Learn the top 5 reasons you should be learning to speak French right now
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Virginie: Bonjour! |
| Eric: Eric here. History of the French Language. |
| Virginie: Okay everyone; let’s treat ourselves with some French language history today. |
| Eric: Wow, what a treat! Well, it’s going to be long. |
| Virginie: And boring. Not a bit an idea Eric, it will be so much fun you wish you took Latin in high school. |
| Eric: What? Oh my! So you are saying that French is related to Latin? |
| Virginie: Yes it is related to Latin among a lot more languages, dialects and influences. |
| Eric: Okay I think you are trying to confuse me here. Can we start from the beginning? |
| Virginie: Okay let’s start with the Roman invasion. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eric: Exciting! What happened? |
| Virginie: It happened in the second and first centuries BC. At the time of the invasion, France was called “la Gaule” and the name of the main language was “le gaulois”, the Gaulish. |
| Eric: Le gaulois. |
| Virginie: It was a mix of several celtic languages and one of them maybe you know it, it’s called “le breton”. It’s still spoken by some people today in this region in France called Brittany. |
| Eric: Okay I’ve heard of that. What does “le breton” sound like? |
| Virginie: “Digemer mad ! Eo ma anv Virginie.” |
| Eric: Wait! What did you just say? |
| Virginie: Bienvenue, je m’appelle Virginie. Welcome, my name is Virginie. |
| Eric: Wow! So you actually speak fluent breton? |
| Virginie: I wish. I was born in Brittany but I never learned the language. My grandma would yell at us in breton though, all day long. |
| Eric: Really? So it was like you were living in antiquity. |
| Virginie: Yes except we didn’t wear a Toga. |
| Eric: So what happened next? |
| Virginie: You mean with my grandma? |
| Eric: No I mean with the history of the French language after the Roman invasion. |
| Virginie: No more breton, no more gaulois! With the invasion, the language spoken by the Romans soon dominated. |
| Eric: And that’s Latin right? |
| Virginie: That’s Latin, that’s right or rather vulgar Latin. It was called Vulgar Latin because it was spoken by the people as opposed to written by educated people, you know what I mean. |
| Eric: I see, okay. So how can Vulgar Latin spread out so easily? |
| Virginie: Well there are several reasons to that but the main one would be that Vulgar Latin became mandatory at school and then in the administration et cetera, et cetera and it was used in business and in the army very, very soon. |
| Eric: Oh okay. I see. ??? thing though. |
| Virginie: Yes. |
| Eric: So why is French language called “le français”? |
| Virginie: Oh Eric, you are such a good student. What an excellent question! Well have you ever heard of the Franks? |
| Eric: I think so. Was that some kind of tribe? |
| Virginie: Absolutely. Tribes were very fashionable at that time. Franks were a Germanic tribe that started invading Gaule in the 5th century and they progressively melted in the Roman Gallic population and then they took advantage of the decline of the Roman empire to take over the country. Does that make sense? |
| Eric: I think so. Let me sum up here. As of the 5th century, France – well Gaule- had three co-existing peoples right? |
| Virginie: Right, three people, three languages. Gaulish with the Celtic origins remember, Roman and francique. Francique was spoken by the Franks. |
| Eric: Okay so how did these people communicate between each other? |
| Virginie: They didn’t communicate at all. They just fought all the time. That’s all they did, those tribes, you know. No actually they needed to communicate for trading and things like that. So they came up with a new language and it’s called the “francien”. |
| Eric: And when was that created? |
| Virginie: It was created during the 9th century with the king Hugues Capet. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Hugues Capet, the Capetian dynasty. It’s like the first dynasty ever in France. |
| Eric: A little bit familiar maybe. |
| Virginie: Yeah but that King Hugues Capet couldn’t speak anything but “francien” so that’s the reason why everyone ever since he was a king had to speak francien and it’s spread out very easily throughout Europe. |
| Eric: I see. So France’s actually always had this royal language. |
| Virginie: Right even though diplomacy wasn’t very popular at that time you know with all these wars and everything, but then it’s spread out through literature, poetry and therefore became one of the finest languages in the world, I mean in Europe at that time. |
| Eric: Oh that’s pretty good. So even today, would you consider that kind of language? |
| Virginie: It lost part of its prestige of course and a lot of its usage ever since English became the international language. |
| Eric: Does that make you sad? |
