A heaven for Francophiles
Maliha Ali, the Marketing and Communications Strategist at AFK and a student of French, shares what it is like to study French and what makes AFK a special place to experience French culture in Karachi.
This article first appeared in City Files, Us Magazine, The News Pakistan on 17 August 2018
By SG
Can you speak French? Yeah, a little bit! Croissant, crêpe, macaron, creme brûlée, éclairs, soufflé … is all I can say in French, duh!
I better go take some classes at Alliance Française de Karachi (AFK).
In university, when some of our class fellows chose French as their minor, people weren’t really convinced and they asked all sorts of questions: what are you going to do after learning French? How will French help you get a good job? Who are you going to talk to in French? Are you planning to move to France in the future? Anyway, these apprehensions didn't stop them from taking classes. Later, we heard from our friends that their French teacher had made French difficult for them and they were doing poorly. There was hardly any communication taking place in the class and students had no sense of direction. Unfortunately, many of them had to change subjects later on.
This happens when language learning is only restricted to extraneous grammatical rules. Language learning should be joyful and interactive,
Maliha Ali, the Marketing and Communications Strategist at AFK and a student of French, shares what it is like to study French and what makes AFK a special place to experience French culture in Karachi.
About Alliance Française de Karachi
“AFK has been promoting the French language and culture for over 60 years. Our Karachi chapter is part of the larger international non-profit organisation, the Foundation Alliance Française, which was founded in Paris in 1883 by luminaries like Jules Verne and Louis Pasteur. Today, the foundation has more than 850 centres in 137 countries.
“We’re not just a language school but also a cultural centre. We have a robust programme of concerts, shows, exhibitions and talks by Pakistani and French artists, writers and performers. AFK has a library, a café, a bookshop, and an art gallery for visitors. We also offer workshops on art, yoga, photography, performing arts, etc.
“We even host the French archaeological team while they carry out excavation projects in Pakistan as well as researchers from universities like Sciences Po.”
Language immersion at AFK
“Unlike typical language learning centres, we don’t make students sit and cram textbooks. A language is a living thing and it should be treated as such! So in our classes, we learn from French songs, radio, news articles, poetry, event posters and board games; we also discuss French culture and history.
“Every Tuesday evening, we have Ciné Club where we screen French films and documentaries with English subtitles. Often, we have potluck lunches with students and members where everyone brings a French dish and gets to interact with other French speakers and learners. Our students and members also get to interact with visiting French performers and artists. For instance, earlier this year, Monsieur Laurent Decol came here for a fantastic mime, mask and puppet show and a huge audience showed up. All of our events are free and open to the public. You can drop in anytime to say bonjour to us and chat in French!"
“Our group learning classes focus on reading, speaking, listening and writing in French at different levels. There is also the option of private lessons and classes focused on just practicing French conversation. We offer a new batch of classes for kids and adults every two months. Mastering the French language is divided into six broad levels (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2). These are further divided into sub-levels.”
Opportunities for French learners
“Many of our students go to study and work in France and other French-speaking countries. Campus France’s Pakistan chapter is available to help students who wish to study in France, from application to settling in and finding a job while you’re studying. Students at AFK can easily get recommendation letters which really adds to their profile.
“Interestingly, the field of archaeology in Pakistan is full of French speakers as the governments of France and Pakistan have been collaborating in this field for decades. Many of our archaeologists get training in France and are therefore fluent French speakers.”
It’s crazy in here
“Even if you’re completely distorting French, it’s so much fun to say French words out loud. In a lot of ways, knowledge of English language helps! English has borrowed thousands of words from French (mayonnaise, resume, fiancée, etc. are all French words).
Even the script of French is similar to English except for some tricky letters.
“But there are a couple of things in French language that will throw you off! For instance, verlan is a French language phenomenon where words are said backwards and is commonly used as street slang. For example, the word ‘femme’ (girl) become ‘meuf’, the word ‘fou’ (crazy) becomes ‘ouf’. First you have to figure out what’s the right French word and then you have to learn it the other way round.
“Like Urdu, there is a distinction between formal and informal address in French. English speakers use pronoun ‘you’ to address everybody, but French speakers will have to make a choice between ‘tu’ (informal) and ‘vous’ (formal) depending on their relationship with the person. It’s like ‘aap’ and ‘tum/tu’ in Urdu.
“Then, comes the gendering of objects in the languages. In Urdu, objects like knife, pencil, tea are feminine and fork, pen, tree are masculine. French, too, is a gendered language: ‘knife’ is masculine and ‘fork’ is feminine, for instance.
“When applied to people according to their professions, it can be written in either a feminine or masculine form. ‘Director’, for example, is ‘directeur’ in the masculine, and ‘directrice’ in the feminine. And, usually, the masculine represents the universal.
“Such striking similarities between Urdu and French really excite the learners.”
