Subido por Juan Ugas

Vocable All English 12.12.2019

Anuncio
PRATIC’ABLE
N° 485 / All English.
4 pages centrales de quiz pour progresser en anglais
Le passé simple, le passé continu / Vocabulaire : Les préparatifs de Noël.
.
Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019 / 3,60 €
La presse internationale en V.O. pour progresser en anglais
GETTING
INTO THE
CHRISTMAS
SPIRIT!
THE ENCHANTED SEASON IS BIG BUSINESS
THE FUTURE
OF AMERICA’S
“DREAMERS”
MIAMI HERALD
CULTURE
ECONOMICS
THE GUARDIAN
THE NEW YORK TIMES
LITTLE WOMEN
BUT BIG BUZZ
NYC BANS
FOIE GRAS
L 18896 - 485 H - F: 3,60 € - RD
POLITICS
édito
sommaire
N° 485 / Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
NIVEAU DE DIFFICULTÉ ET ÉQUIVALENCE CECRL
(Cadre Européen Commun de Référence pour les langues) :
 facile A2-B1  moyen B2-C1  difficile C1-C2
Pour faciliter le repérage et la compréhension, les mots traduits sont surlignés dans tous les
articles du magazine.
Grand angle ........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 4
On parle d'eux .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 5
SORAYA NIGITA
RÉDACTRICE EN CHEF
Season’s Greetings!
Christmas: For parents, it is all about the children, the magic of street illuminations, shop
window displays, and of course, a visit to Father
Christmas and the traditional photo. However,
this year, Harrods has decided that the visit is
restricted to Gold store card holders only! For
others, it is the perfect time to curl up and watch
romantic comedies, and with their growing
popularity, studios are rushing to satisfy the
demand.
If you plan on hibernating throughout the holiday period, take the opportunity to curl up with
a great classic novel, such as Little Women by
Louisa May Alcott, which has a new adaptation
in cinemas this December.
 B2-C1
À la une
The Holiday Movie Craze
..........................................
6
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
9
THE NEW YORK TIMES (US)
What is it about Christmas films?
 A2-B1
 B2-C1
Focus
Harrods Limits Father Christmas to Big Spenders
THE GUARDIAN (UK)
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
10
How much would you pay to visit Santa Claus?
 B2-C1
Société
Youtube’s Pasta Grannies
THE NEW YORK TIMES (US)
..................................................
12
The English woman documenting Italy’s forgotten recipes.
 A2-B1
Greta Thunberg Mural Watches over San Francisco
THE GUARDIAN (UK)
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
14
Climate change icon honoured in California.
 A2-B1
Finally, in this issue of Vocable you will find
insights into some of the best Anglo Christmas
traditions.
Sur le vif
.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................
PRATIC’ABLE
���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
16
17
Vocabulaire, expressions et astuces pour parler
comme un anglophone
Happy Reading and Happy Holidays!
Les préparatifs de Noël / Point de grammaire : Le passé simple, le passé continu /
Soignez votre orthographe / Jeux de mots
 A2-B1
 B2-C1
À 360°
............................................................................................................................................................................................................................
21
Enjeux
Supreme Court to Decide the Future of America’s “Dreamers”
MIAMI HERALD (US)
..........................................................................................................................................................................................
22
The heavily debated Obama-era immigration policy.
 A2-B1
Foie gras is Banned by New York City
....
25
....................................................................................................................................................................
26.
THE NEW YORK TIMES (US)
Big Apple says no to French delicacy.
 B2-C1
Rejoignez-nous sur
et suivez-nous sur
et sur
Culture
African American Art Quilts Find a Museum Home
THE NEW YORK TIMES (US)
A unique collection heads to California.
BONUS
Les échos
C1-C2
................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Little Women but Big Buzz
29
...................................................................
30.
...................................................................................................................................................................................................................
31
THE GUARDIAN (UK)
A much-anticipated movie adaptation.
L’article est repris sur le CD ou les MP3
de conversation : Des interviews en V.O.
pour améliorer votre compréhension
Tous les articles du magazine sont lus par des
anglophones sur le CD (ou les MP3) de lecture
Retrouvez le reportage vidéo
lié à l’ article sur vocable.fr
Photo de couverture : iStock
 A2-B1
 B2-C1
Zoom sur
Découverte
Don’t Fear the Writernator
THE ECONOMIST (UK)
..................................................................
32.
Will computers replace human writers?
Les sorties ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 34
Le dessin .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 35
L’actualité en images
(Michael Bowles/REX)
Grand
angle
ROYAUME-UNI
FLYING HIGH
New world speed record set for jet suit flying
Brighton Pier
The 1,760-foot Brighton Palace Pier, more commonly known
as Brighton Pier, took 8 years to build and opened in 1899.
The pier was once a popular theatre and entertainment venue.
It is now more of an amusement park offering fairground rides
that welcomes millions of visitors every year.
foot = 30.48 cm; 1,760 feet = around 535 metres / commonly
known as usually referred to as / once at one time, in the past /
entertainment venue location for leisure activities, holiday events
/ fairground place with amusement attractions, rides and games /
ride funfair attraction / to welcome here, to be visited by (tourists).
4
• VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
British inventor Richard Browning has broken his own jet suit world
speed record with a blistering 85.06mph flyby at Brighton Pier. This
real-life 'Iron Man' more than doubled his previous record of 32.02mph
set in 2017 for the fastest speed in a body-controlled, jet enginepowered suit. Guinness World Records editor in chief Craig Glenday
oversaw the attempt and confirmed the gravity-defying
accomplishment.
to break, broke, broken a record to beat a record formerly set / jet suit jet pack, rocket belt, or rocket
pack is a device worn on the back which uses jets of gas or liquid to propel the wearer through the air /
speed measure of rapidity / blistering breathtaking, astonishing, astounding / mph = miles per hour
(mile = 1.609km) / flyby flypast, flight made by an aircraft or spacecraft over a particular place in order
to record details about it / Brighton Pier Palace Pier is a Grade II* listed pleasure pier in Brighton,
England / to set, set, set to establish / body-controlled operated by the body / engine-powered
motorised / editor in chief person in charge of a publication / to oversee, saw, seen to supervise /
gravity-defying that defies the laws of gravity / accomplishment achievement, success.
On parle d'eux…
Retrouvez le fil d’infos sur www.vocable.fr
Ceux qui font l'actu
Fiona Hill
(© AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
When a whistleblower alleged that U.S. President Donald Trump
had abused the power of the presidency by pressuring the president
of the Ukraine to undertake actions intended to damage his political
rival Joe Biden, the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, launched an impeachment inquiry in September 2019. Fiona Hill rose to public
prominence in November when she testified at the Trump impeachment hearings. In her opening statement, she refuted a conspiracy
theory adopted by Trump's supporters in Congress that it was the
Ukraine, not Russia that had meddled in the 2016 U.S. elections, to
support Democrats rather than Trump. She said this “fictional narrative” had been created and spread by the Russian security services
to advance their interests. Hill was born in England, studied in Scotland and earned a Ph.D in Russian history at Harvard. She has extensive experience working in the field of intelligence and served as
an intelligence analyst under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack
Obama from 2006 to 2009. President Donald Trump appointed her
as Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European and Russian Affairs to his National Security Council in 2017.
She resigned in July 2019.
John Legend
American R&B artist John Legend has
pocketed the much-coveted PEOPLE’s Sexiest
Man Alive title. Legend is one of only 15 people
in the world to have won an Emmy, a Grammy,
an Oscar, and a Tony. These honour
outstanding achievements in television,
recording, film and theatre. Most notably, his
song “Glory” from the soundtrack of the
historical drama film Selma, won the
Academy Award for Best Original Song in
2015.
to pocket here, to be awarded, to receive / coveted
greatly desired / alive living / to honour to pay
hommage to / outstanding remarkable, exceptional /
achievement accomplishment, success / recording
activity of making records/music / most notably most
particularly / soundtrack music which accompanies a
film / drama serious dramatic film.
The Vivienne
This autumn BBC Three presented the very
first UK version of RuPaul’s Drag Race. In the
United States, the show has run for 11 seasons
since 2009. By all accounts, the first season of
the UK version has proven equally popular and
has already been renewed for a second
season. The show sees drag queen
contestants compete in singing, acting and
comedy challenges. The very first UK queen
has been crowned and she is from Liverpool.
Her name is The Vivienne, in honour of the
iconic fashion designer Vivienne Westwood.
(© AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
(© imageSPACE/Sipa USA)
(© Chris Jepson/WENN.com)
whistleblower informant exposing wrongdoing / to allege to accuse, claim / to undertake, took, taken to carry out, initiate / to be intended to to be designed to, have
the objective of / to damage to discredit, compromise / House Speaker leader of the House of Representatives / impeachment act of formally accusing a government
official of a serious offence which could result in removing them from power / inquiry investigation / to rise, rose, risen to prominence to become famous / to testify to
attest, bear witness / hearing official session / statement declaration / to meddle in to interfere in / narrative version of the facts / to spread, spread, spread to
disseminate / to advance here, to serve / to earn to obtain, achieve, here, to be awarded / extensive vast, important / intelligence information of military or political value;
secret services / analyst expert, specialist / senior director highest ranking director / to resign to leave (a post), to quit.
Floyd Mayweather
Former boxing champion Floyd Mayweather
says he is coming out of retirement in 2020.
The 42-year-old made the announcement on
his Instagram account. Mayweather, who was
undefeated in his career with a record of 50-0,
is considered one of boxing's all-time greats.
He last came out of retirement in 2017.
to come, came, come out to return from / retirement
period of one’s life when one has finished working /
undefeated never beaten / all-time ever, of all time /
great here, famous, revered.
very here, complete, absolute / Drag Race reality TV
competition featuring drag queens / show TV
programme, series / to run, ran, run here, to be on
television / by all accounts apparently, evidently /
contestant participant, competitor / comedy comic TV
series / challenge difficult task / to crown to place a
crown on, here, to celebrate as a winner / iconic
emblematic, famous / fashion designer person who
designs clothes.
VOCABLEDu 12 au 25 décembre 2019
•5
À la une
I Culture I
ETATS-UNIS
I  B2-C1
1898
: The first Christmas movie and one of the first movies on any topic ever made was
a short film entitled Santa Claus by British filmmaking pioneer George Albert Smith.
Tom (Henry Golding) and Kate
(Emilia Clarke) in Last Christmas,
directed by Paul Feig (Universal)
THE NEW YORK TIMES ASHLEY SPENCER
THE HOLIDAY MOVIE CRAZE
The festive film frenzy (craze trend, enthusiasm)
Christmas movies are often considered cheesy, but they also contain key ingredients that many viewers enjoy. Year after year, the
genre has become increasingly popular, so much so that channels such as Hallmark or Lifetime, known for their romantic
comedies, are constantly finding news ways of telling Christmas tales and even offering special conventions and merchandise for
fans. The New York Times asked industry experts to try and explain the holiday movie craze.
6
• VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
 facile A2-B1 /  moyen B2-C1 /  difficile C1-C2
Retrouvez plus de tests dans la newsletter Vocable www.vocable.fr/newsletter
ADVANCED RECORDING
Bibi Jacob is a British writer from London. Discover her thoughts on
the Christmas movie craze on the Advanced recording.
CD audio ou téléchargement MP3 (sur abonnement)
“Christmas in Montana,” “Christmas in Louisiana,” “Christmas at Dollywood,” “Christmas
at Graceland,” “Christmas Under the Stars” or
“Christmas at the Plaza.”
2. While holiday movies have long been reli-
able box-office staples — “Home Alone” was
the top-grossing domestic movie of 1990 —
and there are several new theatrical releases
this season, recent years have seen an explosion of fresh content on cable and streaming
services. It’s probably no surprise that Hallmark channels have increased their annual
Christmas movie count by 20% since 2017, but
Lifetime has more than quadrupled its output
in the past two years and Netflix has doubled
its in that same time.
A NUMBERS GAME
3. How is it even possible that there’s room for
so many movies from a single genre? Are we
reaching peak Christmas? “No matter what the
state of the economy, no matter what the state
of chaos or stability, there is an extraordinary
appetite for simple, cheesy, unsophisticated,
easy-to-watch programming,” said Robert
Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for
Television & Popular Culture at Syracuse University. “And all the better if it’s wrapped up in
the bunting and ribbons of Christmas.”
4. By the numbers, Hallmark is TV’s undis-
puted Christmas king. This year Countdown
to Christmas, the brand’s 24/7 holiday programming block, celebrates its 10th anniversary. It
officially began in late October and runs
through New Year’s Day with 24 new titles on
the Hallmark Channel (and 16 more on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries), but past holiday
W
hen Bill Nighy sang “Christmas
Is All Around” in “Love Actually”
16 years ago, he could have been discussing the
state of holiday movies in 2019. Among this
year’s nearly 100 new releases, viewers can
choose to celebrate “Christmas in Rome,”
1. state situation, position / holiday movie Christmas
film / among included in / release here, film / viewer
spectator, person who watches sth.
2. while although, even if / reliable consistent, regular /
staple basic product / top-grossing making the most
money / theatrical cinema / content material, digital
media, here, films / channel TV station / count total
number / output production, programmes.
3. even yet / peak critical point at which sth becomes so
popular a maximal saturation point is reached after which
it starts to lose popularity / no matter regardless of... /
cheesy (over)sentimental, kitsch / all the better it’s even
better / to wrap up to package / bunting festive
decoration / ribbon decorative narrow strip of material.
4. by the numbers in terms of figures / undisputed
uncontested / programming block programming
schedule / to run, ran, run through to continue until /
originals have been playing to stellar ratings
on Friday nights throughout the year. In 2018,
the Hallmark Channel was the most-watched
cable network for the entire fourth quarter
among the key demographics of women 18 to
49 and 25 to 54, and outperformed broadcast
networks on Saturday nights among all households during the Countdown to Christmas. “It’s
almost our obligation to give people everything
they want and need to celebrate this time of
the year,” said Michelle Vicary, executive vice
president of programming and publicity for
the Hallmark networks.
5. Lifetime targets a similar audience with the
It’s a Wonderful Lifetime lineup, which also
premiered in late October, runs around the
clock and will debut 30 films this year. Both
brands’ films follow the same romance formula — often an overworked woman finds
herself in a quaint, Christmas-loving town that
also happens to be home to an eligible bachelor
— but that consistency is considered an asset.