| Virginie: Yeah it makes me feel depressed actually. You know, I miss those old days where everyone spoke French in Russia everywhere but it’s still you know one of the UN official languages and it’s spoken on every continent. So I feel little better right now. Thank you for your concern. |
| Eric: Well no problem. Every continent for example? |
| Virginie: Well for example, Africa obviously since French used to have a lot of colonies there. |
| Eric: And do they still speak French now? |
| Virginie: They do obviously but there had been a long time of rejection after the decolonization obviously. I don’t blame them. |
| Eric: So what about France’s overseas departments and territories? |
| Virginie: Yeah of course they speak French there. French is actually their official language like in Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, ??? et cetera, et cetera. We have lots of territories. |
| Eric: Okay. So it sounds like French is still spoken. |
| Virginie: It is and do you know what the name of the some of the countries that speak French, do you know what it’s called? |
| Eric: I do know that, it’s la francophonie. |
| Virginie: Ah you are so good. |
| Eric: I attended the “semaine de la francophonie” in March. |
| Virginie: You did? |
| Eric: The week of francophonie. |
| Virginie: The semaine de la francophonie is a festival right? |
| Eric: It was a lot of readings, plays, movies. It felt like being in Paris. Does that exist in a lot of other countries or is it only in New York? |
| Virginie: It exists pretty much everywhere in the world, it’s organized by all these French organizations and they want to spread out French culture and it’s part of the French cultural politics. It’s called the cultural action, l’action culturelle. |
| Eric: Wow, it sounds pretty awesome. |
| Virginie: Aha we certainly don’t want to lose our radiance. |
| Eric: So if you talk about how French became French, how it expands and how it is still present in the world, what about French language in France? |
| Virginie: Another great question Eric. You are particularly focused today, I love it. Well you need to know that you won’t hear the same French language whether you are in the Northern France or Southern France. |
| Eric: Interesting. So does this mean there are different accents? |
| Virginie: Yeah there are different accents. The vocabulary varies sometimes and let me give you an example here. |
| Eric: Okay. |
| Virginie: I grew up in Toulouse which is Southern France and we don’t use the same words to talk about some things like for instance Bread chocolate is in Paris “Pain au chocolat” and Toulouse, it’s “chocolatine” which is very, very different and the accents too “Pain au chocolat” that’s very Parisian, “chocolatine” that’s from Toulouse. |
| Eric: Wow! It sounds almost Spanish to me. |
| Virginie: Yeah it is. It is beautiful, it’s really, really you know charming and everything. |
| Eric: So do people even understand each other? |
| Virginie: We do understand each other depending on the subject but yeah we do. |
| Eric: What about the Snobbish Parisians? |
| Virginie: Yes French language within France is very homogenous although Parisians tend to make fun of other region’s accents. |
| Eric: So snobbish, those Parisians. |
| Virginie: There you go, so snobbish. Well anyway, I personally think that one great thing about France is the diversity of accents. Also there has been a dialect revival movement lately in several regions like in Brittany, in the Basque Country and even in my hometown which is Occitania. Toulouse is part of Occitania and it’s great. Now you can learn all these dialects. That’s cool in college and everything. |
| Eric: Well that’s great. So you are going to bring back your breton and speak to your grandma. |
| Virginie: All right. I can’t wait to yell back at her. |
Outro |
| Eric: Okay, I think we are done here. Thank you so much, Virginie, for this lesson. |
| Virginie: Thank you Eric for listening to all of this and thank you all for listening. Have a great day, bye bye. |
Comments
HideWhat about you? Why did you start learning French?
Bonjour Shelley,
Thanks for your message and your efforts. Here is the correction of your text:
'Bonjour, je m'appelle Shelley. Quand j'étais à l'école, en 1962, nous avons un peu étudié le français, grâce aux programmes éducatifs à la télévision. Après cela, je voulais apprendre la langue.
Au lycée, j'ai parfois étudié seule. Aujourd'hui, je désire toujours autant apprendre le français. J'ai donc commencé avec FrenchPod101.
J'ai maintenant soixante-dix ans, et beaucoup d'heures pour étudier la langue.'
I did not translate 'third grade' since we do not have the same educational system in French, but it would be le 'CE2'. 😊
I tried to keep the core of your text with my correction.
Thanks for studying French with us, Shelley; keep it up!
Sincerely,
Jonathan
Team FrenchPod101.com
Bonjour. Je m'appele Shelley. Quand j'etais dans l'ecole (third grade, 1962)
nous etudiions un petit peu de francais
de la television educationelle. Apres ca, j'ai eu le desire d'apprendre la langue.
Qulque fois, j'en ai etudie' suele, et aussi quand j'etais dans le "high school."