Other resources for learners
"Today, there are ample resources for language learners. If you are interested in learning French and don't have time to properly take courses, you can check out some amazing courses online.
"I think Duolingo is a great online platform for that. I used it to practise French when there was no community around and I really needed guidance to move ahead. And yeah, I found it extremely useful!
“Coffee Break French is another amazing podcast that exposes you to everyday French. Then, funny YouTube videos work wonders; who doesn't love to watch silly stuff? Listen to modern French songs and watch movies. Amélie is a great one! You can also get access to Culturethéque, free digital library offering a wide range of French e-Books, audiobooks, magazines, films, documentaries and plays online.”
Karachi's first French restaurant
Did you know that Karachi’s first French restaurant initially opened up in the Alliance Française de Karachi?
Did you know that Karachi’s first French restaurant initially opened up in the Alliance Française de Karachi? Florence de Villiers, who had came to Pakistan from France and settled in Karachi many years before, wanted to be able to treat her Karachi-based kids to good French crêpes, the kind that she had grown up eating and which she couldn’t find anywhere in the city. She approached the then-director of the Alliance, Bernard Frontrero, who encouraged her to open a little café inside the premises of the French cultural center. What emerged from that conversation was Café Flo at the Alliance Française de Karachi.
Named after its founder Florence (pictured above), it began with a crêperie and slowly grew into a full-fledged French restaurant offering a menu with escargot, beef bourguignon and more. Its charming ambiance felt like a piece of Paris in Karachi. French doors. Lots of plants. Posters on the watermelon pink walls. Here and there, you could catch a conversation in French.
While Café Flo has since moved out to its own premises and continues to regale Karachiites with French cuisine, we at the Alliance Française are proud to have given it its first home and launching pad.
Today, the space is home to Côte Rôtie, another excellent space for French cuisine with an ambiance to match.
Et vous? Do you remember coming to the original Café Flo? What’s your favorite French food? If you’ve never had the chance to try it, come discover French language, cuisine and culture at the Alliance Française in Karachi for yourself to learn more.
Photo Credit: AFK / CAP Archive
Self-portraits, en français
In one class activity, our young French students made whimsical self-portraits to learn to describe themselves, en français. Check them out!
At the Alliance Française de Karachi, our students don’t just learn by memorizing French conjugation tables—they live, speak and even draw the language! In one class activity, our young French students made these whimsical self-portraits to learn to describe themselves, en français. Check them out!
Un grand merci to our very own Prof Farah for organizing such a creative and delightful French lesson.
Letter from our President
The Alliance Française continues to fulfill a vital role today in Karachi’s cultural scene, more than twenty years after I joined. I’m pleased and proud to be part of it for the long run.
Dear Friends of AFK,
Bonjour! I’m delighted to welcome you to the newly-launched website of the Alliance Française de Karachi. Here you’ll find information about us, our classes, our events and workshops, the certifications we offer, and our newsletter. A special feature: our archived images which go all the way back to the 1960s. We have been in Karachi for a long time and it’s been fantastic every step of the way.
I currently serve as the President of AFK’s Executive Committee, a post I’ve held since December 2016. The role of the Executive Committee is one that most AFK members don’t often get to observe in action. We provide guidance and advice to AFK’s administration in matters relating to the running of the organization, local issues, and the direction in which we want to see the Alliance go.
We’re involved with fundraising, relations with Pakistani and French businesses, local administration, and much more. We are a purely voluntary team, with each member of the EC having a thriving career in different areas of business, the arts, entrepreneurship, and the Karachi community. Each one of us has a firm commitment to the promotion of French language and culture, and a desire to a thriving relationship between the two countries of Pakistan and France.
My own relationship with the French language started when I was a high school student. I began to learn French in eighth grade and continued with formal instruction through university. When I returned to Pakistan, I joined the Alliance Française in 1996 to keep up with the language, but quickly found myself in the middle of a thriving community of students, teachers, and cultural aficionados. The Alliance Française continues to fulfill a vital role today in Karachi’s cultural scene, more than twenty years after I joined. I’m pleased and proud to be part of it for the long run.
As your President, I hope to continue the fantastic work of Executive Committees past. We have taken on a number of projects to improve the facilities, including a cafeteria renovation and the construction of a new Pole de Residence to accommodate visiting scholars and researchers. We will continue to promote the arts, supporting concerts, exhibitions, talks, plays, conferences by French and Pakistani experts. We will continue to raise funds for the sustenance of AFK in future years. And we will always support AFK’s main mission: to teach the French language to all people in Pakistan.
We are open to feedback on any issue that requires our attention. Please feel free to get in touch with me through the AFK Front Desk, or the contact form provided on this website. I look forward to serving you throughout 2018 and beyond.
Sincerely,
Bina A Shah
What does it mean to be a woman in Pakistan?