6. “They are purposely slightly predictable,”
Meghan Hooper, senior vice president of original movies, coproductions and acquisitions at
Lifetime Networks, said. “I think viewers know
that the couple’s going to end up together in
the end. You’re going to be satisfied after spending two hours of your time, and hopefully,
you’re getting exactly what you came for.” The
lesser-known UPtv also aims for comfort with
stellar excellent / ratings popularity of a programme
measured by the number of people watching /
throughout during (all of) / cable network cable TV
channel / quarter trimester / key demographics
important target group of viewers / to outperform to do
better than / broadcast network group of TV stations
from the same centralized source (contrary to cable or
satellite channels) / household home.
5. to target to have as an objective, to aim at / audience
group of viewers / lineup selection of programmes / to
premiere to show for the first time / to run, ran, run
around the clock to televise 24 hours a day / to debut to
show for the first time / brand trademark / overworked
very tired from working too much / quaint charmingly
old-fashioned / to be home to to be the place where sb
lives / bachelor single man / consistency regularity,
uniformity, formula / asset advantage.
6. purposely intentionally / slightly a little / to end up
to find oneself (in the end) / hopefully with a bit of luck /
lesser-known not very well-known / to aim to have as an
objective.
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
•7
>>>
À la une I
Culture I
ETATS-UNIS
I  B2-C1
>>> its holiday movies, which this year include the cause they take up valuable real estate on a already working on its 2020 productions, had
studio’s much smaller slate and because they
cost more. “Last Christmas,” one of several new
titles vying at the box office this season, was
7. But it’s not enough to just attract viewers. made for $30 million, about 10 times the budgHallmark and Lifetime have expanded their et of the average Hallmark movie. The romChristmas empires to offer merchandise like com, loosely inspired by the Wham! song, pairs
holiday movie pajamas, wine totes, aprons and Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding underneath
sherpa blankets. For Hallmark, there’s also a the twinkling Christmas lights of London. “The
podcast and movie checklist app — and it’s general feeling that I’m picking up from people
sponsoring the first-ever
I talk to is one of just, ‘Oh,
Christmas Con, a (sold-out)
thank God, one of these
three-day fan convention in
movies that just looks
Has the
Edison, New Jersey, featuring
nice and sweet and emoChristmas movie
a nostalgia-inducing roster of
tional,’” the director, Paul
cable Christmas.
Feig, said. “And I really do
phenomenon
feel that we’ll represent
been pushed as
BEYOND FICTION, A
that for people. It’s fun to
far as it can go?
LIFESTYLE
hope that you are going to
8. “It’s become something
add something to the
Not quite.
even bigger than a programChristmas canon.”
ming phenomenon,” Vicary
said. “It’s become a lifestyle. It’s become, ‘How A MOTOR FOR GROWTH
do I live like I’m in a Hallmark Christmas 10. Also due in theaters this season: the indie
movie?’” One criticism of the Hallmark Christ- romances “A New Christmas” and “Feast of the
mas aesthetic has been its lack of on-screen Seven Fishes,” and Blumhouse’s slasher “Black
diversity, something Vicary said the channel Christmas” remake, in which sorority girls are
was “catching up” on and prioritizing. Lifetime stalked before heading home for the holidays.
and Netflix have outpaced it: roughly half of
their new holiday movies feature a romantic 11. So, has the Christmas movie phenomenon
lead of color. “It’s really important to us that the been pushed as far as it can go? Not quite — at
movies we’re doing reflect the world that we least not on cable. With 232 Countdown to
actually live in,” Hooper of Lifetime said. Both Christmas movies already produced and a
cable brands are also adding Hanukkah-related reported 85 million-plus viewers last year,
movies this year, Hallmark with “Double Hallmark’s ratings are soaring. As are LifeHoliday” and “Holiday Date,” and Lifetime with time’s: The channel recorded its strongest
“Mistletoe & Menorahs.”
month of growth in more than 17 years last
December. Vicary said Hallmark, which is
9. Theatrical holiday releases haven’t proliferated the way TV titles have, presumably bemeta “A Christmas Movie Christmas” among
10 premiere titles.
7. merchandise promotional products / pajamas (US) =
pyjamas (UK) / tote bag / apron protective garment worn
over one’s clothes when cooking / blanket cover /
checklist app application with a list of items which can be
ticked when done / first-ever the very first / con =
convention event, meeting / sold-out where all tickets
are sold, with no places/seats left / to feature to include /
to induce to provoke / roster list, catalogue.
8. lifestyle way of life / lack absence / on-screen in the
film / to catch, caught, caught up to make up for lost
time / to outpace to go faster than, to surpass / roughly
approximately, about / lead main actor.
9. presumably probably /
8
• VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
to take, took, taken up to use up, to occupy / real
estate property, here, space / slate list, here, offer / to vie
to compete / rom-com romantic comedy / loosely not
precisely, vaguely / to pair to bring together /
underneath beneath, under / twinkling sparkling / to
pick up to detect / canon collection of (literary) works.
10. due planned / theater cinema / indie independent
film / feast banquet, large meal / slasher violent film
genre / sorority university / to stalk to obsessively follow
/ to head home to go back to one’s parents / holidays
vacation.
11. not quite not exactly / to soar to rise suddenly, to go
up dramatically /
no intention of backing off anytime soon. “I
could be flip and say we’re going to do at least
41 movies next year, but in all honesty, I don’t
have the number yet,” she said. “We’re not
going backwards, for sure.”
12. Thompson, the pop culture expert, said the
movies were a win for the channels even should
viewership wane. “When we do reach a certain
saturation point, when it doesn’t make economic sense to keep making these things in
the double digits every season,” Thompson said,
“they’re going to have the inventory to offer a
service that does nothing but Christmas.” Although Hooper at Lifetime acknowledged that
the idea of an all-Christmas spinoff platform
had come up, she said it was not something
currently under consideration. “But if you had
asked me eight years ago if we’d be premiering
Christmas movies in October,” she added, “I
think I would have been surprised, as well.” l
to back off to retreat and move away, to reduce the
intensity of an activity / anytime soon in the near future /
flip a little ironic, flippant / to go, went, gone
backwards to reverse, to decrease.
12. win asset, advantage, gain / viewership number of
people who watch a TV programme / to wane to decline /
to make, made, made sense to be logical / in the
double digits which can be counted in double figures
(more than 10) / inventory catalogue, list, stock /
although even if / to acknowledge to admit / spinoff
by-product, derivative / to come, came, come up to be
discussed / currently at present, at the moment.
SUR LE BOUT DE LA LANGUE
Trois mots pour parler
d’un film:
Film [GB]: le support sur lequel les
images, puis les sons, étaient
enregistrés
Movie [US] : vient de to move =
l’ensemble des images qui bougent
Flick : plus familier, le saut ultrarapide entre chaque image qui
produit l'effet de mouvement
(to flick through a photo album =
feuilleter un album photo)
Netflix : vient de la contraction de
Internet + flix (flicks)
 facile A2-B1 /  moyen B2-C1 /  difficile C1-C2
I Traditions
Focus
Holiday Spirit
GOODWILL PRESENT
Every year, since 1947, the people of Norway have gifted the
people of London a Christmas tree to place in
Trafalgar Square. They donate the tree in gratitude for
Britain’s support for Norway during World War II.
(SIPA)
goodwill good relationship / present gift / to gift to offer (as a
present) / to donate to give, offer / support solidarity, help.
CHRISTMAS
SOUNDTRACK
“Jingle Bells” is a beloved
Christmas song, but did you
know it was originally written
for Thanksgiving? The song
was written in 1857 by James
Lord Pierpont and published
under the title “One Horse Open Sleigh”.
It was supposed to be played in the
composer’s Sunday school class during
Thanksgiving. It was also the first song
to be broadcast from space.
soundtrack music / to jingle to ring / beloved
loved, cherished / originally at first, initially /
thanksgiving public holiday in the US on the
fourth Thursday in November, originated by the
Pilgrim Fathers to thank God for their first
successful harvest / sleigh
sled, sledge / Sunday
school religious instruction
for children on a Sunday / to
broadcast, cast, cast to
transmit.
XMAS?
Xmas is commonly used as a
synonym for Christmas and is
often considered informal.
Although it looks like an edgy
and relatively new way of
abbreviating Christmas, the
word «Christianity» was
spelled «Xianity» as far back as
1100. «X”, or “Chi”, in Greek is the
first letter of «Christ» and
served as a symbolic stand-in.
In 1551, the holiday was called
«Xtemmas» but eventually
shortened to «Xmas.»
commonly ordinarily, generally /
edgy trendy, alternative, innovative,
cool / to spell, spelled or spelt,
spelled or spelt to write / as far
back as from / to serve as to work
as / stand-in substitute / holiday
day when people do not go to work or
school / eventually finally / to
shorten to make shorter.
SANTA
TRACKER
Every year at
Christmas time,
NORAD
(the North
American
Aerospace
Defense
Command)
tracks Santa
Claus. It all started
(SIPA)
in 1955, with a
misprint in a Sears ad which was supposed to feature a number children could
call to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas. Instead, the number printed
was the hotline to the Director of Operations for the U.S. Continental Air
Defense. The Colonel ordered his staff to give children updates on Santa’s
location and the tradition has carried on to this day.
Santa (= Santa Claus) Father Christmas / tracker organisation that follows/monitors the
progress of sth / time period / to track to follow / misprint printing error / Sears large mail
order and retail distribution company in the U.S. / ad = advertisement (publicity) / to
feature to include / hotline direct line / to order here, to ask, demand, request, tell / staff
employees / update notification, new information, here, news / to carry on to continue.
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
•9
À la une
I Traditions I
ROYAUME-UNI
I  B2-C1
1879 : The world's first Christmas grotto opened in Lewis's Bon Marche Department
Store in Liverpool in 1879. It still exists and is celebrating its 140th year this Christmas.
THE GUARDIAN RUPERT NEATE
HARRODS LIMITS
FATHER CHRISTMAS TO
BIG SPENDERS
Minimum spend threshold to visit Santa at Harrods
In the 20th century, large shops or department stores started creating "caverns" in
which an actor dressed up as Santa Claus would give gifts to children. These grottos
often include characters like elves. This tradition started in Britain in 1879 and then
extended in the 1890s to Australian and American department stores. Father
Christmas has visited London’s very chic Harrods department store since 1955, but
this year, only VIPs will be allowed to meet him.
F
ather Christmas promises to visit
every well-behaved child on 24 December but it turns out that only the children
of high-rolling parents are able to visit him
in his Swarovski crystal-encrusted grotto in
Harrods. The Knightsbridge department
store has been accused of “behaving like the
Grinch who stole Christmas” by restricting
access to its Father Christmas to customers
who have spent at least £2,000 in the 170-yearold shop.
ents haven’t spent enough to qualify for a
Green tier 2 or above Harrods Reward card.
2. Following anger from customers, some of
whom have family traditions of visiting the
grotto every year stretching back decades,
Harrods has agreed to change its policy this
year and allow in some children whose par-
4.
1. well-behaved with good manners, polite / to turn out
to be the case that, transpire, seem that / high-rolling big
spender, rich / to be able to here, to be authorised to /
department store a big shop with many departments
selling a variety of items / customer client / to spend,
spent, spent to pay out / at least a minimum of.
2. to stretch back here to cover a period of time into the
past / decade period of ten years / policy company
procedure / to allow in to authorise, accept /
10
• VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
3. The store, which is owned by the billionaire
Qatari royal family and made a £171m profit
last year, has now agreed to allow 160 lowerspending families the chance to visit the
grotto. The 160 will be slotted in among a
total of 4,400 10-minute appointments with
Santa. This means that wealthy families will
get 96.4% of Father Christmas’s time.
James Browne, 40, who has made an annual pilgrimage to the Harrods grotto since
his 15-year-old son, Toby, was a baby, said:
enough sufficiently / to qualify for to satisfy the criteria
for, to be eligible for / tier level, category / above over,
more / reward card loyalty card, store card.
3. to own to possess, be the proprietor of / billionaire
very rich person who has (at least) a billion dollars /
chance opportunity / to slot in to add / among between
/ appointment here, time-slot, visit / Santa (= Santa
Claus) Father Christmas / wealthy rich.
4. pilgrimage journey to a place of religious or cultural
importance /
“Harrods is behaving like the Grinch who
stole Christmas. They have lost the true
meaning of Christmas and given into the
commercialisation of the season. Visiting
Father Christmas shouldn’t be reserved for
those that are fortunate enough to frequent
the store and spend thousands of pounds.
“A visit to Father Christmas at a magical
shop like Harrods should be for all,” said
Browne, a marketing director from Worcester Park, southwest London. “I think the
owners need to have a long hard look at the
longer-term impact on their business for the
5.
to give, gave, given into to surrender, yield / fortunate
lucky, privileged.
5. to have, had, had a long hard look at to think hard
about, reflect upon /
 facile A2-B1 /  moyen B2-C1 /  difficile C1-C2
Retrouvez plus de tests dans la newsletter Vocable www.vocable.fr/newsletter
AVANCED RECORDING
BONUS VIDEO
Bibi Jacob believes in Santa Claus and tells us about her
Christmas memories and her impressions of Harrods on
the Advanced recording.
CD audio ou téléchargement MP3
Discover the story behind a classic
holiday treat, Christmas pudding,
with a food historian.
www.vocable.fr/videos-anglais
this special experience, which we make
every effort to facilitate. We care hugely
about making a visit to the Grotto as magical
as possible, and tickets are extremely limited
due to the number of slots we can facilitate
in-store. Unfortunately, we simply cannot
meet the demand for places.
9. “The Harrods Christmas Grotto is offered
by invitation only to Harrods Rewards customers in recognition of their loyal custom
throughout the year. Due to demand, we
invite Harrods Rewards customers who are
Green tier 2 and above the opportunity to
book tickets. “This year, Harrods wanted to
offer all visitors to the store the chance win
complimentary tickets to the Harrods Christmas Grotto. A ‘Wishing Well’ appeared … 10
winners per day were drawn from the Wishing Well; and the winners were each awarded one of the 160 booking slots.” l
Exergue anglais.
Exergue anglais
request sth that is asked for / to facilitate to make
happen / we care hugely about (+ ger.) we are devoted
to / unfortunately regrettably / to meet, met, met
here, to satisfy.
Harrods Christmas Parade, Knightsbridge,
London. (Julian Makey/REX)
thousands of children who won’t grow up
with a fond feeling for the store.”
