Utopiens et Bocciens sont pour la liberté politique.

Pour eux, la forme physique et la sagesse sont très importantes.

Ensuite, la gymnastique permet la réflexion sur la pensée.

Évidemment, la fonction du travail n'est pas que d'apprendre mais de comprendre.

What we learnt :

On that day, we learnt that translating different languages is very difficult. In fact, Mrs Bolduc, a university professor in Wisconsin (USA) said that she travelled in the Oregon, and Arizona (Phoenix) where she studied and worked. She learnt new languages. In fact, English is not the main language in every states, so she has learnt Spanish in Oregon, for example. She has travelled a lot and she has learnt a lot of different languages like Spanish, German (a little bit), French, Italian. But, she can also understand dead languages like Old French, Middle French, Old English, ...

She talked about the Tower of Babel and said that Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Sir Thomas More (Utopia) were interested in that myth. In 2008, Jacob Gautel rebuilt the Tower with books, in Strasbourg (France).

Mrs Bolduc is also a translator so she travels a lot to meet authors.

We translated a text an extract from Utopia by Sir Thomas More who created a language which is almost impossible to translate. But when we tried to translate it, we liked that because it was funny and interesting. A lot of authors wrote novels about a Utopian world, but also about dystopia.

To conclude, we think that Mrs Bolduc's job must be hard because we can not always know what the author wanted to communicate.

Safia and Laura

A Utopie règnent liberté et harmonie.

De sagesse font preuve les gens ici.

Entretenez votre corps et votre esprit.

Ce que peut produire la pensée est inouï.

We have learnt that many different dialects exist in the United States, they come from the ancestors who were native from different places in the world. The fact that several languages exist in the world is explained by the mythological story of the Tower of Babel. People only had one language and understood each other so they decided to build a huge tower together to reach the sky, but God who disapproved of this idea, decided to destroy this tower, separate people and disperse them all around the world. Since there were different languages, they did not understand each other and could not build a tower anymore.

Maryne and Sophie

En Utopie, peu importe la langue, tout le monde en parle plusieurs.

Ici, tout le monde pratique la gymnastique intellectuelle.

Mais la gymnastique corporelle est aussi un exercice essentiel.

On voit évoluer les branches d'un fleuve paisible qui étanche la soif.

During the meeting with Mrs Bolduc who is a translator, we have learnt that lots of authors have always been fascinated by the Tower of Babel. In fact, a myth from the Bible tells how languages appeared. All men lived in Mesopotamia and built a huge tower together. God considered this act as a challenge and condemned them to live throughout the world before destroying Babel. Since that day, men have not spoken the same language anymore. The goal of a translator is to make everyone's thought understand. Then Mrs Bolduc told us about her job and about the countries she went to. We have learnt she is specialized in the French language spoken in the XIIIth century, that's why she came to France. We have translated an extract from Utopia by Sir Thomas More.

The meeting with Mrs Bolduc was really interesting, she was so clever and nice. We have learnt more about Sir Thomas More and the Tower of Babel. She speaks 4 languages and 6 dead languages. She talked to us about the American life, so now we would like to go there !!!

Salomé and Anna

L'utopie est la bouche par laquelle s'exprime la perfection. C'est dans ce lieu que s'exerce la sagesse. L'étude des langues y est un sage exercice. C'est par la volonté, le travail et le jeu que vient la connaissance.

We learnt that the idea of utopia is very old, actually it comes from the Bible. It was the myth of the Tower of Babel which was the first utopia. In this myth, everyone speaks with the same language and it is utopian. For Sir Thomas More, the author of Utopia, the languages were very important so he created a language for his book. Mrs. Bolduc told us a bit of the history of languages through her personal life. We learnt the existence of different dialects for every countries. For example the “Joual” which is a Quebec dialect. We learnt that to be a translator, we need to know the culture of the country where the other language is spoken.

It was very interesting, we learnt a lot of things. Moreover, the professor was very nice and her job is very interesting. Then, it was good to meet someone living in the USA who is interested in France, in our culture and language. It was cool to see landscapes from the United States, in the slideshow, which were very beautiful. Finally, we appreciated to deal with Utopia and the Tower of Babel.

Gwenn and Gwenaëlle

Utopiens et Bocciens sont pour la liberté politique. Pour eux, la forme physique et la sagesse sont très importantes. Ensuite, la gymnastique permet la réflexion sur la pensée. Évidemment, la fonction du travail n'est pas que d'apprendre mais aussi de comprendre.

Now, we know more about Utopia and Pieter Bruegel the Elder who painted an imaginary world. We watched an extract from the movie La Tour de Babel. This Tower was at the origin of the different languages. The destruction of the Tower was a dystopia. Jacob Gautel who is an artist has piled up books to re-create the Tower of Babel.

We enjoyed the meeting with Mrs Bolduc. We know more about her job as a translator and about Utopia. The translation of the extract from Utopia was very interesting.

Kelly and Pauline

L'Utopie est une bouche qui renferme un lieu charmant

Pour les Utopiens, ce monde inspire la sagesse et la liberté

Leur physique de pharaon les protège de tous les dangers

Aucun drame ne peut atteindre ce monde idéal

We have learnt that for Pieter Bruegel, the Tower of Babel is a dystopia because the monarchy is present and people are not on an equal footing. Then, Thomas More's Utopia is a linguistic utopia and he has created a utopian language. Moreover, the Tower of Babel is a story told in the Book of Genesis from the Tanakh(→ The Hebrew Bible) meant to explain the origin of different languages. There is only one language in Thomas More's Utopia. Everyone on earth speaks the same language.

We have liked the time spent with Michelle Bolduc because it was very interesting. She has told us about her story and we are impressed by the number of miles that she has made for her studies. She is a French teacher in the United States. Subsequently, she became a translator for famous French authors, she speaks so many languages as Latin, German, Spanish... We have learnt so much about Utopia too. During the activity, we translated a text by Thomas More, from Utopian to French. It was great because we made our imagination work.

Agathe and Marine