Learn how to say the months
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sam: Are You Sure That’s the Best Month to Schedule Your Vacation to France? In this lesson, you’ll learn about months of the year. |
| Celine: The conversation is between Robert and his son, Rémi, during the day. |
| Sam: The speakers are family, therefore, they’ll be speaking informally. Okay, c’est parti. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Tiny Rémi: Papa, Je suis tellement bon! Écoute mon poème. |
| Clever Robert: J’écoute, vas-y, vas-y, allons. |
| Tiny Rémi: Janvier, premier du calendrier. |
| Le deuxième, c’est février. |
| Mars, la fin des glaces. |
| Avril, fleurs fragiles. |
| Sam: One more time, slowly. |
| Tiny Rémi: Papa, Je suis tellement bon! Écoute mon poème. |
| Clever Robert: J’écoute, vas-y, vas-y, allons. |
| Tiny Rémi: Janvier, premier du calendrier. |
| Le deuxième, c’est février. |
| Mars, la fin des glaces. |
| Avril, fleurs fragiles. |
| Sam: One more time, with the English. |
| Tiny Rémi: Papa, Je suis tellement bon ! Écoute mon poème. |
| Sam: Papa, I am so good! Listen to my poem. |
| Clever Robert: J’écoute, vas-y, vas-y, allons. |
| Sam: I’m listening! Go ahead, go ahead! |
| Tiny Rémi: Janvier, premier du calendrier. |
| Sam: January, first of the calendar. |
| Tiny Rémi: Le deuxième, c’est février. |
| Sam: The second, is February. |
| Tiny Rémi: Mars, la fin des glaces. |
| Sam: March, end of ice. |
| Tiny Rémi: Avril, fleurs fragiles. |
| Sam: April, fragile flowers. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Celine: Today, we’re going to talk about months. |
| Sam: And there’s 12 of them. |
| Celine: Bravo Sam, quelle intelligence! |
| Sam: Of course! So are there any special days? Let’s see. What’s an interesting month? In May. |
| Celine: In May, okay. In France, offering “Muguet” is now synonym of happiness and falling in love. |
| Sam: So offering “Muguet” is a symbol of falling...wait a minute, what’s “Muguet”? |
| Celine: Lily of the Valley. |
| Sam: A lily of the valley is a muguet. Okay. And what color are they? |
| Celine: White. |
| Sam: So it represents love. |
| Celine: Yes, and happiness. But you know, the problem is I have allergies to Muguet. |
| Sam: So I guess you’ll never loved then. |
| Celine: Yeah, but that’s not a problem, I am loved. Je suis aimée. |
| Sam: Oh, really? |
| Celine: Yeah. |
| Sam: By our listeners? |
| Celine: I don’t know. Maybe. |
| Sam: Maybe. |
| Celine: So let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| Sam: Sounds good. The first item is… |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Celine: Papa [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Daddy. |
| Celine: Papa [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Papa [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Next… |
| Celine: Calendrier [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Calendar. |
| Celine: Calendrier [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Calendrier [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Next… |
| Celine: Poème [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Poem. |
| Celine: Poème [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Poème [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Next… |
| Celine: Bon [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Good. |
| Celine: Bon [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Bon [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Next… |
| Celine: Été [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Summer. |
| Celine: Été [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Été [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Next… |
| Celine: Muguet [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Lily of the valley |
| Celine: Muguet [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Mguet [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Next… |
| Celine: Le temps [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Climate or weather. |
| Celine: Le temps [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Le temps [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Next… |
| Celine: Ensoleillé [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Sunny. |
| Celine: Ensoleillé [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Ensoleillé [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Next… |
| Celine: Vas-y [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: You go ahead. |
| Celine: Vas-y [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Vas-y [natural native speed]. |
| Sam: Next… |
| Celine: Tellement. |
| Sam: Soul. |
| Celine: Tellement. Tellement. |
| Sam: Okay, great. Now let’s look at the vocabulary and phrase usage from this lesson. |