6. Browne said the grotto visit tradition he had
built with his wife, Helen, and three other
children – Oliver, 13, Jacob, eight, and Matilda,
five – had been ruined by Harrods’ greed. He
said the store, which introduced a free grotto in
1955, has turned the charitable nature of Father
Christmas into a money-making venture.
7. The department store now manages a team
of 10 actors playing the role of Father Christmas, with three working in separate sections
of the grotto at the same time. Tickets to see
fond tender, pleasant, here, positive.
6. wife spouse / to ruin to destroy, damage, spoil / greed
avarice / to introduce to establish / to turn into to
transform into, here, to become / money-making for
financial gain / venture commercial activity.
Father Christmas cost £20 per child. Harrods
will collect a minimum of £84,800 from
operating the grotto in the five-and-a-half
weeks until Christmas Eve if every slot is
taken by families visiting with one child.
Takings will be much greater from multichildren groups. The effective cost to Harrods
of giving 160 tickets to less well-off families
is £3,200. Visits include a secret gift from
Father Christmas, which is understood to
often be a small Harrods branded teddy bear.
A spokeswoman for Harrods said: “Each
year, we are overwhelmed by requests for
8.
7. to collect to receive, earn / operating running, offering
visits to / Christmas Eve the night before Christmas /
takings earnings, money earned / well-off wealthy, rich /
gift present, souvenir object / [it] is understood to [...]
be is believed to be / branded marked with a logo (here,
the name of the shop).
8. spokeswoman representative / overwhelmed
inundated /
9. to offer to make sth available, to propose / in
recognition of in return for, to reward / loyal custom
fidelity / throughout during all of, all through / to book
to reserve / complimentary free of charge, gratis /
wishing well traditionally, a well into which one drops a
coin and makes a wish / to draw, drew, drawn to pull out
/ to be awarded to be granted, to receive.
SUR LE BOUT DE LA LANGUE
Le Père Noël est connu
en anglais sous le nom
de Santa, Santa Claus
ou Father Christmas.
Le poème de l’Américain Clement
Clarke Moore "A Visit from Saint
Nicholas", qui commence par
"'Twas the Night before Christmas
... ", décrit un bonhomme qui arrive
sur son sleigh (traineau) tiré par des
reindeers (rennes) et qui descend
dans la cheminée pour laisser des
toys (jouets) pour les enfants. Il
s'appelle Saint Nicholas ou Saint
Nick et aurait inspiré le personnage
de Santa Claus.
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
• 11
Société
I Gastronomie I
ROYAUME-UNI
I  C2
THE NEW YORK TIMES KIM SEVERSON
YOUTUBE'S PASTA
GRANNIES
Italian 'nonnas' filmed demonstrating pasta making to preserve the tradition
Vicky Bennison has worked in international development in Siberia, South Africa and Turkmenistan, but has always had a
passion for food. She began writing about her culinary adventures as a globetrotter, and has even published critically acclaimed
books on the subject. While doing research for a book on Italian cuisine, she realised that certain cooking skills were no longer
being passed onto the younger generations and began to document the forgotten recipes of Italian grannies before they were
lost forever.
V
icky Bennison, a 60-year-old British
woman with a background in international development, never intended Pasta
Grannies to become a minor YouTube hit or to
make stars of Italian nonnas who couldn’t care
less about their influencer status. She simply
wanted to create a culinary Noah’s ark to capture a way of life before it disappears. “I keep
thinking, ‘Don’t die before I get to you,’ ” she
said.
2. Since Bennison began her project nearly five
years ago, she has recorded more than 250
women (and a few men) doing what they do
every day: rolling pizzoccheri from buckwheat
flour to toss with Alpine cheese made only in
Valtellina; twisting semolina dough into sagne
ritorte to hold the horse-meat ragù popular in
Puglia; marrying hand-torn strapponi with
porcini mushrooms from a Tuscan forest.
1. background professional history, experience / to
intend sth to to envisage that sth would / nonna
grandmother / [they] couldn’t care less about (they) are
not concerned about, don’t care about, don’t think of as
important / Noah’s ark vessel in the Genesis flood
narrative where God spares Noah, his family, and examples
of all the world’s animals from a world-engulfing flood / to
capture to collect and preserve / way of life here, way of
making traditional pasta / to keep, kept, kept (+ ger.) to
continue to, not stop / to get, got, got to here, to have
the opportunity to meet, here, record.
2. nearly almost, practically / to record to film / a few
some / to roll to turn over and over (here, until desired
shape is achieved) / buckwheat flour Fagopyrum
Esculentum, sarrasin flour / to toss to add, mix together /
to twist to wind spirally, twine / semolina hard grains left
after the milling of flour, used in puddings and in pasta /
dough thick, malleable mixture of flour and liquid / into
here, to make / to hold, held, held to contain / popular
well-liked / hand-torn lit. torn apart by hand.
12
• VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
3. With 420,000 subscribers, the Pasta Gran-
ders, are a soothing eddy of Old World expertise
nies YouTube channel is nothing compared and heartfelt respect in the wild waters of
with heavy hitters like Kabita’s Kitchen, an digital food media. There are no Tasty-esque
Indian cooking channel that has 5.7 million quick cuts or performative tosses of sauteing
subscribers. The Pasta Grannies Instagram food. If the camera lingers as the grannies
page is relatively modest, too, with 181,000 fol- knead dough or cut bits of onion into a pot with
lowers. Still, for Bennison,
their plastic-handled nonwho considers monitoring
na knives, it’s because
page views and mastering
there is something to
The videos caught
metrics a necessary evil,
Videos are shot in
the eye of YouTube learn.
the numbers are a testahome kitchens and side
executives, who
ment to the modern apyards, with minimal stylpeal of a fading kitchen art
ing and natural light. The
greenlighted a
as practiced by the last
subtitles are utilitarian. No
short
documentary
one measures anything,
generation that had no
on Pasta Grannies. but Bennison does her best
choice but to make pasta
by hand. “There wasn’t a
to fill in the blanks with
shop you could just pop
instructive narration.
around to when these women were younger,”
she said. “And when there were, dry pasta was A MINIMALISTIC APPROACH
a middle-class thing. You had to have an income 5. Bennison’s crew is small. She and a videogto buy it. They made pasta for survival.”
rapher, Andrea Savorani Neri, shoot the images. Neri’s neighbor in Faenza, Livia De Gio4. The videos, which feature styles of pasta and vanni, is her granny finder and the ambassador
sauce that often don’t extend past village bor- to the women and their families. “She is es3. subscriber person paying regularly to use a service /
channel here, site on a major internet platform (here,
YouTube) / heavy hitter here, site on a major internet
platform with a very large following / still all the same,
nevertheless / to monitor to track, follow, verify / to
master to gain skill in sth / metrics data / necessary evil
something unpleasant that must be accepted in order to
achieve a particular result / testament evidence, proof /
appeal attraction, interest / to fade to disappear slowly,
be gradually forgotten / to pop around to to go to / dry
here, packaged for later use (not fresh) / income revenue,
money.
4. to feature to present / to extend past here, to be
known outside of /
border boundary, limit / soothing calming / eddy water
in circular motion / expertise skills, expert knowledge /
heartfelt sincere, profound / wild extravagant, exuberant
/ digital here, internet / Tasty-esque ref to the website
Tasty featuring food videos and recipes / to linger to hang
round, to spend a long time / to knead to manipulate,
work with the hands (used for bread and pasta etc) /
-handled with a handle made of... / to shoot, shot, shot
to film / yard kitchen garden, terrace / styling hair and
makeup, clothes etc / to fill in here, to add comments to /
blank here, silence.
5. crew team / neighbor (US)= neighbour (GB) person
living next door or nearby /
 facile A2-B1 /  moyen B2-C1 /  difficile C1-C2
Téléchargez l’appli Vocable offerte à nos abonnés ! www.vocable.fr/applimobile
Rosa Turri makes pasta while Pasta Grannies creator Vicky Bennison, center, and Andrea Savorani record her, at Turri's home in Faenza, Italy.
(Francesco Lastrucci/The New York Times)
sential for closing the deal,” Bennison said. She
first made about one video a month, posting
them on YouTube as a way to organize the work
and show publishers that the idea was worth
investing in. “It was more of a hobby, really,”
she said. Three years into it, she had about 5,000
subscribers. “I remember thinking how well I
was doing.”
6. Then her videos started to show up on Face-
book and food sites. In August 2018, Business
Insider posted an article highlighting some of
the rarer pastas, like stretchy Sardinian filindeu
and intricate lorighittas, prepared by Cesaria,
a 95-year-old woman from the Sardinian village
of Morgongiori. The traffic came so fast that
Bennison thought at first that her site had been
hacked. Cesaria was getting millions of page
views. “Everything went ballistic,” Bennison
said. She went back later to show Cesaria her
video and tell her how popular it had become.
“She had no idea she was world famous. She
just laughed her head off.”
“With my book advance and my pension, I kind
of just about break even,” she said. “As a business
model, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.” l
A MEASURED SUCCESS
book advance sum of money received before a book is
written / pension money paid by the government to a
person who is retired / kind of sort of, more or less / to
break, broke, broken even balance the accounts but
gain no profit.
7. The videos caught the eye of YouTube execu-
tives, who greenlighted a short documentary
on Pasta Grannies for a series on the platform’s
Spotlight channel, which highlights feel-good
tales about people who use YouTube to further
their passions. Although Bennison appreciates
the attention, she said she increasingly finds
herself “a slave to the YouTube algorithms.” But
she needs the platform: YouTube ads pay about
a third of the $800 or so it costs to make each
video, which includes a cash appearance fee for
each granny. So far, she isn’t paying herself.
to laugh one’s head off to laugh uncontrollably.
to close a deal to conclude an agreement / to be worth
(+ ger.) to merit / into it later / about around / how well
I was doing what a success it was.
6. to show up to appear / to highlight to draw attention
to / stretchy elastic, long / intricate complex, delicate /
traffic here, connections, website visitors / to hack to gain
unauthorised access to data in a system or computer / to
go, went, gone ballistic to soar, go up in number very
suddenly and by a large amount /
7. to catch, caught, caught the eye of to attract the
attention of / executive director, senior employee / to
greenlight to give the go ahead to, agree to / feel-good
producing a nice feeling, promoting optimism / tale story /
to further to develop, promote / increasingly more and
more / slave person who is owned by and who works for
another / ad = advertisement (publicity) / or so about,
approximately / fee sum of money / so far up to now /
SUR LE BOUT DE LA LANGUE
to pop (faire un saut,
passer rapidement)
peut être suivi d'une variété de
prépositions selon le contexte :
pop (a)round to the shop (§ 3)
pop over for dinner
pop into the office to check the post
pop by the office to pick up those
documents
pop round for a drink some time
pop upstairs and fetch my cardigan
pop downstairs and see who's
knocking the door
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
• 13
Société
I Ecologie I
ETATS-UNIS
I  A2-B1
The 60-ft-tall mural of environmental
activist Greta Thunberg in San Francisco.
(cobreart/Cover Images)
14
• VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
 facile A2-B1 /  moyen B2-C1 /  difficile C1-C2
Une suggestion ? Ecrivez-nous sur [email protected]
ADVANCED RECORDING
English author Bibi Jacob shares her feelings on young
environmental activist Greta Thunberg on the Advanced recording.
CD audio ou téléchargement MP3 (sur abonnement)
THE GUARDIAN MARIO KORAN
GRETA THUNBERG MURAL
WATCHES OVER SAN FRANCISCO
San Fran's fresco of Greta Thunberg
Her name is everywhere, her face has become the symbol of a generation that is holding adults accountable for the world
we live in. In one year, Greta Thunberg has become an icon, and like so many icons before her, she has become an inspiration
for artists.
S
an Francisco, a city that prides itself on its
eco-consciousness, now has a giant likeness of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg
gazing upon its downtown, reminding residents
to respect the planet.
A TRIBUTE
2. The Argentinian muralist Andres Iglesias, who
signs his art with the pseudonym Cobre, completed the project in the central Union Square
neighborhood in November. Cobre also painted a
revered mural of the comedian Robin Williams
that has since been demolished. “Climate change
is real,” Cobre told SFGate. “This girl Greta is awesome and she knows what she’s doing. I hope with
this mural people will realize we have to take care
of the world.”
3. The environmental not-for-profit group One
Atmosphere reportedly reached out to Cobre after
the mural of Williams was slated to come down
and just as Cobre was searching for a building for
1. to pride oneself on to be very proud of / likeness
resemblance, here, physical representation, image /
activist militant / to gaze to look / downtown city
centre.
2. muralist painter (of murals) / to complete to finish /
neighborhood area, district / revered admired / mural
large wall painting, fresco / comedian comic / awesome
extraordinary / to take, took, taken care of to look after.
3. environmental ecological / not-for-profit not
established with the objective of making a profit but
helping a cause / reportedly apparently / to reach out to
to contact / to slate to plan / to come, came, come
down to be demolished, to be taken down / building
construction /
his next project. The organization was said to have
supplied all the paint for the project.
tions spanned an estimated 185 countries in one
of the largest environmental protests in history.
4. It’s not the first time Thunberg has been im-
7. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood
mortalized in street art. Earlier this year, the
UK-based aerosol artist Jody Thomas painted a
50ft portrait of the teenager on the face of the
historic Tobacco Factory in Bristol. “She’s very
much in the limelight, very current, very contemporary and she’s obviously clearly leading a very,
very important issue which affects all of us on
the planet,” Thomas told the Huffington Post.
THE FACE OF REBELLION
5. At 16, Thunberg has already reached the exalted
status of Nobel peace prize nominee, leader of a
movement to reclaim the planet for future generations, focus of Donald Trump’s mockery, and
hero among progressives and young people.
6. In September, Thunberg became the face of a
vast, coordinated strike to protest against government inaction on the climate crisis. Demonstra-
with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the
lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying.
Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the
beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can
talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal
economic growth. How dare you!” Thunberg said,
addressing the United Nations Climate Action
Summit. “My message is that we’ll be watching
you,” she said. l
to span here, to be present in / estimated around,
approximately / protest public manifestation of protest.
7. to steal, stole, stolen to take without permission /
childhood period of one’s life as a child, youth / empty
insincere / yet however, despite this / lucky fortunate / to
collapse to fall to the ground, to fail completely / fairy tale
fictitious fantasy story for children / growth development /
to dare to have the audacity to / to address to give a speech
at / Climate Action Summit important conference with
high-level leaders to discuss actions to tackle climate change
/ to watch to observe, to keep an eye on.
to supply to provide.
