La proie

une proie = a prey
e.g. l'aigle s'est abattu sur sa proie = the eagle swooped down on its prey
un oiseau de proie = a bird of prey

être en proie à... or être la proie de... = to be prey to
e.g. je suis en proie au doute = I am beset by doubts

Les actualités

les actualités = news

And today, in French news, this

La conjugaison - part 2

Today, let's follow-up on a previous conjugation post. Les verbes de la deuxième conjugaison (i.e. second category). They're caracterized by an infinitive ending in -ir and the fact that a lot of their forms (including the present participle) use the suffix -iss-
A typical second category verb is finir (to finish), which goes:

• je finis (the 's' is silent)
  
• tu finis (the 's' is silent)
• il finit (the 't' is silent)
• nous finissons (the 's' is silent)
• vous finissez (pronounced fee-nee-say)
  
• ils finissent (pronounced fee-neess)
  

More on this on Wikipedia

La bière

Today, the all-important synonyms of la bière (beer):

• une binouze (pronounced beenooz)
  
• une bibine (beebeen)
  
• une cervoise (sayrvoaz)
  
• une chope (shop)
  
• une mousse (mooss)
  
• une roteuse (roterz)
• une tize (teez)
  

La Bastille

On this Bastille Day, le quatorze Juillet, what more obvious than:
une bastille = a fortress
mostly used to refer to La Bastille, the Paris prison whose storming on July 14th 1789 kicked off the French revolution. The building itself is long gone, but at its place you will find Place de la Bastille and its famous Opera

Le pantalon

un pantalon = pants/trousers

E.g.
mon pantalon est sale = my pants are dirty

And a very loosely-related word, not widely used but one that always score extra points in a conversation:
une pantalonnade = slapstick comedy, inspired by the character of Pantalone in the commedia dell'arte
Une pantalonnade is used to designate an outrageous buffoonery
Quelle pantalonnade! = what a buffoonery!

La déception

Now that the disillusion of France's loss in the World Cup final has started to wear off (for some more than others), an appropriate word:
une déception (day - say - psee - on) = a disappointment

In typical faux-ami fashion, "a deception" is une tromperie

Siblings

There is no equivalent to "siblings" in French, so we have to fall back on "frères et sœurs":
un frère = a brother (pronounced frayr)
une sœurs = a sister (pronounced ss' - er)

Today's word is clearly influenced by Time Magazine's recent cover story

La panade

la panade is a bread soup that is mostly used as a base for a pastry dough used in:
éclairs




profitéroles




Paris-Brest




Also, être dans la panade = to be in the panade, in other words to be in trouble