Learn key French phrases to ensure you get the medical assistance you need
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| In today's lesson, we will work on explaining symptoms so you can get the proper treatment and any medicine you need. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| In French, "I have a headache." is J'ai mal à la tête. |
| J'ai mal à la tête. |
| Let’s break it down by syllable: J'ai mal à la tête. |
| One more time: J'ai mal à la tête. |
| First we have J'ai meaning “I have,” as we have learned. |
| This is followed by mal which in French is literally "bad." But in this context, it’s something like “pain.” |
| Mal |
| And, mal |
| So to recap, we have J'ai mal which literally means "I have pain." |
| Let’s take a look at the next word, à, which in this context means "in." |
| à |
| À |
| And, à |
| This is followed by la, which in French means "the" in the feminine form. |
| La |
| And, la |
| Lastly, we have tête, which in French is "head." |
| Tête |
| And, tête |
| So all together we have J'ai mal à la tête. literally this means "I have pain in the head." |
| We'll look at some more phrases with the same pattern; namely, "I have" stays the same and only the symptom changes. So let's go over some other symptoms. In French, the word for "fever" is la fièvre. |
| Fièvre |
| And, fièvre |
| The phrase "I have a fever" is J'ai une fièvre. |
| "I have a stomachache." |
| J'ai mal à l'estomac. |
| L'estomac |
| L'estomac |
| "I have a cold." |
| J'ai le rhume. |
| le rhume. |
| le rhume. |
| "I have a sore throat." |
| J'ai mal à la gorge. |
| la gorge |
| la gorge |
| "I have a stuffed nose." |
| J'ai le nez bouché. |
| le nez bouché. |
| le nez bouché. |
| "I have heartburn." |
| J'ai des brûlures d'estomac. |
| des brûlures d'estomac |
| des brûlures d'estomac |
| The next phrase may be hard to listen to, but if it happens to you, you'll be extremely glad we went over it. In French, the expression "I have diarrhea." is J'ai la diarrhée. with the word for "diarrhea" being la diarrhée. |
| la diarrhée |
| la diarrhée |
| Today's phrase J'ai mal is all you will need to tell people where you are in pain. We can simply say J'ai mal and then say the part of the body that hurts. |
| Even simpler, point to the body part that hurts and say J'ai mal ici. "I hurts here." |
| J'ai mal ici. |
Outro |
| Okay, to close out this lesson, we'd like you to practice what you've just learned. I'll provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase and you're responsible for shouting it aloud. You have a few seconds before I give you the answer, so bonne chance, that means “good luck” in French. Ok, here we go! |
| “I have a headache.” - J'ai mal à la tête. |
| J'ai mal à la tête. |
| J'ai mal à la tête. |
| “I have a fever.” - J'ai de la fièvre. |
| J'ai de la fièvre. |
| J'ai de la fièvre. |
| “I have diarrhea.” - J'ai la diarrhée. |
| J'ai la diarrhée. |
| J'ai la diarrhée. |
| “I hurt here.” - J'ai mal ici. |
| J'ai mal ici. |
| J'ai mal ici. |
| This is the end of today’s lesson. See you soon! À bientôt! |
Comments
HideWhat kind of basic medicines, like cold medicine, do you keep regularly in your house?
Hi Jean Simon.
You are right concerning the word fièvre "fever". These mistakes were pointed out to be corrected. I guess the editing team did not beat the clock!
However you could say J ai un rhume. or J ai le rhume. "I have a cold." depending of the context.
Thank you for pointing out these mistakes and help learners to get these phrases correctly.
This lesson was pretty helpful althought i must point out some important mistake that had slipped into this lesson.
First: We never say "J'ai une fière". It's either "Je fais de la fièvre" or "J'ai de la fièvre"
Second: "J'ai une rhume" is an incompréhensible mistake. "Rhume" is masculin and this kind of sentence doesn't make any sense. You cannot take a pattern (J'ai un/une..) and apply it for every situation in french. It works in english maybe, but french is more complex when it comes to sentences' structure. So, in french we say: "J'ai le rhume".
Third: The way "J'ai mal à la tête" was pronounced a little bit weird. It sounds as if an english-speaking guy is telling the sentence. He pronounced the letter "a" in an uncommon way. This is not the way we say it in french.
I hope those comment will help improving your lessen.