4. aerosol spray can / foot ft = foot (one foot = 30.48
cm) 50 feet = 15.24 metres / face facade / factory place
where goods are produced / to be in the limelight to be
in the spotlight, to be the centre of media attention /
current topical, present in the media now / to lead, led,
led to be at the head of, to be the leader of / issue
problem / to affect to impact.
5. exalted noble, high / nominee designated candidate /
to reclaim to rescue, to restore / focus centre of interest,
target, object / mockery derision / progressive person
who is open to liberal new ideas and methods.
6. face symbol / strike cessation of work by employees to
protest / demonstration public protest /
SUR LE BOUT DE LA LANGUE
to reclaim
Notez que « réclamer » ne se traduit
pas par « to reclaim » qui a le sens de
« reconquérir » ou « récupérer »
comme dans cet article (§ 5) :
"a movement to reclaim the planet for
future generations"
Mais par « to demand » ou to
« call for ».
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
• 15
Retrouvez plus d’infos sur www.vocable.fr
e
Brèves d
é
t
socié
(Ray Tang/LNP/REX)
le chiffre de la quinzaine
(iStock)
Holiday cheer
Prince Andrew, 59, has become the first
of the Queen’s children to withdraw from
royal life. Because of his association with
convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein,
the Duke of York publicly disclosed his
decision to retreat from some 200
charities and attendant royal duties. A
string of benefactors withdrew their
support this week following Prince
Andrew’s interview regarding his links to
Epstein. As a result, he will be stripped of
his £249,000 taxpayer-funded salary.
to withdraw, drew, drawn from to leave /
convicted found guilty / sex offender sexual
predator/trafficker / to disclose to announce / to
retreat to leave / attendant accompanying /
duty obligation / a string of a series, several /
benefactor benevolent contributor / following
in response to / to be stripped of to be deprived
of / taxpayer-funded financed by taxes paid by
citizens.
Some companies are going the extra mile to make sure their customers
have a Merry Christmas, and don’t spend it arguing with relatives. Toy
manufacturer Mattel has released a new nonpartisan Uno deck with the
red and blue cards removed in an effort to avoid sparking political discussions. In the US, red is symbolic of the conservative Republican Party,
while blue represents the Democratic Party.
cheer happiness, fun, gaiety / to go, went, gone the extra mile to do more than required / merry happy / to
argue to quarrel, dispute / relative member of the family / toy manufacturer company that produces or
manufactures goods / to release here, to make available, to put on the market / nonpartisan neutral,
impartial, apolitical / deck pack (of cards) / to remove here, to filter out, extract / to spark to cause, provoke.
Clipped wings
The world’s first
museum
dedicated to
vaginas and
vulvas has
opened its
doors in
London's
Camden
market, aiming
to destigmatise
this part of the
female body
and
deconstruct
myths that
surround it. There were 2,000 visitors on the first day, and tickets have been sold out ever
since. The museum became a reality thanks to a fundraising campaign that raised nearly
£50,000 from more than 1,000 people.
to be dedicated to to be devoted to / to aim to attempt, strive, have as a goal / to surround to be
associated with / to be sold out to have all (tickets etc) sold / ever since since then / fundraising activity
of collecting money for an organisation/cause / to raise here, to collect / nearly almost.
16
• VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
(Ivan Nikolov/WENN.com)
(Claire Doherty/Sipa USA)
A new museum
After months of
speculation, Victoria’s
Secret executives
confirmed that the 2019
fashion show was
cancelled. The Victoria’s
Secret Fashion Show
launched in 1995 and
saw supermodels like
Naomi Campbell, Gisele
Bundchen and Miranda
Kerr walk the runway in
elaborate lingerie,
wings and sleepwear
designs. It was first
broadcast on television in 2001. In recent years, it had
been criticised for being sexist, anti-feminist and
out-of-touch. Ratings have also reportedly dropped.
clipped cut / wing part of a bird/insect’s body it uses to fly /
speculation conjecture / executive director, senior employee /
runway catwalk, long stage that models walk on during a fashion show
/ elaborate here, complex, sophisticated / sleepwear pyjamas, night
wear / design here, model / out-of-touch outmoded, old-fashioned,
irrelevant to current issues / rating level of popularity and approval /
reportedly according to certain sources / to drop to fall.
www.vocable.fr
PRATIC’ABLE
Vocabulaire, expressions et astuces pour parler comme un Anglais…
Les préparatifs
de Noël
En partenariat avec
Cette page est réalisée par Talkisy, un organisme qui propose
des cours d'anglais aux collégiens, lycéens et étudiants.
Plus de renseignements sur www.talkisy.com
Nativity scene crèche
Snowman bonhomme de neige
Snowflake flocon de neige
Traditions
Christmas carols chants
traditionnels de Noël
Christmas cards cartes de Noël
Christmas crackers papillotes en
papier au bruit de pétard
Christmas presents cadeaux de
Noël
Christmas stocking chaussette
de Noël
Paper crown couronne en papier
Father Christmas, Santa Claus
Père Noël
Reindeer renne
Sleigh traineau
Sleighbells grelots
Fireplace cheminée
Toys jouets
Xmas contraction de Christmas
Les tubes de Noël
Voici notre Top List. A quel titre de chanson correspond les
extraits de paroles suivants ?
A. S
leigh bells ring, are you
listening?
B. O
h, the weather outside is
frightful
C. What a bright time, it’s the right
time to rock the night away
D. I don’t want a lot for Christmas,
there is just one thing I need
E. H
e sees you when you’re sleeping.
He knows when you’re awake
F. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,
just like the ones I used to know
SOLUTIONS : 1B - 2C – 3D – 4E – 5F - 6A
1. L et It Snow
Dean Martin
2. Jingle Bell Rock
Bobby Helms
3. All I want for Christmas is You
Mariah Carey
4. Santa Claus is coming to Town
John Frederick Coots & Haven Gillespie
5. W
hite Christmas
Bing Crosby
6. W
inter Wonderland
Bernard & Smith
Retrouvez cette fiche de vocabulaire lue sur le CD
lecture et son commentaire sur la partie basique du
CD conversation. CD audio ou téléchargement MP3
Bon à savoir
Un Noël très traditionnel
Le soir du 24, Christmas Eve, on joue en famille et on partage
un repas informel. On peut chanter des Christmas Carols à
l’église à minuit ou en passant de porte à porte pour collecter
des dons pour des œuvres caritatives.
Au matin du 25, Christmas Day, les enfants distribuent les
cadeaux placés sous le sapin. Les Christmas stockings sont
accrochés près de la cheminée. Le repas de midi est un festin :
le célèbre Christmas Pudding, préparé plusieurs mois avant
Noël, est servi flambé au brandy, décoré d’un brin de houx et
accompagné de Brandy Butter. On déchire des Crackers pour
récupérer petits cadeaux, blagues et couronnes en papier. Le
Christmas Cake se déguste avec le thé dans l’après-midi. Le
lendemain, Boxing Day, est férié.
Testez-vous
Ces 9 objets se trouvent-ils (A) sous le sapin,
(B) sur le sapin ou (C) ailleurs ?
Baubles - Crackers - Fairy lights - Garlands - Gifts
Mince pies – Presents – Stockings - Toys
SOLUTIONS : (A) Gifts - Presents – Toys (B) Baubles – Fairy lights –
Garlands (C) Crackers – Mince Pies – Stockings
Food
Christmas cake gâteau glacé
traditionnel aux fruits secs et
confits
Christmas pudding dessert à
base de fruits confits et de graisse
de bœuf
Brandy cognac
Brandy butter beurre au cognac
Mince pie tartelette épicée aux
fruits secs et confits
Yule Log bûche de Noël
Mulled wine vin chaud aromatisé
Decorations
Christmas tree sapin de Noël
Tinsel guirlandes décoratives
Baubles boules de Noël
Fairy lights guirlandes
lumineuses
Wreath couronne (de feuilles, de
houx…)
Mistletoe gui
Holly houx
(ISTOCK)
Vocabulaire clé
 Challenge : Talkisy vous invite à vous tester et à comparer vos
résultats avec d’autres lecteurs de Vocable. Pour vous inscrire au
Challenge, rendez-vous sur www.talkisy.com/challenge.
Les jeux sont disponibles en téléchargeant une application
gratuite pour ordinateur, tablette et smartphone.
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
• 17
PRATIC’ABLE / Grammaire
JOAN GREENWOOD
Le passé simple et le passé
continu
Piqûre de rappel
 Le passé simple
- s’emploie pour parler des faits qui ont eu
lieu à un moment précis dans le passé, de
durée très courte (une seconde) ou très
longue (plusieurs années).
- le verbe se termine généralement en
“...ed” mais il y a des exceptions.
Vous trouverez la liste des verbes irréguliers
dans des livres de grammaire ou sur
Internet.
 Le passé continu
- s’emploie pour parler d’une action se
déroulant dans le passé.
- on utilise l’auxiliaire “was” ou “were”
+ le participe présent qui se termine en
“...ing”
1 Complétez le texte avec le passé simple ou le passé
continu en utilisant les verbes proposés.
to visit to suggest to pick to decide to start
to reach to see to lie to pick to fall to think
to take to have to ring to call to explain
to think to throw
Two years ago, we .......................... some friends in the country and
they .......................... we go blackberrying (looking for wild
blackberries in the hedgerows). My friends .......................... berries on
one side of the hedge and I .......................... to go into the field with
my dog, Scottie, and pick from the other side. Suddenly Scottie
.......................... barking and when I .......................... the spot where she
2 Donnez le participe passé de ces
verbes.
to dig to deal to draw
to drive to eat to fall
to fight to find to forgive
to forbid to grow to know
to leave to lose to ride
to shake to show to spit
to swim to wear
was I .......................... a wooden box which .......................... half open.
When I .......................... it up all sorts of tiny objects .......................... out.
Nothing of any value I .......................... but there was a driving license
with a name on it so I .......................... the box to the Police Station
the next day. A few weeks later as I .......................... lunch, the phone
.......................... and it was the owner of the box who .......................... up
to thank me. She .......................... that two weeks before burglars
had broken into their house and stolen, amongst other things, the
box that had belonged to her grandmother. She .......................... they
.......................... it away because they were disappointed that it did
not contain anything of value. She, however, was delighted to get
SOLUTIONS : dug, dealt, drew, drove, ate, fell, fought, found,
forgave, forbade, grew, knew, left, lost, rode, shook, showed,
spat, swam, wore
back the items, which had so many memories for her and her
Retrouvez beaucoup plus d'exercices de
grammaire, d'orthographe et de culture
générale sur notre site internet !
18
• VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
family.
SOLUTIONS : were visiting, suggested, went, were picking, decided, started, reached, saw, was lying,
picked, fell, thought, took, was having, rang, was calling, explained, thought, threw
s ur www.vocable.fr
/ Prononciation & Orthographe
Retrouvez plus d’infos sur www.vocable.fr
Soignez votre orthographe
Le saviez-vous ?
1
T
rouvez les 10 fautes d’orthographe (y compris la
ponctuation).
Bennisons crew is small. She and a videographer Andrea Savorani
Neri shoot the images. If the camera lingers as the grannies needs
“dough” (page 12 § 2)
[‘ough’ prononcé comme ‘ow’
dans ‘know’] est, à la base, un
dough or cut bits of union into a pot with there plastic-handled
mélange d’une farine quelconque
nonna knifes, it’s because there is something to learn. Videos are
et d’eau, utilisé pour faire du pain,
shoot in home kitchens and side yards, with minimal styling and
des pâtes ou de la pâte à pizza.
natral light. The subtitles are utilitarians. No one measures
anything, but Bennison does her best to fill in the blanks with
instruction narration.
Mais “dough” est également un
mot argotique pour de l’argent
(fric, pognon).
SOLUTIONS : Orthographe  knead / onion / their / knives / shot / natural / utilitarian / instructive
Ponctuation  Bennison’s / virgule avant et après Andrea Savorani Neri
2 Tendez l’oreille
Prononcez chaque mot en vert pour trouver
l’intrus.
Are you ready for Christmas ?
The shops are bustling with activity.
Snowflakes are made up of tiny crystals.
Decorations glisten in the lights.
An English tradition: kissing under the
mistletoe.
If you listen carefully you might hear
Santa’s reindeer.
SOLUTIONS : Le “t” ne se prononce pas, sauf dans ‘crystals’
sur www.vocable.fr
Retrouvez Yves Cotten sur et-compagnie.blogspot.fr
Retrouvez beaucoup plus d'exercices de
grammaire, d'orthographe et de culture
générale sur notre site internet !
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
• 19
PRATIC’ABLE / Vocabulaire
www.vocable.fr
Jeux de mots
1
Bon à savoir
L
earn one word a day until Christmas with Vocable’s advent
calendar !
Démêlez le vocabulaire pour remplir les blancs.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!
and
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22 23 24 25
DSCRA
NIWRAGPP
BRISBNO
FIGT GATS
YSOT
FISGT
ATSNA
LUSAC
SPERSNET
CIMEN
ESIP
SHACRIMST
AKEC
LYOHL
SHACRIMST
RETE
ULEY
GLO
TRAS
GELAN
GTONCKIS
S H L GE I
BLEUBAS
YNVTAITI
YAPL
AROLSC
DERINERE
EMRYR
RACECRSK
ANSESO‘S
S R E GG I T E N
WFSNOKLAES
WNOLABLSS
SHIGLT
TOMSILEET
Day 1. Make a list of who you want to give .................... to.
Day 2. Another word for your answer to Day 1. ....................
Day 3. We are told to “Post early for Christmas”. Start writing your ............... now.
Day 4. Choose some pretty .................... paper, coloured .................... and ..................... .
Day 5. Decide which .................... Father Christmas will bring for your children.
Day 6. Another name for Father Christmas. ................... .
Day 7. Fancy doing some English cooking? Try making .................... .
Day 8. You could also try making a .................... or a .................... .
Day 9. Decorate your house with .................... (a plant with spiky leaves and red berries).
Day 10. Hang up a bunch of .................... and remember to kiss your guests under it!
Day 11. Go to the garden centre or supermarket to buy your ................... .
Day 12. Have you got a .................... or an .................... to put at the top?
Day 13. Make sure the .................... are working. You might need to get new bulbs.
Day 14. Have you got enough .................... to decorate it?
Day 15. Children in England will be taking part in the .................... in their schools.
Day 16. And you will hear Christmas .................... being sung everywhere.
Day 17. A synonym of “happy” often used at Christmas. ....................
Day 18. Buy a box of .................... containing paper hats to decorate the dinner table.
