Learn how to ask someone about what they do for a living and how to respond with your chosen profession
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Intro |
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| Virginie: Salut tout le monde! Hi, everyone. |
| Eric: Eric here! |
| Virginie: Talking About This in French is Real Work! What Do You Do? Hi, Eric. In this lesson you will learn how to ask someone what he or she does. |
| Eric: Today's dialog takes place at the museum. |
| Virginie: Remember how Giulia recommended that Rob goes to the Museum of Art? |
| Eric: Well, he followed her advice. |
| Virginie: And now Rob stands fascinated in front of a Giacometti sculpture. |
| Eric: He starts taking notes on his notepad. A young woman comes to him. |
| Virginie: She probably thinks he's cute. |
| Eric: Maybe. This is our first dialog. We're going to use the formal way of speaking. The speakers are using it because they've never met before. Okay, let's start the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
| Sarah: Vous êtes étudiant? |
| Rob: Pardon? Ah, oui. |
| Sarah: Vous êtes étudiant à l’université? |
| Rob: Oui. Et vous, qu’est-ce que vous faites? |
| Sarah: Je suis comédienne. |
| Rob: De cinéma? |
| Sarah: Non, de théâtre. |
| Eric: One more time with the translation. |
| Sarah: Vous êtes étudiant? |
| Virginie: Are you a student? |
| Rob: Pardon? Ah, oui. |
| Eric: Excuse me? Oh, yes. |
| Sarah: Vous êtes étudiant à l’université? |
| Virginie: Are you a student at the university? |
| Rob: Oui. Et vous, qu’est-ce que vous faites? |
| Eric: Yes. And you, what do you do? |
| Sarah: Je suis comédienne. |
| Virginie: I am an actress. |
| Rob: De cinéma? |
| Eric: A movie actress? |
| Sarah: Non, de théâtre. |
| Virginie: No, a theater actress. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: So, Virginie, is it usual for a French women to pick up men at museums? |
| Virginie: No, not only in Museums! |
| Eric: What a country. |
| Virginie: More seriously, she's just talking to him. She saw him taking notes and she's just curious. |
| Eric: Okay. And what's her name? |
| Virginie: Sarah |
| Eric: Okay. One more question. Who is Giacometti? |
| Virginie: He was an Italian artist who lived in Paris. |
| Eric: And is he popular in France? |
| Virginie: Yes, he's pretty famous. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| Virginie: Oui [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Yes. |
| Virginie: Oui [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Oui [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next. |
| Virginie: Pardon [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Pardon, excuse me. |
| Virginie: Pardon [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Pardon [natural native speed] |
| Eric: The next one. |
| Virginie: Le théâtre [natural native speed] |
| Eric: The theater. |
| Virginie: Le théâtre [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Le théâtre [natural native speed] |
| Eric: And next. |
| Virginie: Ah, oui [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Oh, yes. |
| Virginie: Ah, oui [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Ah, oui [natural native speed] |
| Eric: And next. |
| Virginie: Un cinéma [natural native speed] |
| Eric: The cinema. |
| Virginie: Un cinéma [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Un cinéma [natural native speed] |
| Eric: And finally. |
| Virginie: Faire [natural native speed] |
| Eric: To do or to make. |
| Virginie: Faire [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Faire [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Eric: Okay. So, let's have a closer look at this dialogue. |
| Virginie: Yes. The first word we’ll look at is.... |
| Eric: Well, I think we should start with the formal pronoun vous... |
| Virginie: Yes. Sarah asks Rob ""vous etes etudiant?"" Are you a student? |
| Eric: And she does so because he's a stranger, she doesn't know him. |
| Virginie: Now do you remember how Giulia and Rob in our previous dialogue said Tu right away when they first met? |
| Eric: Yes, right. Why didn't they say Vous since they didn't know each other either? |
| Virginie: Well that's because they knew they were both students. |
| Eric: So they were sort of in the same zone, part of the same planet. |
| Virginie: Right. They knew that on the student planet people say TU to each other. |
| Eric: Okay. That makes sense. |
| Virginie: It's very subtle. It gets easier when you have lived in France for awhile. |
| Eric: So Sarah say vous etes, ""you are"". |
| Virginie: Now we would like to talk about the word ""Pardon?"" |
| Eric: That means ""excuse-me, or pardon-me, right? |
| Virginie: Yes, and it's used the exact same way as in English. |
