Bastille Day 🎆
Secrets du Quatorze Juillet dévoilés
If Bastille Day is your favorite holiday, félicitations - you're a Francophile! Sure, everyone enjoys fireworks, parades, and daring tales of prison breaks, and aren't we always looking for an excuse to eat crêpes and drink wine? But there's a lot more to the French national holiday than that, so ...
Let's find out how much you know about Bastille Day! 🇫🇷
Do you know how to pronounce bastille? Do you also know that you don't actually say that word when talking about this holiday in French?
Today's issue of Lawless French à fond takes an in-depth look at the French national holiday and explains everything you could possibly want to know about the celebration of Bastille Day.
Bastille Basics
Happy Bastille Day! 📣
The French will never say anything like "bonne Bastille" or "joyeuse fête de la Bastille." Unlike the rest of the world, the French don't closely associate their Fête nationale, which they call le Quatorze Juillet, with the storming of the Bastille. At most, they might generically wish each other Bonne fête ! but even that is unlikely. Funnily enough, the biggest fans of France's national holiday tend to be from anywhere but France.
Even the expression Vive la France !, ubiquitous during Francophiles' Bastille Day celebrations, is for the French themselves more tied to politics and sports than to le Quatorze Juillet.
Bastille Day facts 📚
7 things you should know about Bastille: the holiday, the prison, and the word itself.
Symbols of France
Le Quatorze Juillet is just one of a number of French symbols and patriotic motifs.
Jours fériés 🎉
Can you name France's 11 public holidays?
Reading
Bastille Day
Brief introduction to Bastille Day and the French Revolution.
La Fête nationale du 14 juillet
From l'Élysée (office of the president of France)
Le 14 juillet, jour de Fête nationale depuis 1880
From the official site of the French government
Paris fête le 14 juillet !
From l'Office du Tourisme de Paris
Listening
Le Quatorze Juillet
Introduction to the French national holiday with sound file and transcript. Click any word for translation and related grammar lessons.
La prise de la Bastille
Sound file with transcript and translation about the storming of the Bastille.
L'histoire de la Fête nationale
Informative video about how it all began.
C'est quoi le 14 juillet ?
Cute animated video about France's national holiday.
La Marseillaise 🎶
A beautiful rendition of France's national anthem, sung during the 2022 Bastille Day military parade.
Quiz Time
Bastille Day Quiz
Think you know what France's national holiday is all about? Let's find out!
Vive la Fête nationale !
Bastille Day vocabulary quiz.
Symboles de la République française
Test yourself on some A1 grammar in this themed fill-in-the-blanks quiz.
Writing
Practice your French translation skills with these writing exercises.
Bastille Day in France (B2)
A typical family celebration.
Bastille Day in the South of France (A2)
What Bastille Day is like in a small village.
🙋 A2 - B2 ?
These are two of the six CEFR language proficiency levels.
C'est la fête !
Celebrate Bastille Day with some music, un tricolore, and of course a variety of delicious French food:
And be sure to wash it all down with a nice cold glass of vin rosé, Orangina, or Évian. I hope you have a wonderful Bastille Day - à la vôtre ! 🥂
💗 Remerciements
Thanks for reading Lawless French à fond - see you again soon!
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📧 Partagez !
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