Day 19. Frozen crystals falling from the sky. ....................
Day 20. You can have fun making one if we have a “white Christmas”. ....................
Day 21. Or have fun throwing .................... at each other.
Day 22. Father Christmas’ mode of transport. ....................
Day 23. The animals that pull it. ....................
Day 24. Get the children to hang up a .................... before going to bed.
Day 25. Another way of saying “Happy Christmas and Happy New Year”. ....................
Les Anglais échangent des
cartes de vœux AVANT Noël
plutôt que d’envoyer leurs
vœux pour le Nouvel An. Ils
en envoient beaucoup ... à la
famille, aux amis, aux voisins
... achetées pour la plupart
au profit des organisations
caritatives. En général on
n’écrit pas un texte très long;
simplement:
“Wishing you a Happy
Christmas and a Happy
New Year. Love to all the
family”.
ou bien
“Merry Christmas and all
the best for 2020!”
Pour des cartes envoyées
dans le monde
professionnel, on emploie
souvent l’expression donnée
comme solution pour Day 25
dans l’exercice ci-contre.
sur www.vocable.fr
Retrouvez beaucoup plus d'exercices de
grammaire, d'orthographe et de culture
générale sur notre site internet !
SOLUTIONS : 1. presents, 2. gifts, 3. cards, 4. wrapping / ribbons / gift tags, 5. toys, 6. Santa Claus,7. mince pies
8. Christmas cake / Yule log, 9. holly, 10. mistletoe, 11. Christmas tree, 12. star /angel, 13. lights, 14. baubles,
15. nativity play, 16. carols, 17. merry, 18. crackers,19. snowflakes, 20. snowman, 21. snowballs, 22. sleigh,
23. reindeer, 24. stocking, 25. Season’s greetings.
Ne manquez pas dans le prochain numéro la nouvelle page PRATIC’ABLE : Chez le coiffeur
20
• VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
À 360°
Retrouvez plus d’infos sur www.vocable.fr
Le tour du monde en V.O.
For the first time in Vogue
magazine’s history, an indigenous “muxe” will appear in December on the
cover of its Mexican and
British editions. Muxes are
often described as Mexico’s third gender. The cover
photo features Estrella
Vazquez, a 37-year-old indigenous Zapotec muxe
wearing a traditional huipil garment with colorful
flowers and holding a pink
fan in one hand.
(Vogue)
muxe person who is assigned male at
birth, but who dresses and behaves in
ways otherwise associated with women;
they may be seen as a third gender /
indigenous here native, original / cover
front page of a newspaper/magazine /
gender sex (identity as either male,
female, both etc.) / to feature to present
/ Zapotec indigenous people of Mexico,
mostly concentrated in the southern state
of Oaxaca, / huipil traditional dress worn
by indigenous women from central Mexico
to Central America / garment article of
clothing / to hold, held, held here, to
hold in the hand / fan hand-held folding
apparatus, shaped like nearly a half circle,
of thin material (paper, feathers) and
waved to create movement of air.
(iStock)
Muxe pride
Matchstick music
Ukrainian Bogdan Senchukov wants to carve his
way into the Guinness Records by making the
world's biggest collection of musical
instruments from matchsticks. 15 of his
real-sized instruments, including two guitars,
accordions, violin and drums, are played by a
band of musicians which prides itself as the only
“match music band” in Ukraine. He says the
most challenging part of his work is that some
parts require more than 10 hours of continuous
work to avoid them losing their shape.
matchstick stem of a match / to carve one’s way
into to find a place in (to carve to cut, sculpt /
real-sized actual size / drums percussion set / band
(musical) group / to pride oneself as to claim with
self-satisfaction / challenging difficult / to avoid to
prevent / shape form.
(iStock)
A group of eighth
graders from Quezon
City in the Philippines,
has found a way of
turning a major nuisance
into a useful material. As
part of a research
project, they gathered
and air-dried dog faeces,
then mixed them with
cement powder and
turned the excrement
into bricks. Their
solution could both rid
city streets of dog poo
and potentially lower
construction costs. The
students say their “bio
bricks” are ideal for
sidewalk pavements or
small structures like
backyard walls.
waste refuse / eighth grader student in the 8th grade (aprox 13yrs old) / nuisance problem, source of irritation,
annoyance / as part of within the framework of / to gather to collect, amass / faeces excrement / to rid, rid, rid to free
sth of sth / poo excrement / sidewalk raised path at the side of a road where pedestrians walk / pavement surface at
the side of the road for people to walk on / backyard area at the back of one’s house, garden.
(iStock)
Constructive waste
Belgium’s boy
wonder
Laurent Simons, a child prodigy from Belgium
may soon have a bachelor's degree at the
tender age of nine. He is currently studying at
the Eindhoven University of Technology. He
then plans to work towards a PhD in electrical
engineering and a degree in medicine. The
young boy comes from a family of doctors but
no one knows where his gift for soaking up
knowledge comes from, although his mother
has joked about eating a lot of fish during her
pregnancy. The boy wonder apparently already
knows what he wants to do when he grows up:
develop artificial organs.
boy wonder prodigy, genius / bachelor’s degree
undergraduate degree / currently at present, at the
moment / PhD = Doctor of Philosophy, doctorate /
gift talent, ability / to soak up to absorb /
knowledge information about and understanding of
a subject, learning / to joke to make an amusing
remark / pregnancy state of expecting a baby / to
grow, grew, grown up to become an adult, mature.
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
• 21
Enjeux
I Politique I
ETATS-UNIS
I  B2-C1
VIDEO BONUS
The fate of America's more than 700,000 “Dreamers” now lies with the Supreme
Court. PBS explores the history and stakes of the Obama-era executive order that
protected a young generation of undocumented immigrants from deportation.
www.vocable.fr/videos-anglais
MIAMI HERALD FABIOLA SANTIAGO
SUPREME COURT TO DECIDE
THE FUTURE OF AMERICA'S
"DREAMERS"
The fate of America's "Dreamers" in the hands of the Supreme Court
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is an American immigration policy that allows certain individuals, who are in the
United States illegally after being brought to the country as children, to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action
from deportation and become eligible for a work permit in the US. It was implemented by the Obama administration in June 2012.
Since 2017, President Donald Trump has vowed to terminate DACA. The case is now in the hands of the Supreme Court.
O
n Nov.12, the Supreme Court took up
the case on whether the move by
Trump to end the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals (DACA) program created by President
Barack Obama in 2012 to allow young people
brought as children to live and work here legally, was lawful. They had enjoyed a victory
when lower courts rejected Trump’s claim that
the program was unconstitutional, saying that
his decision to end DACA was “arbitrary and
1. supreme court highest court in the federal judiciary of
the United States / to take, took, taken up to begin to
review / case affair / move decision / Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals policy (DACA) federal program
created by Obama to give temporary protection to
undocumented migrants who arrived in the US as children
/ lawful constitutional, legal / lower court tribunal of a
lower jurisdiction / claim declaration, affirmation / review
enquiry /
SUR LE BOUT DE LA LANGUE
Notez que le pluriel de
Attorney General (≈ Garde des
Sceaux, ≈ Ministre de la justice [US],
≈ Procureur Général [GB] )
peut être :
Attorneys General ou bien Attorney
Generals.
22
• VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
capricious.” The review by the highest court in
the land is widely seen as one of the most important cases this term and another test of
Trump’s hard-line immigration policy.
2. It’s not that the Dreamers are a large immi-
grant group. Of the estimated 700,000 who
qualified for the program across the country,
some 25,500 live in Florida, where the Republican
leadership supports the president and his policies
with zealotry. Given the high profile of Dreamer youth in the state, they could’ve stayed at least
neutral, but the last two attorneys general, Pam
Bondi and Ashley Moody, have expressed in
writing to the Supreme Court their support of
the Trump view that DACA is illegal.
3. Although he pledged “I love Dreamers,” Trump
terminated DACA at a moment of heightened
land country / widely generally, by many people / term
period of time in office / hard-line firm, inflexible / policy
plan of action adopted by a government, measure.
2. dreamer here, illegal immigrant who entered the US as
a child / estimated approximately / to qualify for to be
eligible for / across all over / leadership leaders of a
group / to support to back, to approve / zealotry
fanaticism / given due to, because of / high profile
attracting much media attention / youth young people /
Attorney General (US) most senior legal officer in a state
/ view opinion.
3. although even if / to pledge to promise / heightened
intensified /
anti-immigrant rhetoric when he was trying to
use the Dreamers’ status as a bargaining chip to
fund his border wall with Mexico. It was an unpopular tactic and the president didn’t get the
billions he sought. These young people, educated
in U.S. schools — and many of them top students
and contributors in their communities — enjoy
widespread support among Americans, polls show.
4. The permanent solution to their predicament
could’ve been settled by Congress long ago, but
divisive politics have kept a “clean” Dream Act
bill from coming to fruition, even as Dreamers
have prospered in places like Miami. But the
Dreamers have become the proverbial political
football everyone tosses around. Yet, no one
scores a touchdown.
bargaining chip leverage in a negotiation / to fund to
finance / border frontier, boundary / billion = thousand
million / to seek, sought, sought here, to try to obtain /
top the best, successful / to enjoy to benefit from /
widespread extensive / poll survey, study of public opinion.
4. predicament difficult situation / to settle to decide, to
resolve / divisive controversial, causing division / politics
political opinions / to keep, kept, kept sth from (+ger.)
to prevent sth from (+ger.) / clean here, free from
restrictions / bill proposed new law / to come, came,
come to fruition to become reality, to be accomplished /
proverbial commonly known, here, metaphorical /
football American football, here, political football issue
which is seized upon by political parties to score points and
which is continually debated but left unresolved / sth
everyone tosses around sth everyone throws around/
talks about / to score a touchdown to score points in a
game of American football.
 facile A2-B1 /  moyen B2-C1 /  difficile C1-C2
Une suggestion ? Ecrivez-nous sur [email protected]
Los Angeles area DACA students and Dreamers rally in support of DACA.
(Ted Soqui/SIPA USA)
5. A Dream Act that provides them with status
and a path to citizenship has failed to pass Congress. In the latest political round, the Democratic, Nancy Pelosi-led House passed it, but it is
still waiting to be heard in the Republican-controlled Senate. Through it all, the Dreamers have
lived in limbo as lower courts have weighed in
on DACA, not knowing whether they will be
able to practice the professions they’ve trained
for or whether one day they will be separated
from their U.S.-born children.
LIVING IN UNCERTAINTY
6. What’s riding on the Supreme Court review of
DACA? For Dreamers, everything. “I unfortunately don’t feel that a conservative Supreme
Court will make a decision that is in the best interest of DACA recipients,” Monica Lazaro, a Miami
Dreamer working on a master’s degree at Harvard,
told me. “Since I have been overwhelmed with
work, I try to avoid thinking about my future —
with or without DACA — because the uncertainty will not make things easier.”
7. Brought here from Honduras when she was
9 in 2002, Lazaro had always hoped — and
worked toward, as one of the most eloquent
young voices in South Florida — for a permanent
solution that includes a path to citizenship. “I am
deeply saddened that it all comes down to this,”
5. path route / citizenship obtaining American
nationality, naturalisation / to pass to be voted in/be
adopted by / round series of votes in an election /
democratic here, of the Democrat party / through it all
during all of this / limbo state of prolonged uncertainty /
to weigh in on to intervene, to join in a discussion / to
practice to do / to train to get an education, to learn
skills.
6. to ride, rode, ridden on to depend on / recipient
beneficiary / master’s degree university diploma after a
Bachelor’s / overwhelmed inundated, submerged / to
avoid to stop, to not do sth.
7. to bring, brought, brought to take / to work
towards to make efforts with sth as an objective / deeply
profoundly / saddened upset, distressed, sad / to come,
came, come down to to amount to /
Supporters of the DACA program rally in Portland, Oregon.
(Alex Milan Tracy/Sipa USA)
she said of the court case. “However, I do see a a journalist like me to write a story about their
possible light at the end of this tunnel. Ending plight — and they were safe from deportation.
DACA would create an urgency. Many DACA The Cuban rafters of the 1994 exodus were first
recipients are homeowners, car owners/leasers, interdicted at sea and sent to the U.S. Naval
business owners/associates and we are also Base in Guantánamo Bay, but after some nine
taxpayers so I can’t imagine that an administra- months in limbo, they were processed and
tion would deport such
granted entry by Presiindividuals. From a condent Bill Clinton.
“Many DACA recipients
servative economic perare homeowners, car
spective, it does not
9. But there isn’t much
precedent for what
make sense. They
owners/
would have to come up
Trump has done: He has
leasers,business
with an alternative soluintentionally harmed
owners/associates and
tion to DACA. “Now,
for political gain a group
we are also taxpayers”
whether it’s a good one,
of young people raised
in this country as AmerI don’t know.”
icans. He provided more
8. The court’s decision isn’t expected until the evidence of his intent again on Nov. 12 by tweetsummer of 2020. Some court watchers said ing a whopper of a lie about Dreamers, followed
justices appeared inclined to give Trump a win. by another empty promise.
But there’s historical precedent for Obama’s
DACA. Other presidents from both political 10. “Many of the people in DACA, no longer very
parties also have adjusted the status or granted young, are far from ‘angels.’ Some are very tough,
entry to immigrant groups without congres- hardened criminals,” he wrote, in an obvious
sional approval. Nicaraguans fleeing the U.S.- attempt to defame them and influence the court.
backed contra war, for example, were welcomed “President Obama said he had no legal right to
by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. All sign order, but would anyway. If Supreme Court
that took was a policy directive from the White remedies with overturn, a deal will be made
House to Miami’s immigration director. Or, for with Dems for them to stay!” l
urgency urgent situation / homeowner proprietor of
one’s own house / leaser person who rents sth / business
owner person who has their own company / associate
partner / taxpayer person who pays (income) tax / to
deport to expel from a country / perspective point of
view / to make, made, made sense to be logical / to
come, came, come up with to think of, to propose.
8. to be expected to be planned / watcher follower (of
events) / justice judge / to be inclined to to be apt to / to
grant to give, to authorize / congressional from Congress
/ approval approbation, permission / to flee, fled, fled
to escape, to run away from / US-backed supported by
the US government / contra counter-revolutionary (in
Nicaragua) / all it takes... all it requires... /
plight condition of being in extreme danger and hardship /
safe protected / deportation expulsion, extradition /
rafter person travelling on a raft (type of simple boat),
here, Balseros (Cuban emigrants who tried to reach the US
by boat) / to interdict to impede / to process to deal
with administratively.