| Celine: Yes. First, let’s look at the adverb tellement. It often describes the intensity of an adjective or a verb. |
| Sam: Can you provide an example? |
| Celine: Il parle tellement. |
| Sam: Here the action of talking is focused on. |
| Celine: Oui. Another example, “ce plat est tellement salé que je ne peux pas le manger.” |
| Sam: “This dish is so salted that I can't eat it.” |
| Celine: Oui. In the conversation, Remi says, “Papa, Je suis tellement bon.” |
| Sam: “Papa, I’m really good.” |
| Celine: “I’m so good.” |
| Sam: “I’m so good.” |
| Celine: So next word…actually it’s not a word, it’s an expression. Next expression is “vas-y.” It is used to encourage or tell to do something. |
| Sam: Tell someone to do something? |
| Celine: U-hmm. |
| Sam: Okay. Can you break it down? |
| Celine: Oui. Vas-y. It is composed of “vas” from the verb “aller” and “Y”, Y, used as a pronoun to refer to a thing. In the dialogue, the pronoun Y refers to the action of reciting the poem. Got it? |
| Sam: Yes, I got it. Now let’s move on to our grammar point. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Sam: Months of the year. The first one in English is January. |
| Celine: janvier. |
| Sam: February? |
| Celine: février. |
| Sam: March? |
| Celine: mars. |
| Sam: April? |
| Celine: avril. |
| Sam: May? |
| Celine: mai. |
| Sam: June? |
| Celine: juin. |
| Sam: July? |
| Celine: juillet. |
| Sam: August? |
| Celine: août. |
| Sam: September? |
| Celine: septembre. |
| Sam: October? |
| Celine: octobre. |
| Sam: November? |
| Celine: novembre. |
| Sam: December. |
| Celine: décembre. |
| Sam: Oh, wow. They’re almost the same. |
| Celine: Yes, almost. |
| Sam: Almost. |
| Celine: You know, in French, the months have no capital letter. |
| Sam: Yeah. Yeah. So for our listeners out there, when you’re writing a month in French, don’t use a capital letter. |
| Celine: Tout à fait. And then we have the ordinal numbers – first, second – premier, deuxième. |
| Sam: Okay. Let’s look at the first. We’re talking about ordinal numbers. Let’s look at one through ten. Okay. First. |
| Celine: Premier. |
| Sam: Second. |
| Celine: Deuxième. |
| Sam: Third. |
| Celine: Troisième. |
| Sam: Fourth. |
| Celine: Quatrième. |
| Sam: Fifth. |
| Celine: Cinquième. |
| Sam: Sixth. |
| Celine: Sixième. |
| Sam: Seventh. |
| Celine: Septième. |
| Sam: Eighth. |
| Celine: Huitième. |
| Sam: Ninth. |
| Celine: Neuvième. |
| Sam: Tenth. |
| Celine: Dixième. So Sam… |
| Sam: Yes? |
| Celine: quand est-ce que tu es né? |
| Sam: j’ai oublié. |
| Celine: Tu as oublié? |
| Sam: Non, non. Je joue au jeu de rôle. |
| Celine: Juste le mois et le jour. Only the month and the date. |
| Sam: le quatrième de février. |
| Celine: Okay. For days, use cardinal numbers for dates, except for the first of the month. |
| Sam: Oh. Is that one special? |
| Celine: Exactement. We say premier. |
| Sam: Oh. |
| Celine: Le premier mai. |
| Sam: Le premier mai. |
| Celine: And le 2 mai. |
| Sam: Le 2 mai. |
| Celine: So it’s different from English. Donc tu es né le quatre février. We don’t say le quatrième, only for the first day of the month. |
| Sam: Okay. So for our listeners, just think about it this way, for our English-speaking listeners especially, in French you wouldn’t say “My birthday is February 1st.” You would say it’s February 1 or February 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. But for the first, if your birthday is on the first, you say “premier.” |
| Celine: Premier. |
| Sam: That’s an easy grammar point. |
| Celine: Yes. |
| Sam: So Celine, when is your birthday? |
| Celine: Le 21 octobre. |
| Sam: The 21st of October. |
| Celine: See, you said 21st in English, but in French we say 21. |
| Sam: Twenty-one. |
| Celine: So you use ordinal numbers only for the first day. |
| Sam: Also, for example, if someone’s birthday is October 1st, in French we say le premier octobre. |
| Celine: Tout à fait. |
| Sam: But if it’s October 2nd in English, in French we’d say “My birthday is October 2.” |
| Celine: Oui le 2 octobre. |
| Sam: Okay, I got it. |
| Celine: Le deuxième octobre…no, you cannot say…ça n’existe pas. C’est pas possible. |
| Sam: So to sum things up, if your birthday is on the first, in French you say “premier” which means “first”. If it’s after the first, you say 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and so on. |
| Celine: Yes. Voilà. |
| Sam: Okay, that’s an easy point. |
| Celine: C’est très facile. |
Outro |
| Sam: Wow, so that’s an interesting lesson, I think. I think that’s a good place to end because we have many more lessons coming. Yeah. So, until next time. |
| Celine: Merci beaucoup! |
| Sam: A la prochaine. |
| Celine: A la prochaine. |
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