Learn how to express regrets and reproaches about the past
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Virginie: Bonjour à tous c’est Virginie et bienvenue à Frenchpod101.com, I am here with JP. Hey, JP. |
| JP: Hi, Virginie, bonjour tout le monde. Why Else Would You Have Travelled to the French Beach? So Virginie, what’s happening? |
| Virginie: Today, you are going to learn about the conditionnel passé or the past conditional. |
| JP: Okay. Now, this is a very useful tense when you have to reproach someone or if you want to express regrets. |
| Virginie: And our conversation today is going to be between Irène and Pierre. |
| JP: So let’s listen to the conversation. |
| Virginie: C’est parti. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Irène: Pff…Si on avait déjeuné plus tôt, on serait allés à la plage. |
| Pierre: Oh, ça va. On est à Tahiti, non ? C’est ce que tu voulais, non ? On ira à la plage plus tard. |
| Irène: Oui, mais être à Tahiti et ne pas aller à la plage, merci bien. |
| Pierre: Tu aurais pu te préparer plus vite, ce matin. Comme ça, on aurait déjeuné tôt. |
| Irène: C’est de ma faute alors ? |
| Pierre: On aurait dû aller à la campagne comme d’habitude. |
| Irène: Oui, mais si on était allé à la campagne, on n’aurait pas eu ces délicieux cocktails. |
| Pierre: C’est vrai que mon daiquiri est excellent. |
| Irène: On ira se baigner plus tard. Un autre mai tai, s’il vous plaît ! |
| Virginie: Encore une fois, avec des sous-titres. |
| JP: Once again, with English subtitles. |
| Irène: Pff…Si on avait déjeuné plus tôt, on serait allés à la plage. |
| JP: Pff…if we had eaten earlier, we could have gone to the beach. |
| Pierre: Oh, ça va. On est à Tahiti, non ? C’est ce que tu voulais, non ? On ira à la plage plus tard. |
| JP: Oh, come on. We are in Tahiti, no? That's what you wanted, no? We'll go to the beach later. |
| Irène: Oui, mais être à Tahiti et ne pas aller à la plage, merci bien. |
| JP: Yes, but be in Tahiti and not go to the beach, thank you. |
| Pierre: Tu aurais pu te préparer plus vite, ce matin. Comme ça, on aurait déjeuné tôt. |
| JP: You could have gotten ready faster this morning so that we could have taken lunch earlier. |
| Irène: C’est de ma faute alors ? |
| JP: It's my fault then? |
| Pierre: On aurait dû aller à la campagne comme d’habitude. |
| JP: We should have gone to the country as usual. |
| Irène: Oui, mais si on était allé à la campagne, on n’aurait pas eu ces délicieux cocktails. |
| JP: Yes, but if we had gone to the country, we wouldn't have gotten these delicious cocktails. |
| Pierre: C’est vrai que mon daiquiri est excellent. |
| JP: It's true that my daiquiri is excellent. |
| Irène: On ira se baigner plus tard. Un autre mai tai, s’il vous plaît ! |
| JP: We will swim later. Another mai tai, please! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Virginie: All right, so finally our two characters Irène and Pierre from last week. |
| JP: They are at Tahiti and they are being typical French people abroad Virginie I have to say. |
| Virginie: Qu’est-ce que tu veux dire ? |
| JP: Well, French people when they travel, they don’t have a great reputation of being you know savvy travellers. |
| Virginie: Hm, vraiment ? |
| JP: Right. |
| Virginie: Non, c’est vrai, c’est vrai. Les Français se plaignent beaucoup quand ils sont en voyage. |
| JP: Right they complain a lot. They are not always good at foreign languages. |
| Virginie: C’est vrai. Ils ne parlent que français. Parce-que le français, c’est une langue universelle. |
| JP: Of course, that’s what we all learned in school and also Virginie when it comes to food… |
| Virginie: Oui, quoi ? |
| JP: The French people seem to be a little narrow, right, little narrow-minded. |
| Virginie: Okay. Ah… C’est vrai, c’est vrai. |
| JP: And the tips, giving tips at a restaurant Virginie. |
| Virginie: Well, that’s only because tips are included in France. So people don’t have the reflex to give you know 15% tip or you know. Our waiters have an actual fixed salary. |
