But there is a novel by Balzac called La peau de chagrin , which was written in 1831. And the protagonist, that is to say the hero, whose name is Raphaël de Valentin, he obtains a magic talisman, a magic object, which is made of shagreen. And this object, this magic talisman, which is made of shagreen, it has the power to grant his wishes. But each time a wish comes true, the size of the skin shrinks at the same time as the hero's life shortens. So you see here, each time he asks for something, each time he wants to obtain something, that he makes a wish, the shagreen, the size of the skin shrinks, so after a while, it will disappear, and his life shortens too.
And today, when we talk about something shrinking like a piece of shagreen, it means that it shrinks, it's something that shrinks progressively. We imply that we're reaching the end of something and it's an expression that we come across in everyday French. So of course, French speakers don't use it every day, but you can find it in books, in French articles, in the press, you can hear it on TV. So it's important to at least know this expression. Even if you don't use it, it's important to know it.
The first example is a person who says to another: "You haven't started to pack your bags. But hurry up, time is going to shrink like a piece of shagreen leather". Here it means hurry up singapore whatsapp number data and pack your suitcase, we are in a hurry and time is shrinking. The more we advance, the less time we have to prepare and soon there will be more time, we are coming to the end of something, because time is gradually shrinking and soon, quite simply, we will be late.
Another example: They had a large farm, but it is in danger of shrinking with their financial problems. So here, there was a large farm, a farm. It is a place where you do things, activities related to agriculture. It can be raising animals to eat them, like pigs for example, it can be making milk or taking milk from cows, it can be planting cereals, wheat etc. So that is a farm.
And in our example, this farm has financial problems, money problems. And so, we say that it risks shrinking like a piece of shagreen leather, that is to say that we are perhaps reaching the end of something, the end of the life of this farm which, gradually, because of its financial problems, is disappearing.
Third example, even though I'm sure you've mastered this expression perfectly, from now on, we can hear someone say: "We had prepared a whole bunch of preserves for the winter, but our stock is dwindling like a piece of shagreen leather."
Here, people had prepared preserves, so they had put fruits or vegetables in jars, in pots, to finally get through the winter. We can imagine that they had a garden, that they took the fruits and vegetables from the garden, that they put them in jars, in preserves, in jars. And during the winter, there are no fruits or vegetables growing, well they eat preserves. So they take one preserve, two preserves, three preserves, five preserves, ten preserves. And in the end, their stock, the number of preserves they have left decreases, it will reduce and we arrive at the end. So here, we can imagine that there are not a few preserves left in these people's stock. It is said that their stock is shrinking like a piece of shagreen leather.
In this expression, "se réduire comme une peau de chagrin", we have the "o" sound that is used in two ways. We have the "o" of "comme" and the "o" of "pelle". So what we're going to do now, we're going to practice your pronunciation. I'm going to have you repeat a certain number of words that have the "o" sound and other words that have the "o" sound. So here we go.