Learn how to talk about your ethnicity in French using the verb meaning "to be" We will also talk about word order , which is crucial to getting your point across in a clear and concise way
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Virginie: Bonjour Bonjour! |
| Eric: Eric here! Useful Phrases for Learning French. I'm joined in the studio by... |
| Virginie: Hello, everyone. Virginie here. We hope you enjoyed the previous French push-ups, thank you for being with us today. What's today's focus, Eric? |
| Eric: In this lesson, you will learn 5 phrases to boost your French learning. |
| Eric: This conversation takes place in an French as a second language class. |
| Virginie: The conversation is between a student of French and his teacher. |
| Eric: The speakers are speaking in formal French. |
| Eric: Ok, so let's listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| A: Madame, comment vous dites a fork en français ? |
| B: Une fourchette. |
| A: Vous pouvez répéter ? Lentement, s'il vous plaît ? |
| B: U-ne four-chette. |
| A: Vous pouvez le noter, s'il vous plaît? |
| Eric: One more time, a little more slowly. |
| Virginie: Encore une fois, plus lentement. |
| A: Madame, comment vous dites a fork en français ? |
| B: Une fourchette. |
| A: Vous pouvez répéter ? Lentement, s'il vous plaît ? |
| B: U-ne four-chette. |
| A: Vous pouvez le noter, s'il vous plaît? |
| Eric: How about in English. |
| A: Madame, comment vous dites a fork en français ? |
| Eric: Madam, how do you say "a fork" in French? |
| B: Une fourchette. |
| Eric: "Une fourchette." |
| A: Vous pouvez répéter ? Lentement, s'il vous plaît ? |
| Eric: Can you repeat? Slowly, please? |
| B: U-ne four-chette. |
| Eric: "U-ne four-chette." |
| A: Vous pouvez le noter, s'il vous plaît? |
| Eric: Please write it down. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: It's always great to have in mind a few important phrases when speaking French. |
| Virginie: Yes, especially when you are in a country where people speak very fast and eat up their words. |
| Eric: True, French people tend to not pronounce all the syllables, and at first it can be kind of confusing. |
| Virginie: Not to say frustrating... So, don't hesitate to cut people off in the middle of their speech to have them repeat something. |
| Eric: Euh..maybe not in the middle of their speech. |
| Virginie: Yeah, but don’t worry, as long as you use magic words… |
| Eric: What are those? |
| Virginie: S'il-vous-plait. |
| Eric: Which means “please.” S'il-vous-plait. |
| Eric: Especially if you are addressing someone on the street that you don’t know very well. |
| Virginie: For example you're in the subway and you need to ask someone for direction. In that case you should definitely start your sentence with "s'il-vous-plait". French people are not used to random conversations with strangers. It is rather odd when someone comes to you and says "oh yeah, I was listening to what you're talking about, and I think..." etc, |
| Eric: French people are usually a bit more formal in their conversation, right? |
| Virginie: Yeah, you don’t just butt in. |
| So, if you want to ask someone for some information, just say "s'il-vous-plait?" before you ask your question. Great. Moving on, let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Virginie: comment [natural native speed] |
| Eric: how |
| Virginie: comment [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: comment [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next |
| Virginie: une fourchette [natural native speed] |
| Eric: a fork |
| Virginie: une fourchette [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: une fourchette [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next |
| Virginie: s'il vous plaît [natural native speed] |
| Eric: please (formal) |
| Virginie: s'il vous plaît [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: s'il vous plaît [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next |
| Virginie: vous pouvez [natural native speed] |
| Eric: you can (formal) |
| Virginie: vous pouvez [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: vous pouvez [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next |
| Virginie: noter [natural native speed] |
| Eric: to write down, to note |
| Virginie: noter [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: noter [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next |
| Virginie: le (pronoun) [natural native speed] |
| Eric: it, him |
| Virginie: le (pronoun) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: le (pronoun) [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Virginie: Ok, let's take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from our conversation. |
| Eric: Ok, so the first phrase is not really a phrase, it's a word. It''s "Madame", and it's used to call someone, or address someone, in a polite way. |