| JP: Yeah okay. Now, on the bright side, French people do have a reputation for being very elegant and discreet guests and clean, tidy. |
| Virginie: Voilà, c’est vrai. Je n’ai rien à ajouter. |
| JP: Okay. |
| Virginie: It’s true. I don’t have anything to add to this. |
| JP: All right. Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Virginie: la plage [natural native speed] |
| JP: the beach |
| Virginie: la plage [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: la plage [natural native speed] |
| Virginie: se préparer [natural native speed] |
| JP: to get ready |
| Virginie: se préparer [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: se préparer [natural native speed] |
| Virginie: vite [natural native speed] |
| JP: quickly, fast |
| Virginie: vite [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: vite [natural native speed] |
| Virginie: tôt [natural native speed] |
| JP: early |
| Virginie: tôt [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: tôt [natural native speed] |
| Virginie: une faute [natural native speed] |
| JP: a mistake |
| Virginie: une faute [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: une faute [natural native speed] |
| Virginie: comme d'habitude [natural native speed] |
| JP: as usual |
| Virginie: comme d'habitude [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: comme d'habitude [natural native speed] |
| Virginie: un cocktail [natural native speed] |
| JP: a cocktail |
| Virginie: un cocktail [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: un cocktail [natural native speed] |
| Virginie: se baigner [natural native speed] |
| JP: to swim |
| Virginie: se baigner [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: se baigner [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Virginie : Ok, alors nous avons deux verbes pronominaux ici. |
| JP: All right, let’s hear these two prenominal verbs, these two reflexive verbs. |
| Virginie: D’accord, d’abord nous avons “se préparer”. |
| JP: “Se préparer”, we said, it means to get ready. |
| Virginie: Voilà. |
| JP: Literally it’s to prepare oneself and so that way you can see kind of the reflexive action in English as well as in French “se préparer” to prepare oneself. So in the dialogue, we have |
| Virginie: “Tu aurais pu te préparer plus vite”. |
| JP: You could have gotten ready faster. Now Virginie, how would I say, I am getting myself ready for the Olympics? |
| Virginie: “Je me prépare pour les Jeux Olympiques”. |
| JP: Okay. How about, you are getting ready for your trip? |
| Virginie: “Tu te prépares pour ton voyage”. |
| JP: Okay so “se préparer”, to get ready. |
| Virginie: Voilà. Le suivant c’est “se baigner”. |
| JP: “Se baigner”. So this is to swim, to bathe basically. To bathe oneself, you can think that way. |
| Virginie: Oh, tu connais l’expression, “ça baigne” ? |
| JP: “Ça baigne” ? No I do not know that expression. |
| Virginie: Okay. So whenever you ask someone, “ça baigne”, that means, how are you doing? |
| JP: Okay. How is it going? |
| Virginie: Right. |
| JP: “Ça baigne ?” |
| Virginie : Mh mh. |
| JP : Virginie, ça baigne ? |
| Virginie: Oui ça baigne. Et toi ça baigne ? |
| JP: Well I know the one that’s “Ça roule ?”. |
| Virginie: “Ça roule ?” c’est la même chose. Et aussi il y a “Ça gaze ?” |
| JP: “Ça gaze ?” I don’t know this verb “gazer” |
| Virginie: “Gazer”. It comes from the gas, you know like, le gaz dans le tuyau. The gas in the pipe. |
| JP: Okay. Yeah, the heating gas. |
| Virginie: So... |
| JP: Ça marche ! |
| Virginie: Ça marche. |
| JP: Ça marche, oh okay, ça baigne ? |
| Virginie: That’s another one, “ça baigne”; “ça marche”. Is it walking, is it working? |
| JP: Okay. |
| Virginie: D’accord, et le dernier mot de vocabulaire pour aujourd’hui. |
| JP: Yeah what’s the last one? |
| Virginie: C’est “comme d’habitude”. |
| JP: “Comme d’habitude”. As usual. |
| Virginie: Voilà, et c’est aussi le titre d’une chanson. |
| JP: Oh yeah, let’s hear it. Come on! |