9. to harm to damage, to be detrimental to / for...gain
for... advantage / to be raised to be brought up / to
provide to give / evidence proof / intent intention /
whopper enormous / lie untruth, piece of false
information / empty insincere.
10. tough violent, rough / hardened hard, impenitent /
attempt effort / to defame to ruin sb’s reputation /
order ordinance, directive of a court / to remedy to legally
redress an error / overturn invalidation of a previous legal
decision / to make, made, made a deal to negotiate an
agreement / Dem = Democrat.
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
• 23
OFFRE SPÉCIALE ENSEIGNANTS
DÉCOUVREZ LA PLATEFORME
!
NUMÉRIQUE
S
ANGLAI L
O
ESPAGN D
N
ALLEMA
Le portail de ressources pour
l'apprentissage des langues
Un accès automatique
au sein de votre établissement
Licences pour Collèges et Lycées
Magazine
☎
Audio
Tests de niveau
Contactez-nous pour profiter d’un essai gratuit
01 44 37 97 97 —
[email protected]
Enjeux I
Economie I
ETATS-UNIS
I  A2-B1
VIDEO BONUS
New York City lawmakers passed a bill that bans restaurants and grocery stores from selling foie
gras, the fattened liver of a duck or goose considered a culinary delicacy for centuries.
www.vocable.fr/videos-anglais
THE NEW YORK TIMES JEFFERY C. MAYS / AMELIA NIERENBERG
FOIE GRAS IS BANNED BY
NEW YORK CITY
Animal cruelty concerns over the production of foie gras
Foie gras is a specialty food product made of the liver of a duck or goose that has been especially fattened. A primarily French delicacy,
it involves inserting a tube down the throat of male ducks or geese, to force-feed them two or three times daily. The objective is to
make the bird’s liver swell up to 10 times its normal size. The practice of fattening birds, known as “gavage”, reportedly dates back to
Ancient Egyptian times. The product and its means of production have become increasingly controversial and have, as a result, even
been banned in several countries.
T
he New York City Council overwhelmingly passed legislation
that will ban the sale of foie gras in the
city, one of the country’s largest markets, beginning in 2022. New York City
will join California in prohibiting the
sale of foie gras, the fattened liver of a
duck or goose, over animal cruelty
concerns.
inserted into a duck’s throat for
a 20-day feeding regimen,
swelling the liver to up to
10 times its normal size.
The procedure can leave
ducks too big to walk or
even breathe before they
are slaughtered, animal
activists say.
“New York is the mecca of dining in
the world. How is it possible that New
York doesn’t have foie gras?” said Marco Moreira, executive chef and owner of
Tocqueville, an acclaimed French restaurant near Union Square.
Carlina Rivera, a Manhattan councilwoman who
sponsored the foie gras legislation said her bill “tackles
the most inhumane process” in the commercial
food industry. “This
is one of t he
most violent
practices and
it’s done for
a purely luxury product,”
she said.
2.
3. Most foie gras is produced through a
process known as gavage; ducks are forcefed a fatty corn-based mixture that engorges their livers. The process requ i re s t ub e s to b e
(iStock)
1. overwhelmingly by a massive majority / to pass to
adopt, vote in / to ban to forbid, exclude / to prohibit to
ban, forbid / fattened fed to increase fat level / liver
organ (in animals and humans) that cleans the blood /
duck water bird / goose bird like a large duck, with a long
neck / concern preoccupation, worry.
2. mecca holy city, here, the best, most highly regarded /
acclaimed celebrated, highly regarded, praised.
3. through by way of / process method, procedure,
technique / force-fed to feed by force even when (here
the duck) no longer hungry / fatty made up of fat, adipose
/ corn maize /
4.
throat inner part of the neck /
feeding act of giving food to animals /
regimen here, regime, program / to swell,
swelled, swelled or swollen to grow, increase
in size considerably / to breathe to inhale and
exhale to and from the lungs / to slaughter to kill.
4. councilwoman member of local government / to
sponsor to support / to tackle to deal with, handle.
Foie gras farmers say that the
forced feedings
are not cruel, and
that the claims of
torture are exaggerated. They say there is
a bias against foie gras
because it is a luxury
product. The bill bars the sale
of foie gras produced by “forcefeeding birds,” with each violation
punishable by a $2,000 fine. But not
all foie gras comes from ducks or
geese that have been force-fed, and
determining whether foie gras
was illegally produced may present
an enforcement challenge.
5.
6. The foie gras legislation was
part of a package of anti-animal
cruelty legislation. Other legislation in the package will prevent
horse carriages from working on
humid days, create a mayor’s office
of animal welfare and prohibit the capture
and transfer of wild birds like pigeons. l
5. claim here, accusation / bias prejudice / bill draft of a
proposed law / to bar to forbid, interdict, prohibit / fine
money paid as sanction / enforcement application of a
law.
6. package group of measures / horse carriage
transport using a horse / welfare well-being / wild living
in natural habitat, undomesticated, untamed.
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
• 25
Culture
I Art I
ETATS-UNIS
I  B2-C1
VIDEO BONUS
Marion Coleman is a recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship from the
National Endowment for the Arts, the nation's highest honor for folk and
traditional arts. She shares the history and practice of African-American quilting.
www.vocable.fr/videos-anglais
NEW YORK TIMES PETER LIBBEY
AFRICAN AMERICAN ART
QUILTS FIND A MUSEUM
HOME
Significant collection of art quilts to be on display soon
Quilting was borne out of necessity - before central heating, people needed to stay warm - but it also became an artform. The modern
form of art quilting began in the United States in the 1980s: quilters started turning their ideas and experiences into images instead of
relying on traditional patterns to make their creations. African-American traditions and innovations in the field rose to the forefront, in
particular thanks to Eli Leon, a collector of African-American quilts, who organised a travelling exhibition in 1987 that introduced both
historic and current quilters.
A
lmost 3,000 quilts by African American
artists — including more than 500 by
Rosie Lee Tompkins, a quilt maker whose formally inventive work has helped elevate the
1. quilt bed covering, bedspread / maker creator, designer,
here, artist / formally in a serious manner, in the proper
way / inventive original /
SUR LE BOUT DE LA LANGUE
Dans les expressions
comportant « to do » à
l’infinitif, le « to » n’est
pas systématique.
• Sans « to »
to make someone do something
to let someone do something
to have someone do something
• Avec « to » :
to ask/tell someone to do something
to persuade/encourage someone to
do something
to get someone to do something
• Au choix, avec ou sans :
to help someone (to) do something
(§ 1).
26
• VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
standing of the discipline in the art world — are
heading to the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive as a bequest by Eli Leon. Leon,
who died last year, was a voracious collector and
champion of African
American quilting.
3. Leon’s collection will
help introduce the public
to African American quilt
makers other than the
women of Gee’s Bend,
Alabama, whose work was
showcased in a celebrated
exhibition that Rinder
helped bring to the Whitney Museum of American
Art in 2002. (In his review
for The Times, Michael
Kimmelman called the
show’s 60 quilts “some of the most miraculous
works of modern art America has produced.”)
“Gee’s Bend, which a lot of people know about
now, happily, that’s one small town in one state
in the South,” Rinder said. “Eli’s collection is a
broad overview of hundreds of other towns and
the work that was made in them.”
Despite Leon’s
recognition of the
quilts as substantial
pieces of art, it has
taken some time for
the collection he
assembled to be seen
that way by others.
“It’s hard to overestimate the importance and
power of this gift,” Lawrence Rinder, the museum’s director and chief
curator, said. “The scale of
it and the depth of it is
mind-blowing.” The bequest, which includes the
pieces by Tompkins and
works by more than 400 artists from across
the country, will account for about 15% of the
2.
art collection at the Berkeley Art Museum and
Pacific Film Archive, which is affiliated with
the University of California.
standing position, status / to head to to be on the way to
/ bequest legacy, gift, donation / voracious obsessive,
here, prodigious / collector person who collects things /
champion defender, advocate / quilting making a cover
made from fabric pieces sewn together in a pattern or
picture.
2. hard difficult / to overestimate here, to overstate,
speak too highly of / gift present / chief curator
exhibition or museum director / scale level, magnitude /
depth profoundness, intensity, here, significance
culturally, historically and artistically / mind-blowing
incredible, astounding, fantastic / piece work (of art) /
work oeuvre, artistic creation / from across from one end
to the other / to account for to represent.
3. to introduce to to present to / to showcase to
present, feature, display / celebrated much appreciated,
well-received / exhibition public display of works of art /
review article, critique / show here, public display of
works of art / happily fortunately, luckily / broad general
/ overview global vision.
 facile A2-B1 /  moyen B2-C1 /  difficile C1-C2
Téléchargez l’appli Vocable offerte à nos abonnés ! www.vocable.fr/applimobile
4. The breadth of Leon’s collection and its em-
Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, where Tompkins
phasis on Tompkins’ quilts are closely linked. It and some of the other artists had roots, to conwas a chance encounter with Tompkins at a flea duct research on the tradition of African
market in the Oakland, California, area in 1985
that convinced Leon, a psychotherSharon Risedorph via The New York Times.
apist, to dedicate his
life to collecting
quilts by African
American artists.
5. Tompkins, whose
art he had fallen for so deeply, Leon traveled to
4. breadth scope, diversity / emphasis insistence,
attention, priority / closely here, intimately / to link to
connect, associate / chance not planned, happening by
chance / flea market outdoor market with stands selling
bric a brac / to dedicate to devote, focus on.
5. to fight, fought, fought to to battle to / to maintain
to keep / privacy here, private life / to part with sth here,
to let go of / true actual, real.
9. Jenny Hurth, the executor of Leon’s
10. Leon’s original plan, Hurth
6. Once he had persuaded her
7. To trace the lineage of the practitioners whose
A TRANSFORMATIVE GIFT
estate, said that he chose to leave his collection to the Berkeley museum because
Rinder was among the first people in
the art world to recognize the value of
the quilts he had acquired. “He knew
that if he left them in Larry’s hands,
his idea that these were works of fine
art would be carried forth in some
way,” Hurth said. Rinder organized
the first solo exhibition of Tompkins’ work at Berkeley in 1997 and
included her work in the 2000
Whitney Biennial.
real name was Effie
Mae Howard, didn’t
make herself easy to
find. She had begun
quilting seriously in
her 40s and when her
work started to attract
attention, she used a
pseudonym, fought
hard to maintain her
privacy and rarely parted with her pieces. Leon
was one of the few to
whom she revealed her
true identity and sold her
work regularly. Tompkins
died in 2006 at age 70.
to share her work, Leon was immediately taken by Tompkins’
daring designs and use of unconventional materials like velvet
and fake fur. His passion for her
quilts led him to buy as many as
he could and also inspired him to
seek out work by other African American quilt makers in the Bay Area.
in shaping the history of art as we know it,”
Rinder said when asked why this body of work
hasn’t received more attention. The quilts in
Leon’s collection, which were predominantly made by African American women,
have been particularly affected by these
prejudices, he said.
American quilt making
and collect pieces. His home back in
Oakland eventually became so crowded with
quilts that he built a two-story addition to accommodate them. In 1987, he organized a first
exhibition of quilts from his collection at the
San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum.
8. Despite Leon’s recognition of the quilts as
substantial pieces of art, it has taken some time
for the collection he assembled to be seen that
way by others. “I believe that sexism and racism,
not to mention classism, have each played a role
6. to be taken by to be impressed with, fascinated by /
daring audacious, bold / design artistic creation /
material fabric, cloth / velvet velours, soft voluptuous
fabric / fake fur synthetic fabric simulating fur / to lead,
led, led to cause, result in / to inspire to encourage / to
seek, sought, sought out to look for, search for.
roots origins / to conduct to carry out / to collect to
have a collection of / eventually finally, in the end /
crowded here, filled with numerous things / to build,
built, built to construct / two-story floor, level /
addition here, extension / to accommodate to house,
have enough space for / craft artisanal / folk traditional
to the common people of a country.
7. to trace to track, find the origin of sth / lineage origins /
practitioner maker, designer, here, artist / to fall, fell,
fallen for to fall, fell, fallen in love with /
8. despite in spite of / substantial significant, important
/ to assemble to gather, collect / that way in this manner
/ classism discrimination based on social class /
said, was to place his collection in multiple museums,
including Berkeley, but he
died before plans for this
dispersal could be made.
Rinder will resign from
his position at the Berkeley museum in March,
but Catherine Koshland, the
president of the museum’s board and the
University of California, Berkeley’s vice chancellor for undergraduate education, said that his
departure would not affect the care of the bequest. “Eli Leon’s collection is a transformative
gift,” she said by email. “And we’ve made a
sustained commitment to sharing it with scholars and the public for many years to come.” l
to shape to form, define, influence / body of work here,
collection of work / predominantly principally, mainly /
prejudice discrimination, intolerance, bias.
9. executor person appointed to carry out the terms of a
will / estate all the money and property a person owns
(esp on their death) / fine art form of art (painting,
drawing, sculpture etc) created to be beautiful / to carry
forth to promote / in some way in one way or another /
solo here, single artist.
10. plan project, idea / dispersal dispersing / to resign to
leave (a post) / position job, function, post / board
committee (of directors) / vice chancellor president (of
university) / undergraduate the first three years of a
university course / care preservation / transformative
revolutionary / sustained enduring / commitment
pledge, promise / to share to make accessible / scholar
academic expert, specialist.
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
• 27
KING KONG ET MONTY PYTHON, SACRÉ GRAAL…
MAIS EN MIEUX !
© 1977 NATIONAL FILM TRUSTEE COMPANY LIMITED. TOUS DROITS RÉSERVÉS.
ENTRE
A LE
ÉM
AU CIN
25
BRE
DÉCEM
Un film de TERRY GILLIAM
NOUVELLE RESTAURATION 4K
MICHAEL WHITE présente JABBERWOCKY un film de TERRY GILLIAM avec MICHAEL PALIN HARRY H. CORBETT JOHN LE MESURIER WARREN MITCHELL MAX WALL et RODNEY BEWES JOHN BIRD BERNARD BRESSLAW
TERRY GILLIAM NEIL INNES TERRY JONES scénario CHARLES ALVERSON et TERRY GILLIAM d’après le poème de LEWIS CARROLL
producteur délégué JOHN GOLDSTONE producteur SANDY LIEBERSON réalisateur TERRY GILLIAM
www.carlottavod.fr
Échos
Retrouvez plus d’infos sur www.vocable.fr
Brèves de culture
(Moviestore Collection / Rex Features)
The comeback
James Dean has been cast in a
forthcoming movie. Yes, the
same Rebel Without a Cause actor who died in 1955 at the age of
24. He is set to appear in Vietnam-era action drama Finding
Jack. Anton Ernst, who is co-directing the film, told The Hollywood Reporter they “searched
high and low for the perfect character to portray the role of Rogan,
which has some extreme and
complex character arcs, and after
months of research, we decided
on James Dean.” Magic City
Films, the production company
behind the film, says it has obtained rights to use Dean’s image
from his estate and will use CGI
technology to include actual footage and photos of Dean in the
movie. It comes as no surprise that the move has not been well received among
the community of living actors.
