is 10. Aude is also a girl's name (a version of Odette) that enjoyed a certain vogue in the 1970s and 80s. |
| canal de la Robine | The canal de la Robine links Narbonne both to the sea and to the canal du Midi, the monumental 17th-century waterway that connects the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. When the Romans founded their colony at Narbonne (their first in Gaul), the settlement was on the coast, but the sands and silt have shifted and now the city lies several miles inland. The canal follows an abandoned course of the Aude River, meandering past wild lagoons to reach the Mediterranean at Port-la-Nouvelle. In the other direction, it passes through nine locks to reach the canal du Midi at Le Somail. It is a popular detour for the many pleasure craft that now ply the canal du Midi. |
| Charles Trenet | The wonderful Charles Trenet (1913–2001), often known by his nickname "Le Fou chantant" (The Singing Fool), had a prodigiously long career and is justly regarded as an icon of 20th-century French popular music. He began performing in public the year Hitler came to power in Germany, and gave his last concert in 1999. His repertoire bursts with an irrepressible joie de vivre. Songs like "Boum," "Y a de la joie," and "Je chante" have become classics. Others, including "Que reste-t-il ?,"ooze with the bittersweet taste of nostalgia for "La Douce France"—another title. His international hit "La Mer" was penned in 20 minutes on a train ride from Narbonne to Carcassonne. After he died, Trenet was cremated in Paris and his ashes interred near his mother's grave in Narbonne. |
| le fou chantant | singing madman/fanatic. In his younger days, during stage performances, the energetic, bubbly singer-composer was known to hop up on his piano. |
| le gothique rayonnant | High Gothic art of the second half of the 13th century and the 14th century, characterized by the presence of circular, radiating motifs |
| grenouille de bénitier | The phrase grenouille de bénitier means "a religious bigot" or a "Holy Joe." It has the same meaning as the expression punaise de sacristie, or "vestry bug." The claim that the origin of the phrase is the Narbonne sculpture seems far-fetched. As Le Robert dictionary of phrases explains, frogs and croaking have long been linked with the idea of corruption. The verb grenouiller is a synonym of magouiller which means "to indulge in cheating and chicanery." |
| Narbonne, mon amie | In "Narbonne, mon amie," the poet visits his native town, reminiscing before he leaves on yet another voyage: "Au r'voir la ville entière/La visite est finie/Au r'voir le cimetière/Où dort tante Èmilie." |
| Saint Just and Saint Pasteur | Saint Just and Saint Pasteur were a pair of boys said to have been martyred at Alcala-de-Henares in Spain in 304, during the anti-Christian repression of the Roman emperor Diocletian. (Another famous Saint-Just, Louis Antoine, was one of the most bloodthirsty leaders of the French Revolution, and was guillotined with Robespierre in 1794.) Prince Edward, the Black Prince (1330–1376), son of King Edward III, won renown as a brilliant military commander, although many of his exploits in France were far from the ideal of medieval chivalry. In 1355, around the beginning of the Hundred Years War, he was dispatched to southern France with a force of 1,000 knights and 2,000 longbowmen. Landing at Bordeaux, he followed roughly the course of what is now the canal du Midi, looting and pillaging his way to Narbonne, where he stopped and came back. The following year, he turned north and massacred the French army at the Battle of Poitiers. Incidentally, the archbishop's palace at Narbonne (now the town hall) was redeveloped in the 19th century by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (see note in section 4 above). |
| Narbonne French Listening Comprehension Exercise |
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| Listen | Study | Test | ||
| Transcript Translation | ||||
| Sound files and transcript
were
originally published in Champs-Élysées audiomagazine (read my review) and are used with the permission of Champs-Élysées, Inc. |
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| Listening Index French Dictionaries | ||||
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