| Virginie: Okay. So it’s a cover. It’s the cover of my way, you know Frank Sinatra ? |
| JP: And now the end is near… that one ? |
| Virginie: But in French it’s called “Comme d’habitude”, as usual. |
| JP: Okay. |
| Virginie: So okay, it goes like this “Comme d’habitude, tu te lèveras… Comme d’habitude…” something like that. |
| JP: Wow! Virginie, I can barely contain my enthusiasm when you are singing. |
| Virginie: I know. You want to take a round and come back? |
| JP: It’s like a revelation. |
| Virginie: I know, it’s my big break. |
| JP: Okay. Now I remember in college when somebody would come in late, our French prof used to say “Comme d’habitude !” |
| Virginie: Ah bah voilà, c’est ça. “Comme d’habitude, tu es en retard.” |
| JP: As usual, you are late. |
| Virginie: Voilà. So why don’t we take a look at the grammar now? |
| JP: Bonne idée. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Virginie: So as we said, aujourd’hui nous allons voir le conditionnel passé. |
| JP: Well, let’s take a look at this conditionnel passé. We call it the past conditional right? |
| Virginie: Let’s see where it is in the dialogue. |
| JP: So when he says, you could have gotten ready faster this morning |
| Virginie: “Tu aurais pu te préparer plus vite ce matin”. |
| JP: All right. Now that’s a reproach right that he is scolding her. |
| Virginie: Voilà, et le reproche, c’est “Tu AURAIS PU te préparer”. |
| JP: You could have prepared yourself faster. Now, here we are using the conditionnel passé and you can see that it’s made up of the auxiliary verb. Here it’s “avoir” in the conditionnel, “aurais”. |
| Virginie: “Tu aurais”. |
| JP: Plus the past participle of the verb in question and here it’s the verb “pouvoir”. So the past participle of “pouvoir” is “pu”. So “tu aurais pu” you could have |
| Virginie: “Tu aurais pu”, voilà. Donc pour faire un reproche à quelqu’un, on utilise le conditionnel passé du verbe “pouvoir”. |
| JP: You could have done this. You know, “tu aurais pu faire ça”. |
| Virginie: Voilà. Un autre exemple : “Il aurait pu dire merci”. |
| JP: Well, he could have said thank you. |
| Virginie: Voilà. |
| JP: Right and I am like rolling my eyes a little bit. He could have said this, “Il aurait pu dire merci”. |
| Virginie: Oui. Quel idiot ! |
| JP: The people can’t see me rolling my eyes but that’s [laughs] |
| Virginie: I can see you. I can attest. JT is rolling his eyes right now. |
| JP: By using conditional passé as a reproach with “pouvoir”. |
| Virginie: Voilà. Now, avec le conditionnel passé on peut aussi exprimer le regret. |
| JP: Okay. How are we going to express regret with the conditionnel passé? |
| Virginie: It’s going to be with the verb “devoir”. |
| JP: “Devoir”. Okay, “devoir” usually expresses a necessity but here since it’s in the conditionnel passé, we are probably going to use the auxiliary verb “avoir”. |
| Virginie: Voilà. |
| JP: Right so “tu aurais” and then the past participle of “devoir” which is |
| Virginie: “Du”. |
| JP: “Du”. So : “tu aurais du”. |
| Virginie: Voilà. Dans le dialogue, “on aurait du aller à la campagne, comme d’habitude.” |
| JP: Now we should have gone to the countryside like usual. So he is regretting that they didn’t go to the countryside. Comme d’habitude... |
| Virginie: …On aurait du aller à la campagne. You can sing it too. It’s even more fun. |
| JP: Oh I’ve an example. |
| Virginie: Oui. |
| JP: Like today when you came in and you hadn’t had breakfast |
| Virginie: C’est vrai. |
| JP: I said, you should have had breakfast and now you are tired. |
| Virginie: Ah oui c’est vrai. “Tu aurais du prendre ton petit déjeuner, maintenant tu es fatiguée. Et fatigante”. |
| JP: I am tired and tiring. |
| Virginie: Tu pourrais me dire aussi JP, “tu aurais du prendre des cours de chant”. |
| JP: You should have taken singing classes… |
| Virginie: Right. |
| JP: Because of your great talent Virginie. |
| Virginie: Okay. |
| JP: It’s a regret that such talent is wasted. |