(Mary Evans/SIPA)
Brontë book
A miniature
manuscript,
written by
Charlotte
Brontë
when she
was 14
years old,
is returning
to her
childhood
home
in West
Yorkshire
after it
was bought at auction in Paris. The Brontë
Parsonage Museum bid 780,000 euros for
the unpublished manuscript. The museum’s
fundraising campaign was boosted by an
appeal from actress Judi Dench.
childhood home home where a child grows up /
auction public sale of articles to the highest offer /
parsonage presbytery, vicarage, rectory / to bid,
bid, bid to make an offer / fundraising activity
of collecting money for an organisation/cause / to
boost to reinforce / appeal request for aid.
(Chelsea Lauren/Variety/REX/Shutterstock)
comeback return, here return by a celebrity to some previously successful activity / to be cast to be chosen for a role
/ forthcoming coming soon, here, in preparation / Rebel Without a Cause (VF) La Fureur de vivre (1956) / drama
film about dramatic events / to co-direct to share the making of a film with another director / Hollywood Reporter
magazine about the American film industry founded in 1930 / high and low everywhere / to portray to represent, to
play / arcs narrative development, here evolution of a character / estate here, successors, inheritors / CGI = ComputerGenerated Imagery / actual real / footage film images / move approach, initiative.
Skywalking
(Walt Disney Studios)
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...It’s
time for the latest installment of the Star Wars
franchise. Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker hits
theatres on the 20th of December. The film
marks the final episode of the nine-part
Skywalker saga and will reportedly see the
Resistance face the First Order and the end of
the conflict between the Jedi and the Sith. If
you just can’t get enough of Star Wars, Disney
has launched a live-action Star Wars series, The
Mandalorian, on its brand new streaming
platform, which is expected to arrive in France
on the 31st of March 2020.
latest most recent / installment episode, here film /
The Rise of Skywalker (VF) L’Ascension de Skywalker / to
hit, hit, hit theaters to come out in cinemas / nine-part
made up of nine episodes / reportedly according to certain
sources / to not get enough of not to be satisfied with,
always to want more of / to launch here, to release (for
public viewing) / live-action cinematography that does
not use animation / series serialised set of TV programmes
/ brand new completely new / streaming tranmission of
video/audio content over the internet / to be expected to
to be planned to, scheduled to.
Green initiative
Coldplay’s first major hit may have been
“Yellow”, but the Brit band is now decidedly
green. The group, which released their
latest album Everyday Life in November,
have put plans to tour on hold. Frontman
Chris Martin explained that they would be
taking one or two years to work on how to
make their tours not only sustainable, but
also actively beneficial amid concerns over
the environmental impact of concerts.
green here, ecological, environmental / hit
popular, successful musical track / Brit = British /
band (musical) group / decidedly resolutely / to
release to bring out, put on the market / to tour
to do concerts around a country or countries / to
put, put, put on hold to postpone / sustainable
ecological, durable / amid in a context of / concern
preoccupation, consideration.
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
• 29
CultureI
Cinéma I
ETATS-UNIS
I  C2
BASIC RECORDING
On the Basic recording, English author Bibi Jacob
discusses writing and Jo March.
CD audio ou téléchargement MP3 (sur abonnement)
THE GUARDIAN LUCY SIEGLE
LITTLE WOMEN
BUT BIG BUZZ
Greta Gerwig’s Little Women
(Les Filles du docteur March) (buzz media excitement)
Little Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888).
Following the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy—the
novel details their passage from childhood to womanhood and is loosely
based on the author and her three sisters. The story was an immediate
commercial and critical success. Through the years, its popularity has endured
and been the object of multiple adaptations. The latest revisit of the novel is
by award-winning director Greta Gerwig and will feature an ensemble cast
including Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen,
Timothée Chalamet, Laura Dern, and Meryl Streep.
Y
ou have to be super-confident to release
a film without Will Ferrell at Christmas.
But then “eagerly anticipated” doesn’t quite cover
the release of Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. In
case you haven’t been ticking off the days in an
analogue, fabric-covered diary (with lock) like a
genuine Louisa May Alcott nut, the release date
is Christmas Day. And on the basis of just a
trailer, Little Women has been tipped for all Oscars
by everyone.
2. Overhyped? Absolutely not. This confidence is
correctly placed. Despite the diminutive title, Little Women is a ratings behemoth. It always has
been. Written in the midst of the American civil
war, the novel has spent the intervening 150 years
as the stand-out star of novels for young women.
The saga of the four sisters of the March family
of Massachusetts, their conflicting ambitions and
1. confident sure, certain / to release to bring out / but
then however / eagerly anticipated excitedly awaited /
[it] doesn’t quite cover [it] doesn’t exactly describe / to
tick off to count the days one by one / fabric cloth / lock
here, key / genuine real / nut here, fan / trailer
promotional extracts of a new film to advertise its release
/ to tip to predict, to forecast.
2. overhyped exaggerated media attention / correctly
placed legitimate / ratings behemoth enormous
bestseller (behemoth giant / ratings measurement of
how popular sth is by the number of people who watch it) /
in the midst of in the middle of / novel book / to spend,
spent, spent to pass (time) / intervening inbetween
(between a later and an earlier period of time) / stand-out
exceptionally excellent / conflicting different /
30
• VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
A still from Greta Gerwig's Little Women. (Sony Pictures)
achievements, has proved to be intergenerational
catnip. It is also one of those library A-listers that
works super well on screen. There have been at
least eight TV versions, a silent 1918 film, a 1933
version, 1949 in Technicolor and the 1994 version
starring Susan Sarandon and Winona Ryder.
3. Why? Little Women is eminently “relatable”
and doesn’t shirk the bad stuff. It’s not harpsichord
heavy and preachy in the manner of, say, Pride
and Prejudice but neither is it overly saccharine
and full of orchards à la Anne of Green Gables.
Each sister has a distinctive set of traits that are
easy to grasp and eminently memorable: Meg,
the eldest, on the verge of finding love; Beth sweetnatured; Amy indulged and precocious. We come
achievement accomplishment / to prove to be to turn
out to be, to reveal to be / catnip herb which cats love,
here, sth which everyone likes / library place where
archives and book collections are stored, here, literary /
A-lister star, here, famous and popular book / to work to
function / on screen as a film / at least a minimum of /
starring with... (in the main roles).
3. eminently very / relatable easy to identify with / to
shirk to avoid (sth difficult) / stuff things / harpsichord
keyboard instrument similar to a piano used in Baroque
music, here, in an old-fashioned way / preachy moralizing
/ Pride and Prejudice Orgueil et Préjugés / overly
excessively / saccharine sentimental / orchard area of
land where fruit trees are grown / set collection, here,
number / trait characteristic, aspect of one’s personality /
to grasp to understand / (the) eldest (the) oldest / on
the verge of on the point of / sweet-natured gentle and
kind / indulged spoiled /
for this less reductive version of the Spice Girls,
but we stay for Jo March – the Hamlet of the
coming-of-age genre.
4. Jo is important too because she is essentially a
fictional version of the author, who wrote her way
to independence. Alcott didn’t really want to write
Little Women, preferring a more racy gothic
format, but once persuaded by her publisher she
used it as a platform to shift perception and 150
years ago left a blueprint for young women for a
successful life beyond love and marriage.
In her adaptation, already billed as the most
feminist yet, Gerwig, the first female director to
be nominated for an Oscar for a debut, Lady Bird,
entrusts Jo to Saoirse Ronan (also nominated for
an Oscar for that film) and there’s every reason to
expect the same Lady Bird magic. Like the author,
the director is a cultural iconoclast with an ability to shift our perceptions. In Greta Gerwig, Jo
March has met her match. l
coming-of-age genre of literature and film about the
transition of a character into adulthood.
4. [she] wrote her way to independence [she] became
independent thanks to her writing / racy risqué / publisher
editor / to shift to change / perception here, attitude,
mentality / blueprint model / beyond outside of / to bill
to sell, to promote, to present / yet so far / director
person in charge of making a film / debut first film / to
entrust sb/sth to to assign / to expect to anticipate / to
met, met, met one’s match to meet one’s equal.
 facile A2-B1 /  moyen B2-C1 /  difficile C1-C2
Z om sur...
La personnalité de la quinzaine à la loupe
Louisa May
Alcott
To mark the release of a new film adaptation of her
famous novel Little Women, here are a few things you
may not know about American novelist Louisa May Alcott.
release first showing (at the cinema) / novel book, work of fiction / Little Women Les
quatre filles du docteur March.
1
Transcendentalism
She was mostly educated by her
father, transcendentalist Bronson
Alcott, and grew up in the company of the
movement’s key figures: Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Theodore Parker, and Henry David Thoreau.
Transcendentalism is an American literary,
philosophical, religious, and political movement
of the early nineteenth century.
(SIPA)
(AP Photo/Steven Senne)
mostly principally, for the most part / to grow, grew,
grown up to be raised / figure personality, celebrity /
early at the beginning of.
2
Making a living
Alcott worked as a domestic servant
and teacher, among other things, to
help support her family from 1850 to 1862.
During the Civil War, she went to Washington,
D.C. to work as a nurse.
domestic servant maid / to support to provide for,
meet the needs of / civil war here war between the
northern and southern states (1861-1865) / nurse person
who cares for patients in hospital.
3
Real-life inspiration
She contracted typhoid from
unsanitary hospital conditions and
was sent home. She was never completely well
again. The publication of her letters in book
form, Hospital Sketches (1863), confirmed her
desire to be a serious writer.
unsanitary dirty, unhygienic / sketch quick drawing,
here, short written accounts / serious here, important.
4
A family affair
A lot of her work, like Little Women,
was inspired by personal
experiences. As her most enduring success by
far, the novel has been adapted to film five
times, and inspired several television shows
and even anime versions. Interestingly, her
diary shows that she initially did not want to
write a book for girls.
enduring longlasting / show TV series / anime
Japanese animated films / interestingly funnily enough
/ diary private journal.
5
Eclectic genres
While Little Women remains her
best-received work, Alcott also wrote
poems, short stories, thrillers and even Gothic
novels.
to remain to continue (to be) / short story novella /
thriller genre of novel where the protagonist is in danger
from the outset.
6
Against slavery
Alcott was an abolitionist. In fact her
father founded an abolitionist society
in 1850. Her childhood home was a stop for
runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad.
society a formal association of people with similar
interests / stop place to visit / runaway fugitive / slave
person who is owned by and who works for another /
Underground Railroad secret network in the 19th
century that helped slaves escape from the plantations of
the southern states to the northern states and Canada.
7
Women's rights
She was an early American feminist
and the first woman to register to vote
in Concord when women were given school, tax,
and bond suffrage in Massachusetts, in 1879.
early first, initial / to register to enrol ( on the electoral
list) / Concord historic town in Massachusetts / tax here,
fiscal / bond government stock.
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
• 31
Découverte
I Intelligence artificielle I
ETATS-UNIS
I  B2-C1
BASIC RECORDING
On the Basic recording, English author Bibi Jacob discusses
writing. Are writers doomed to be replaced by computers?
CD audio ou téléchargement MP3 (sur abonnement)
THE ECONOMIST
DON'T FEAR THE
WRITERNATOR
Don't be afraid of the robotwriter
Many notable media organisations, including The New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters, Washington Post, and Yahoo!
Sports, use artificial intelligence (AI) to generate content. And many of us are familiar with forms of predictive writing used in
texts messages or emails, when our devices seem to know what we want to say before we’ve even finished typing. As technology
hurtles forward, could writing by humans become altogether obsolete?
M
ANY PEOPLE will be familiar
with automated writing through
two features of Gmail. Smart Reply proffers
brief answers to routine emails. If someone
asks “Do you want to meet at 3pm?”, Gmail
offers one-click responses such as “Sure!” More
strikingly, Smart Compose kicks in as you
write, suggesting endings to your sentences.
1. automated automatic / feature aspect, functionality /
to proffer to offer, to propose / strikingly extraordinarily,
astonishingly / to kick in to activate / ending last part /
sentence phrase /
SUR LE BOUT DE LA LANGUE
Exemples des préfixes
"in" et "out" utilisés
pour former des
contraires.
input apport / output production
inside dedans / outside dehors
indoors à l'intérieur / outdoors à
l'extérieur
inboard à bord / outboard hors-bord
inbound en provenance de /
outbound en partance
inflow afflux, arrivée / outflow débit,
exode
32
• VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
Both are not only rendered in flawless English;
they often eerily seem to have guessed what
you want to say. If someone sends bad news,
Smart Reply might offer “Ugh.”
2. The New Yorker’s John
admittedly very sophisticated—statistical
guesses about which words follow which in a
New Yorker-style sentence. At a simple level,
imagine beginning an email with “Happy…”
Having looked at millions of other emails,
Gmail can plausibly guess
that the next word will be
“birthday”. GPT-2 makes
To truly write, you
predictions of the same
must first have
sort.
Seabrook recently described a more powerful
version of this technology,
called GPT-2, which can
something to say.
ably mimic his magazine’s
Computers do not.
style. Such systems use a
4. What eludes computers
digital network of billions
is creativity. By virtue of
of artificial “neurons” with
having been trained on past
virtual “synapses”—the connections between compositions, they can only be derivative.
neurons—that strengthen as the network Furthermore, they cannot conceive a topic or
“learns”, in this case from 40 gigabytes-worth goal on their own, much less plan how to get
of online writing. The version Mr Seabrook there with logic and style. At various points in
tested was refined with back-issues of the New the online version of his article, readers can see
Yorker.
how GPT-2 would have carried on writing Mr
Seabrook’s piece for him. The prose gives the
STATISTICAL GUESSES
impression of being human. But on closer in3. The metaphor of the brain is tempting, but spection it is empty, even incoherent.