See what Alliance Française de Karachi president and author Bina Shah had to say about the rights of women and girls in Pakistan on the occasion of International Women's Day earlier this year.
8 March 2018 marked the International Women's Day around the world. To celebrate this day in the ENA (Ecole National D'Administration) and the French Foreign Ministry, Bina Shah, President of the Executive Committee of the Alliance Française de Karachi, filmed a video testimony about the state of women's empowerment in Pakistan.
“It is a privilege for me as a writer to witness and document the struggle for women’s empowerment in my country. I want to let you know that revolution has already arrived in Pakistan, and it is a women’s revolution. ”
Read the full text in English:
What does it mean to be a woman in Pakistan today? My name is Bina Shah. I’m a writer and journalist living in Karachi, Pakistan. I devote a large period of my time and writing to women’s empowerment, feminism, and women’s rights.
Life in Pakistan is not easy for women. The vast majority of Pakistan’s women is made up of the working class: agricultural laborers, factory workers, domestic servants, child carers — and the lower middle class: homemakers, students, teachers, nurses. In the middle classes, women are becoming doctors, engineers, computer programmers, even joining the armed forces.
Women in Pakistan fight daily for their basic rights: access to education, health services, nutrition, clean and safe drinking water. They struggle to be treated fairly and equally by Pakistan’s justice system. They face domestic violence, emotional abuse, child marriage, sexual harassment. They fight for access to public space, freedom of mobility, and safe transportation. Most of all they fight the societal expectation that they are and always will remain second class citizens, compared to men.
Because of illiteracy, many women don’t know that as citizens of Pakistan, they have the right to life, freedom, a future. They need to learn they are equal citizens, that their hopes and dreams are legitimate, that they have a choice to decide how to live their lives. Then they can fight to claim their rights, to demand justice from the legal system, and accountability from their leaders. It’s a type of political action that involves a lot of grassroots work at the community level.
For decades the movement to empower Pakistani women has addressed issues of health and education. This means teaching women in the villages about hygiene and nutrition, or training midwives to wash their hands and disinfect their equipment at childbirth. Convincing villages to allow their girls to go to school, or to build a high school close enough that older girls can stay in school and avoid becoming child brides.
Women also fight to become financially recognized in Pakistan. Every woman in Pakistan does some kind of work, formal employment, informal domestic work, or agricultural work. Women must learn that what they do is not “chores” but “work”, and that their work should be recognized by the state and renumerated properly. They must have access to their wages, not to have them taken by the men of the family. They have to be involved in financial decision-making in their families.
Finally, the scourge of violence against women. You may have heard about the most horrible types: honor killings and acid attacks, violent sexual abuse of girls in forced marriages. But violence against women occurs on a daily basis behind closed doors. If you ask a woman if she is happy with her life, she will say: “I have a good husband. He doesn’t beat me.” We must fight to raise awareness that a woman has the right to expect safety and security in her home.
Despite the problems, Pakistani women are strong, courageous, and the center of change in our society. Thanks to NGOs and grassroots action and activism, women are becoming economically empowered, increasing their worth and status in their communities. Schoolgirls resist child marriage by convincing their parents to let them stay in school for two extra years until they are at least 18. Women are taking part in the political process, getting registered so they can vote in the next elections. It is a privilege for me as a writer to witness and document the struggle for women’s empowerment in my country. I want to let you know that revolution has already arrived in Pakistan, and it is a women’s revolution.
Untranslatable French Words
Discover some delightfully untranslatable words from the French language that convey concepts and feelings that are otherwise difficult to pin down.
Fleeting moments, sublime memories, complex feelings: there are some concepts that are felt deeply but simply defy capture in words.
Yet some languages have managed to coin words for these concepts that are otherwise hard to describe. For instance, what exactly do you call it when you feel strange and disoriented in a foreign country as you experience new things? It’s not quite homesickness. Perhaps try the French word dedicated to this emotion: dépaysement, which translates literally to un-countrying but conveys much more about the joy, weirdness, novelty, daze and almost fantastical nature of being a traveler in a new land.
Here are some more delightfully untranslatable words from the French language:
flâner
the art of wandering a city’s streets without goal or destination but simply for the pleasure of soaking up the ambience
la douleur exquise
the “exquisite pain” that one feels from unrequited love
retrouvailles
the happiness of meeting someone after a very long time
sortable
the adjective to use for family members and friends whom you consider “cool enough” to take to a party
râler
something in between whining and complaining about your general dissatisfaction with the world
crapoter
literally a fake puffing of a cigarette, crapoter describes a pretender or a fake person
l’esprit d’escalier
l’esprit d’escalier or “staircase wit” describes that annoying moment when you come up with the perfect witty comeback but only too late
Is that somebody playing a piano on a truck?
Find out the story behind this curious photo from our archives that earned a spot in the news!
