Écrivant en française : je le peux faire ! (One helpful tool for learning.)

The Purple Heart

One of my favorite tools for learning to write in French is the “French Student Dictionary (Larousse)”. Unlike the usual dictionary entries, this one offers phrases which are immediately useful to the beginning writer. It’s especially good for teaching French expressions which can help one avoid many anglicisms. 

All my efforts in French today have been writing for my class. Our assignment is to write about some object in my home. The first thing I thought of was the Purple Heart I have displayed in my cupboard. I have a medal awarded to my uncle posthumously and passed on to me from my family. 

Graves at Normandy American Cemetery

My uncle died at the age of 19 years and is buried at the Normandy American Cemetery at Omaha Beach. Arvid L. Setran died of his injuries near the battle of Saint Lo just days after the invasion. My mother, his sister, couldn’t bear the idea of moving his body back to the U.S. from Normandy. His grave is one of 9,387 there. The largest U.S. cemetery in Europe is the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery from WW1 with more than 14,000 burials. Each nationality has its own cemetery.

The memorial, Normandy American Cemetery

My husband and I visited this cemetery at Omaha Beach and found his grave site in 1985. I doubt my teacher had this kind of "object" in mind when she gave us our writing assignment. But sometimes a writer just has to follow her impulses.