“neurons” and “synapses” deserve those scarequotes. The system is merely making some— 5. Meaningless prose is not only the preserve
of artificial intelligence. There is already a large
to render to produce / flawless perfect / eerily
mysteriously, strangely.
2. ably competently / to mimic to imitate / to
strengthen to reinforce, to improve / back-issue past
editions, previous copies.
3. tempting appealing / to deserve to merit /
scare-quote quotation marks which can indicate irony or
doubt / merely simply /
admittedly undeniably.
4. to elude to be impossible for / by virtue of due to /
derivative resulting from sth else and so unoriginal /
furthermore what’s more, moreover / topic subject,
theme / goal objective, aim.
5. meaningless without any sense / preserve domain
which is exclusively reserved for sb /
 facile A2-B1 /  moyen B2-C1 /  difficile C1-C2
Téléchargez l’appli Vocable offerte à nos abonnés ! www.vocable.fr/applimobile
quantity of writing that seems to make sense,
but ultimately doesn’t, at least to a majority of
readers. In 1996 Alan Sokal famously submitted
a bogus article to a humanities journal, with
ideas that were complete nonsense but with
language that expertly simulated fashionable
post-modernist academic prose. It was accepted. Three scholars repeated the ruse in 2017,
getting four of 20 fake papers published. Humans already produce language that is devoid
of meaning, intentionally and otherwise.
6. But to truly write, you must first have some-
thing to say. Computers do not. They await
instructions. Given input, they provide output.
Such systems can be seeded with a topic, or the
first few paragraphs, and be told to “write”.
While the result may be grammatical English,
this should not be confused with the purposeful kind.
7. To compose meaningful essays, the likes of
GPT-2 will first have to be integrated with
databases of real-world
knowledge. This is possible at the moment only on
a very limited scale. Ask
Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s
Alexa for a single fact—say,
what year “Top Gun” came
out—and you will get the
answer. But ask them to
assemble the facts to prove
a case, even at a straightforward level—“Do gun laws
reduce gun crime?”—and
they will flounder.
8. An advance in integrating knowledge would
then have to be married to another breakthrough: teaching text-generation systems to
go beyond sentences to structures. Mr Seabrook
found that the longer the text he solicited from
GPT-2, the more obvious it was that the work
it produced was gibberish. Each sentence was
fine on its own; remarkably, three or four back
to back could stay on topic, apparently cohering.
But machines are aeons away from being able
to recreate rhetorical and argumentative flow
across paragraphs and pages. Not only can
today’s journalists expect to finish their careers
without competition from the Writernator—
8. breakthrough innovation, important new discovery /
beyond further than / gibberish nonsensical words /
back-to-back one after the other, consecutive / to
cohere to form a united and consistent whole / aeon
billions of years / flow steady stream (of fluent language).
today’s parents can tell their children that they
still need to learn to write, too.
9. Aside from making scribblers redundant, a
common worry is that such systems will be
able to flood social media and online comment
sections with semi-coherent but angry ramblings that are designed to divide and enrage.
In reality, that may not be much of a departure
from the tenor of such websites now, nor much
of a disaster. Perhaps a flood of furious autobabble will force future readers to distinguish
between the illusion of coherence and the
genuine article. If so, the Writernator, much
like the Terminator, would even come to do the
world some good. l
9. aside from apart from / scribbler writer, journalist,
author / worry concern, anxiety / to flood to inundate /
rambling confused and meaningless speech/writing /
departure from difference compare to / tenor content,
substance / babble incoherent words and sounds /
genuine real, authentic.
ultimately essentially,
fundamentally / bogus fake, false /
humanities academic studies in
fields relating to human society and
culture (literature, history, philosophy
etc.) / nonsense absurdity /
fashionable in vogue, trendy /
scholar academic, researcher /
devoid void, empty.
6. truly really / to await to wait for /
input element put into a system / to
provide to produce / output resulting
information / to seed to implant /
purposeful with a deliberate intention.
(iStock)
7. meaningful with meaning / the
likes of here, systems like... / database
large store of data on a computer system /
real-world real / knowledge information about
and understanding of a subject / scale level / to
come, came, come out to be released / prove
to establish the truth and validity of /
straightforward simple / to flounder to
struggle, to have difficulties.
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
• 33
Les sorties
Retrouvez plus de coups de cœur sur www.vocable.fr
sur www.vocable.fr jouez et gagnez...
Des entrées pour des films et des expositions, des CD et des DVD, des romans, des voyages…
EDUCATION
DOCUMENTAIRE
UNE LEÇON PAR JOUR
PAHOKEE
Ivete Lucas & Patrick Bresnan
Pahokee, c'est le nom d'une petite ville, située dans le
comté de Palm Beach en Floride. Ivete Lucas and
Patrick Bresnan travaillent au plus près de cette
communauté depuis des années et cela se ressent
dans ce premier long métrage, distribué par Arizona
Distribution. En 2016, après avoir réalisé plusieurs films
courts, dont The Rabbit Hunt qui a été primé 19 fois, le
duo décide de suivre quatre étudiants de terminale –
les seniors comme on les appelle - pendant cette
année charnière de leur vie. Le duo nous plonge avec
sensibilité dans le quotidien de ces jeunes gens, qui
doivent jongler vies personnelles, familiales et un
avenir souvent incertain, le tout ponctué par les rites
incontournables du lycéen américain. Un portrait tout
en finesse d'une jeunesse oubliée.
Collectif
Nous nous apprêtons à passer le
cap de la nouvelle année donc tous
à vos calendriers ! En 2020, avec
l'éphéméride Une Leçon par Jour,
vous pourrez apprendre ou réviser,
dépendant de votre niveau, les
bases grammaticales
indispensables et les expressions
courantes de la vie quotidienne
en anglais.
Arizona Distribution, en salles le 11 décembre.
Hugo Images, disponible depuis
novembre, 9,99€.
CINÉMA
JABBERWOCKY
Terry Gilliam
Terry Gilliam signe son premier film
en solo – même si une grande
partie des Monty Python figure au
casting. Le membre de
l’emblématique troupe
d’humoristes nous livre une
comédie fantastico-médiévale
savoureuse, inspirée d’un poème
de Lewis Carroll. Une pure
merveille à l’humour absurde et
fantastique.
Carlotta Films, en version
restaurée 4K au cinéma le
25 décembre.
LIVRE
DREAM DANCE: THE ART OF ED
EMSHWILLER
Jesse Pires
Si vous avez déjà eu l'occasion de chiner des livres
de science fiction en brocante, nul doute que vous
connaissiez l'oeuvre de Ed Emshwiller, dit « Emsh »
(1925-1990). Originaire du Michigan, et influencé
par la société américaine d'après-guerre, cet
artiste plasticien est un pionnier de l'illustration et
du cinéma. Dream Dance : The Art of Ed Emshwiller
est un voyage à travers les divers médiums qu'il a
utilisés dans son exploration de la science-fiction
et rassemble un vaste catalogue d'illustrations, de
peintures, de notes, de photographies, de croquis
et de gravures.
Une enquête à grande échelle sur l'héritage
d'Emsh, Dream Dance emmène ses lecteurs dans
un voyage psychédélique à travers quatre
décennies touchant capturant tout, des
couvertures de ses dessins de livres aux plans de la
cinématographie primée en 1970.
Anthology Editions, disponible à partir du
10 décembre, 27€.
34
• VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
DOCUMENTAIRE
L'INTOUCHABLE, HARVEY WEINSTEIN
Ursula MacFarlane
C'est le
scandale qui
a donné
naissance à
un
mouvement
planétaire. En
octobre 2017,
The New York
Times et The
New Yorker
publient tous
deux des
témoignages
accablant à
l'encontre du
producteur
de cinéma
Harvey
Weinstein.
Celui qui
pendant des décennies se qualifiait de shérif de
Hollywood se retrouve au banc des accusés, devant
rendre des comptes sur ses pratiques abusives à l'encontre
des actrices et de ses employées. L'Intouchable permet de
comprendre comment Weinstein, figure emblématique du
renouveau du cinéma a pu agir en toute impunité à
travers de nombreux témoignages à la fois de ses
victimes, mais également de ses proches et anciens
collaborateurs.
Le Pacte, disponible en DVD le 3 janvier.
le
dessin
I Politique I
ETATS-UNIS
CANDIDATE CONUNDRUM
The clock is ticking...The 2020 American presidential election is scheduled for the 3rd of November 2020.
The various parties have been gearing up for months. One of the major talking points of this electoral cycle
is the sheer number of candidates, namely on the Democratic side. As of 20 November 2019, 17 major
candidates were still in the race; at its peak, there were two dozen. And those are just the major contenders:
the party also has a number of lesser known candidates, also on the campaign trail. The Democratic
nominee for president of the United States will be chosen by delegates at the Democratic National
Convention in mid-July next year.
conundrum puzzle, riddle, here, problem, dilemma / the clock is ticking time is running out on... / to be scheduled to be planned / to gear up to prepare, get ready /
talking point debate / sheer here, impressive / namely in this case, specifically / democratic here, Democrat / race electoral campaign (as a presidential candidate) / at
its peak at its highest level / dozen = 12 / contender candidate / campaign trail electoral campaign / nominee officially designated candidate.
VOCABLE
SERVICE ABONNÉS 03 27 61 10 11. www.vocable.fr
Pour contacter votre correspondant, composez le 01.44. 37. 97.[...] suivi des 2 chiffres de son numéro
DIRECTEUR DE LA PUBLICATION : C. Lecat. RESPONSABLE D’ÉDITION : S. Nigita ([email protected]). EXPLICATIONS, TRADUCTIONS ET CORRECTIONS : C. Martin, J. Marshall, C.
Lambert, M. Perea Lopez, O. Allègre. PUBLICITÉ : [77]. DIRECTION COMMERCIALE : C.Libilbéhéty [79]. ABONNEMENTS ENTREPRISES : A. Kada [83], E. Jayme [86], J. Kigin [89].
PROMOTION : C.Veziris [80]. MARKETING-FABRICATION : V. Blum [92], J. de Beco [93], C. Bourdery[90]. SERVICE ABONNÉS : Tél. 03 27 61 10 11, [email protected]. RÉASSORTIMENT PROFESSIONNEL : BO
CONSEIL, [email protected], tél. 09 67 32 09 34. CONCEPTION GRAPHIQUE : Virginie Lafon & Frédéric Savarit. MAQUETTE : S.M.P./ S.Bousez, C. Soufflet, I. Wieczorek, S.Burlion, M. Butinska.
ÉDITION ALL ENGLISH
IMPRESSION : Imprimerie Groupe MAURY Malesherbes-Manchecourt - Zone industrielle 45330 Malesherbes. N° de commission paritaire 0921 K78474. ISSN n° 1621-0425
VOCABLE est édité par la Société Maubeugeoise d’Édition et Cie, 75015 PARIS
ORIGINE DU PAPIER : Suisse. TAUX DE FIBRES RECYCLÉES : 46%. EUTROPHISATION : ptot : 0.009 kg/tonne de papier
Bureau Paris 56, rue Fondary 75015 PARIS. Tél : 01 44 37 97 97 / Fax : 01 44 37 97 98.
Dans ce numéro, des encarts d’abonnements brochés ou jetés sur tous les abonnés. Cette publication comporte, sur une partie des abonnés un livret audio jeté.
VOCABLE Du 12 au 25 décembre 2019
• 35
.
Tél. 01.45.78.33.80
www.ophrys.fr
Collection Histoires faciles à lire
Pour li
en V. Ore
.
Í
Les textes en page de
droite sont présentés
en version intégrale
ou en version adaptée
et simplifiée.
No
u
Histoires faciles à lire. Anglais.
Tragedies
vea
L’ essentiel du vocabulaire
nécessaire est traduit
en page de gauche pour
une lecture facile, rapide et
autonome.
uté
Choix des textes et écriture des notes :
Jean-Claude Burgué, Agrégé d'anglais
Niveau avancé (B2-C1)
Ð
Ce titre de la collection propose trois tragédies
shakespeariennes mises en contes :
Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello.
Macbeth
ISBN
9782708015500
152 pages
12 €
Chaque
histoire est
accompagnée
d’un court
appareil
pédagogique
à utiliser en
classe ou en
autonomie.
Au XIXe siècle, Charles et Mary Lamb décidèrent d’adapter
les pièces de Shakespeare en contes, afin de rendre
les œuvres du maître plus accessibles.
Les trois tragédies présentées sont tirées de leur ouvrage
Tales From Shakespeare (1807) : elles racontent les terribles
histoires de Macbeth, de Roméo et Juliette, ainsi que
d’Othello, personnages parmi les plus célèbres de
la dramaturgie anglaise.
Dans la même collection
Anglais
super facile (A2-B1)
Anglais
facile (B1)
Anglais
Anglais
Allemand Allemand Grec
intermédiaire (B1-B2) intermédiaire (B1-B2) intermédiaire (B1-B2) facile (B1)
facile (B1)
Grec
ve
ISBN
9782708014725
90 pages
11 €
Espagnol
super facile (A2-B1)
ISBN
9782708015197
144 pages
ISBN
9782708014701
120 pages
ISBN
9782708014992
ISBN
9782708015166
12 €
12 €
Espagnol Espagnol
Espagnol
Espagnol
ISBN
9782708014756
136 pages
11 €
facile (B1)
12 €
11 €
126 pages
No
u
ve
ISBN
9782708015180
128 pages
12 €
ISBN
9782708015395
152 pages
12 €
ISBN
9782708015074
112 pages
12 €
ISBN
9782708014732
136 pages
12,50 €
ISBN
9782708015654
132 pages
12 €
té
facile (B1)
No
u
ISBN
9782708015517
112 pages
12 €
ISBN
9782708015388
160 pages
12 €
Russe
Russe
ve
au
té
12 €
Catalan
intermédiaire (B1-B2) intermédiaire (B1-B2) intermédiaire (B1-B2) facile (B1)
facile (B1)
No
u
ve
au
té
ISBN
9782708015623
136 pages
12 €
No
u
ve
au
ISBN
9782708015531
124 pages
150 pages
Italien
intermédiaire (B1-B2) facile (B1)
No
u
12 €
Russe
intermédiaire (B1-B2)
té
12 €
té
ISBN
9782708015630
130 pages
au
ISBN
9782708015371
134 pages
au
ISBN
9782708015173
144 pages
12 €
Remise de 5 % sur www.ophrys.fr avec le code promo : VOCA1219 valable jusqu’au 5 janvier 2020
Descargar