Here’s an unexpected sight we found in our archives from the 90’s! While Karachi’s residents are usually quiet unfazed by street traffic, the sight of French pianist Marc Villa going around the streets of Karachi on a cargo truck, playing a grand piano managed to gather quite a curious crowd. Check out some snaps from the day. In the background, you’ll spot the famous Café Liberty.
This curiosity also got featured in a story in Dawn newspaper about the then director of the Alliance Française de Karachi, M. Bernard Frontero, and his inventive initiatives to bring French artists and culture to Karachi.
Explore more than 60 years of our archives of photos, videos and audio recordings that capture some of the essence of the vibrancy of cultural exchange and learning at the Alliance Française de Karachi over the years.
We are grateful to the Citizens Archive of Pakistan and their Oral History Project team for helping us archive this material. Check back on our blog and social media to see more material like this.
If you have photos or other memories with us that you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you!
La rentrée
September is a special time in France. Known as la rentrée, it's the post-vacation, back-to-school, back-to-work season after a summer of collective pause. The pace of life picks up again. Streets are reanimated. It is a time of energy and new beginnings.
September is a special time in France. Known as la rentrée, it's the post-vacation, back-to-school, back-to-work season after a summer of collective pause. The pace of life picks up again. Streets are reanimated. Shops put back their "come in, we're open" signs. People catch up with their friends and colleagues. Even France's literary world has a rentrée, marked by new book releases. It is a time of energy and new beginnings.
With that, we welcome you to the September issue of the Alliance Française de Karachi newsletter, Bonjour Karachi! As you usher in the month of September wherever you find yourself, we hope that the French concept of la rentrée galvanizes your resolve to grow your world, expand your experiences and learn new things. Need ideas? Sign up for a French class, hone your art chops in our Art Studio, go pro as a photographer with our photo diploma course, or come enjoy screenings of French films and documentaries every Tuesday evening. Whatever your project, we wish you bonne chance, and happy reading.
Playing French Poets
Led by one of our French teachers, Aga Milart, students in our enthusiastic B1 class channeled their inner French poets one day, adapting Paul Eluard's well-known poem Dans Paris to create work that was whimsical, haunting and charming.
Led by one of our French teachers, Aga Milart, students in our enthusiastic B1 class channeled their inner French poets one day, adapting Paul Eluard's well-known poem Dans Paris to create work that was whimsical, haunting and charming. Check out their oeuvres d'art below:
I
Dans Paris il y a une rue où il y a beacoup de fumeurs.
Dans cette rue il y a une maison où les gens se battent avec les baguettes.
Dans cette maison il y a un escalier où il y a des chats qui sont très gros.
Dans cet escalier il y a une chambre où les jeunes fêtent.
Dans cette chambre il y a une table qui est en chocolat et en fromage.
Sur cette table il y a un tapis qui peut voler.
Sur ce tapis il y a une cage où il y a une araignée noire.
Dans cette cage il y a un nid où il y a du vin rouge.
Dans ce nid il y a un oeuf dont l’araignée a peur.
Dans cet oeuf il y a un oiseau qui a disparu.
II
Dans Paris il y a une rue qui est très populaire.
Dans cette rue il y a une maison où une célébrité habite.
Dans cette maison il y a un escalier qui est en verre.
Dans cet escalier il y a une chambre qui est très belle.
Dans cette chambre il y a une table qui est en bois.
Sur cette table il y a un tapis qui est magnifique.
Sur ce tapis il y a une cage qui est en or.
Dans cette cage il y a un nid où il y a un oiseau.
Dans ce nid il y a un oeuf qui est blanc.
III
Dans Paris il y a une rue qui est bizarre.
Dans cette rue il y a une maison où un loup est mort.
Dans cette maison il y a un escalier où le loup hurlait.
Dans cet escalier il y a une chambre où le loup habitait.
Dans cette chambre il y a une table sur laquelle il a mangé.
Sur cette table il y a un tapis que le loup a utilisé pour nettoyer ses lèvres après avoir mangé.
Sur ce tapis il y a une cage où il a tenu sa victime.
Dans cette cage il y a un nid qui est nouveau.
Dans ce nid il y a un oeuf avec lequel on pourrait préparer une omelette.
Dans cet oeuf il y a un oiseau qui n’existe pas.
Image by Amin Khorasanee
Francophonie Open Day
March is the international month for celebrating the French language, French speakers and Francophonie around the world—and we had a lot planned to celebrate in Karachi!
March is the international month for celebrating the French language, French speakers and Francophonie around the world—and we had a lot planned to celebrate in Karachi! Current and prospective students, parents and friends of the Alliance Française de Karachi enjoyed a full house for free French class trial, a quick about French culture, a crepe making workshop, a potluck featuring French dishes. And to cap it all off: a game of the quintessentially French pétanque!