| Virginie: It's the equivalent of Madam in English. |
| Eric: Ok. The second phrase is very important for anyone who’s learning French - “how do you say something in French?” |
| Virginie: Yes, which is "comment vous dites fork en français?" |
| Eric: Of course you can substitute any word that you wanna know, comment vous dites ____ en français. |
| Virginie: For instance, comment vous dites street en français? |
| Eric: The answer to that is… |
| Virginie: La rue. |
| Eric: “The street.” |
| Eric: Please don’t forget. When we are saying the word vous this is all formal speech meaning that we are addressing someone who is you know, a higher rank or in a formal context. |
| Virginie: Yes. Remember from our previous lesson that if you talk to a friend, you wouldn’t say vous you would say tu |
| Eric: So you could say, for example, comment tu dis fork en français? |
| Virginie: comment tu dis |
| Eric: That would be used to address someone who is you know of the same age as you or someone you know well. Let’s move on to our third phrase: Vous pouvez repeter? |
| Virginie: Right. “Can you repeat?” |
| Eric: Again, a very important phrase for someone learning a new language and that’s not only people who are learning French but even French native speakers who ask you to repeat, right,Virginie? |
| Virginie: Right, yeah. My grandma keeps telling me, just calm down, slow down. I don’t understand what you are talking about, yes. |
| Eric: I am really lucky then to be able to speak to you in English. |
| Virginie: Yeah. I won’t speak fast in English at all. Don’t worry about that. |
| Eric: And then the fourth phrase is going to be: Lentement, s'il vous plaît, “slowly please.” |
| Virginie: Yes. Lentement, s'il vous plaît. |
| Eric: Again we notice the magic words at the end of that, s'il vous plaît. |
| Virginie: Yeah. Lentement is an adverb which means slowly and it will be very helpful with fast speakers. |
| Eric: And again, these are all things you’ll need when you encounter Virginie in the streets of France. |
| Virginie: Okay. Let’s go to our last phrase which is: Vous pouvez le noter, s'il vous plaît? “Can you write it down please?” |
| Eric: So this phrase is going to ask how to write something down. The verb noter also means to notice or to note. It has several meanings in this one word. |
| Virginie: Yes. You know, English for example has a lot more words than French. In French, you will have one word with three or four or five different meanings. |
| Eric: It’s very convenient. So, I want to mention one other important part of this sentence. When we say, vous pouvez LE noter, we are putting the pronoun before the verb. This is always going to be the case in French. |
| Virginie: Yes absolutely. |
| Eric: This doesn’t happen in English. In English, we would say, can you write it but in French, we are saying something more close to “can you it write” |
| Virginie: Yes. |
| Eric: Vous pouvez LE noter |
| Virginie: I would just like to mention a little thing here. Make sure that whenever you ask a question in French, your intonation goes up at the end of the sentence. |
| Eric: Right. This will allow people to know that you are asking a question and not making a statement. |
| Virginie: That will sound like Vous pouvez le noter, s'il vous plaît? |
| Eric: Otherwise if you are just saying a statement, you would say Vous pouvez le noter, which you know, the intonation is totally stable throughout. |
| Virginie: Right. |
| Eric: So now, let’s move on to the grammar point for this lesson. |
Lesson focus |
| Virginie: Okay. You notice that in our conversation, all the questions and phrases were used with the word vous, the formal vous. Now, we are going to see how you would ask your friend to repeat what you’d just said. |
| Eric: And again, when you are talking to somebody who is of the same age or background as yourself, you are going to say tu. |
| Virginie: So, can you repeat will be: Tu peux repeter? |
| Eric: Again, using the informal pronoun tu. |
| Virginie: And then if you need your friend to write down a word, you will ask him: Tu peux le noter, s'il te plaît? |
| Eric: So we just want to keep in mind also that we are using the same infinitives here. Whether it’s vous pouvez or tu peux, we are using the infinitive pouvoir. |
| Virginie: Yes the verb pouvoir, “can.” |
| Eric: That is spelled pouvoir, pouvoir. Finally, to wrap up this grammar point, when you are saying please to somebody who is your friend, you are going to say s'il te plaît, and not s’il vous plaît. |
| Virginie: So remember s’il vous plaît for people you don’t know or formal situations, and s'il te plaîtwith your friends or family. |
Outro |
| Eric: Ok, great! That just about does it for today. Merci! Au revoir! |
| Virginie: Thank you! Bye! |
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