Maintenant, j'ai meme le desire d'apprendre le francais. Donc, j'ai commence' avec le FrenchPod101.
J'ai maintenant soixante-dix ans, et j'ai les heures pour etudier la langue (apres tous les ans :):):)🤩
Bonjour Bryar,
Very interesting! I hope your niece and you get to make your dreams come true! 😄
Bonne journée
Marion
Team FrenchPod101.com
My niece speaks fluent French and wants to live and work in France, her family has all learned French via Alliance Francaise courses. I have traveled throughout France and loved the countryside, history, and its people. I would also like to speak the language and be able to speak to my sister and her family in the language that they love.
Bonjour wanjiku,
Great to have you here!
Please stay tuned, as we'll have new lessons for you every week! And if you have any questions, feel free to ask us.:wink:
Cristiane
Team FrenchPod101.com
Well i have made a couple of French speaking friend this year and they speak English as well, they motivate me and as much as its not compulsory i need to have studied French with regards to my career path here in Africa. I love the language though and am very positive i'll grasp it good.
Thank you so much for the lesson, its all very interesting.
I love learning languages so this is just another fun hobby for me. がんばてみな！
Hello Robert Ford,
Thank you for posting.
You can find the Top 5 Reasons at the end of the Lesson Notes PDF.
Let us know if you have any question.
Cheers,
Lena
Team FrenchPod101.com
Where was the part about "Top 5 Reasons"?
Bonjour Laura
Merci pour votre commentaire !
Do not worry, you will improve fast ! You just need to study regularly !
A bientôt !
Marie Alice
Team FrenchPod101.com
French sounds so cool! I'm finding the grammar pretty familiar because I speak other Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Catalan), but I can't pronounce a word :( why must the pronunciation be so hard? Thanks for the cool history lesson. ^^
Bonjour Khairina !
Merci pour votre message :smile:
In France your name would be pronounced as "KA - RI - NA" :sunglasses:
Where are you from ? It is the first time I heard a name like your. And it is a pretty name !
Bonne journée !
Marie Alice
Team FrenchPod101.com
bonjour. je suis khairina. can u tell me how to pronounce my name, s'il vous plaît. merci!
Bonjour Zach,
Merci pour votre message !
In french Zachary would be pronounced "ZA - KA - Ri" :sunglasses:
Cheers!
Marie Alice
Team FrenchPod101.com
Bonjour, je suis Zach. Would you mind telling me how to pronounce Zachary in French?
Hello Kaipo,
Thank you for your comment !
The international keyboard ( a simple Control Panel setting ) is the most convenient method for typing French accents. You can also type accented characters with ALT codes:
a with grave accent
à ALT + 133 À ALT + 0192
a with circumflex
â ALT + 131 Â ALT + 0194
a with tréma
ä ALT + 132 Ä ALT + 142
c with cedilla
ç ALT + 135 Ç ALT + 128
e with accent
é ALT + 130 É ALT + 144
e with grave accent
è ALT + 138 È ALT + 0200
e with circumflex
ê ALT + 136 Ê ALT + 0202
e with tréma
ë ALT + 137 Ë ALT + 0203
i with circumflex
î ALT + 140 Î ALT + 0206
i with tréma
ï ALT + 139 Ï ALT + 0207
o with circumflex
ô ALT + 147 Ô ALT + 0212
o e ligature
œ ALT + 0156 Œ ALT + 0140
u with grave accent
ù ALT + 151 Ù ALT + 0217
u with circumflex
û ALT + 150 Û ALT + 0219
u with tréma
ü ALT + 129 Ü ALT + 154
I hope this helps !
Bonne journée !
Marie Alice
Team FrenchPod101.com
Bonjour,
Je m'appelle Kaipo.
My name is Kaipo.
I was wondering how to make the French ?punctuations? when typing. Not sure what they're called. The marks that go above 'a's, 'e's, 'o's and under 'c's for example.
Merci (Thank you),
Kaipo
Bonjour Kambria,
Merci pour votre commentaire ! Votre français est bon !
Thank you for your comment ! Your french is good !
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me anything!
Cheers!
Marie Alice
Team FrenchPod101.com
Bonjour je m'appelle Kambria
Je parle un peu français. J'ai dix-sept ans Je suis américaine. J'aime les chiens et les chats. J'ai un frere et une soeur. J'adore la musique.
Au revoir
Bonjour Eric,
How are your lessons going? Do not hesitate to ask or comment anything you need!
Regards,
Laura
Team FrenchPod101.com