La construction de la tour Eiffel

It's almost impossible to imagine Paris without the Eiffel Tower, and yet la Dame de Fer is only about 130 years old. Learn more about how this iconic French monument came to be in the following video.

Note: The tenses in this French article and its English translation don't match! In French, we use the present tense to describe historical stories like this to evoke a sense of immediacy, whereas in English, we commonly use the past tense - learn more about historical French tenses.

After watching the video, scroll down for the transcript in our bilingual reader, where you can click any French phrase for the English translation and related grammar lessons.

 

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Let me take a look at that...