| Eric: Pardon? |
| Virginie: I said it's used the exact same way as in English. |
| Eric: I know. I was only practicing. |
| Virginie: Oh okay, sorry. So what's our next word, Eric? |
| Eric: Comedienne. Sarah says that she's a comedienne, which means an actress. |
| Virginie: Yes, and comedienne is used for both theatre and cinema in French. |
| Eric: But it's also the word ""actrice"" in French, which is actress too. |
| Virginie: That's right. But actrice is only used for cinema actresses. |
| Eric: Okay. So comedienne is for both the cinema and the theatre, but actress is only for cinema. |
| Virginie: Yes! |
| Eric: Okay so let's go into some grammar. |
Lesson focus |
| Virginie: The grammar focus today is the question ""qu'est-ce que vous faites?"", what do you do? |
| Eric: And if you listened to our previous lesson this is going to be pretty easy. |
| Virginie: Yes. Last week we saw that the words ""Qu'est-ce que"" at the beginning of question stand for ""what."" |
| Eric: With that said, the second part of the question is ""vous faites"" |
| Virginie: Which means ""you do."" So the entire question is literally ""what you do?"" |
| Eric: Qu'est-ce que vous faites? |
| Virginie: And if Eric actually asks me… |
| Eric: Qu'est-ce que vous faites? |
| Virginie: I will answer, Je suis professeur de francais, I am a French teacher. I just used the verb, to be, etre, that you already know. |
| Eric: Now since I know Virginie pretty well, I will use the informal you, ""tu"" as opposed to the vous. Qu'est-ce que tu fais? |
| Virginie: Je suis professeur de Francais. |
| Eric: Now ""vous faites"" and ""tu fais"" both are conjugations of the verb ""faire"", to do or to make. |
| Virginie: And you'll find the whole conjugation in the lesson notes. |
| Eric: Okay, well I think that will do it for our grammar focus. |
| Virginie: But before we go we would like to talk about the little word ""et"" |
| Eric: Okay and that means ""and"". You probably noticed it in previous lessons. |
| Virginie: Yes in our dialog Rob asks Sarah ""et vous"" |
| Eric: And that means ""What about you?"", ""and you"". |
| Virginie: Okay, now I think we're all set. |
Outro |
| Eric: Well, that just about does it for today. Okay, great. Good bye. |
| Eric: Bye. Salut! |
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Comments
HideEt vous, qu'est-ce que vous faites?
Bonjour Natalie,
Presque, on dit "programmeur" ! 😉
Belle journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101.com
comment vous dites "software developer" ou "programmer" en francais?
Bonjour Abhishek,
La traduction complète de ton métier est "responsable de la chaîne logistique pour un détaillant de mode". 😉
Belle journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101.com
Je suis responsable supply chain pour un detaillant de mode
Bonjour SLCSKM,
Ah, c'est super ça ! Je te souhaite de réussir dans ton projet.
Belle journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101.com
J'adore cuisiner et j'aimerais devenir chef. Je recherche des écoles de cuisine à Paris.
Bonjour Daniel,
Merci pour ta présentation !
Belle journée
Marion
Team FrenchPod101.com
Bonjour, ca va?
Je suis administrateur!
Bonjour Unique99,
You just add an "e"! Dentiste. 😄
Belle journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101.com
Bonsoir, comment pouvez dites "dentist" en français?
Bonjour Youssef,
Merci pour votre message. Qu'est-ce que vous étudiez à l'université ?
Sincerely,
Jonathan
Team FrenchPod101.com
Je suis étudiant à l'université
Bonjour Norah,
Merci pour ton commentaire !
Belle journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101.com
Je suis etudiant a l'universite!
Bonjour Amy,
"Entrepreneur" is a French word so you've got your answer I think 😉.
Bonne journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101.com
Bonjour! How do you say the profession of "entrepreneur" in French? Or is this already in French? ;)))
Bonjour Vincent,
You don't necessarily need to use "vous" to be formal in French. You can be on cordial but formal terms with someone and therefore use "tu". Here, it's the sentence structure that's formal as the speaker is inverting verb/subject to ask their question. French people never use this structure when being informal.
Hope this helps!
Bonne journée
Marion
Team FrenchPod101.com
you call this formal
Formal
Que fais-tu ?
"What do you do ?"
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but wouldn't the formal call for usage of the vous?
Bonjour Lars,
Thank you for your comment, I'm glad you liked the lesson!
Bonne journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101.com
Will have to try to practice some of the words. The way the grammar works is interesting
Thanks again for the lesson!