| Virginie: Oh, c’est ça ouais ! Je te crois, je te crois. Non mais c’est vrai, j’aurais du prendre des cours de chant. I should have taken singing classes. |
| JP: What a regret! |
| Virginie: C’est vrai. Mais je suis encore jeune. |
| JP: You are still young. There is plenty of time. |
| Virginie: Je peux prendre des cours de chant. Je vais prendre des cours de chant. |
| JP: Okay. |
| Virginie: Et enfin pour terminer avec la grammaire, nous avons une troisième façon d’utiliser le conditionnel passé. |
| JP: A third way of using the conditionnel passé. |
| Virginie: Voilà. Ça va être pour exprimer un peu le regret, d’accord; et c’est la construction avec “si”. |
| JP: Oh okay. Now these are the famous if, then clauses. All right, now to make these conditional if then sentences. We are going to start with the “Si” and then use the plus-que-parfait and then the other clause would use the conditionnel passé. |
| Virginie: Voilà, exactement. Dans le dialogue, c’est : “Si on avait déjeuné plus tôt, on serait allés à la plage”. |
| JP: If we had had lunch earlier, we would have gone to the beach. Oh what a regret! Okay you know, you hear that conditionnel passé in the second clause in this clause, we would have gone to the beach, right? |
| Virginie: “On serait allés à la plage”. |
| JP: “On serait allés à la plage”. Now this is the verb “aller” to go. Now, we’ve got the auxiliary verb in the conditional tense. Now remember that “aller” is conjugated with “être” so it’s “être” in the conditional tense. So “on serait allés”. |
| Virginie: Voilà. Donc ces deux actions ne se sont jamais passées. |
| JP: They never happened. We didn’t have breakfast early and we didn’t go to the beach. |
| Virginie: Voilà. |
| JP: So neither of them actually happened. |
| Virginie: Exactement. Un autre exemple serait, “Si tu étais parti en vacances, on aurait été tranquilles”. |
| JP: If you had gone on vacation, we would have been left alone. We would have been left in peace. |
| Virginie: Voilà. |
| JP: Now, there you hear the conditionnel passé in the second clause “on aurait été tranquilles”. Okay now this is the verb “être” right? |
| Virginie: Voilà. “On aurait été”, we would have been and the first part of the sentence “si tu étais parti en vacances” is still the plus-que-parfait which you know already. |
Outro |
| JP: Well, that just about does it for today. |
| Virginie: Okay. Thank you for listening everyone. Merci beaucoup d’avoir écouté. |
| JP: À la prochaine ! |
| Virginie: À la prochaine ! Au revoir JP ! |
| JP: Au revoir ! |
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Comments
HideEst-ce qu'il y a des choses que vous regrettez dans votre vie ? Des choses que vous auriez aimé faire ?
Hi ilia!
Thank you so much for sharing your enthusiasm with us ! 😊 It's wonderful to hear that you're enjoying learning French grammar and that the lessons with Virginie are both fun and beneficial for you. We're thrilled to have such a positive impact on your learning journey. Keep up the great work with those tenses!
Have a great day !
Merci beaucoup (Thank you very much) !
Team FrenchPod101.com
I love grammar! I'm glad I'm finally learning all these tenses and it is all coming together. Lessons with Virginie are always fun and I was very happy to hear her voice again in this class. Thank you very much! 😎
Hi Bert S. !
Nous sommes ravis d'apprendre que vous aimez les échanges amusants des doubleurs et animateurs ! 🎧 C’est toujours notre but de rendre l'apprentissage agréable et engageant. (We are delighted to hear that you enjoy the fun exchanges of the voice actors and hosts! It's always our goal to make learning enjoyable and engaging.)
Feel free to let us know if you have any questions.
Merci !
Team FrenchPod101.com
J'adore les échanges amusants des deux doubleurs/animateurs. C'est tellement agréable à écouter.
Bonjour Mike,
It's not an easy language but with some efforts I'm sure you'll make tremendous progress in no time! 😄
Belle journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101.com
J'aurais dû commencer à apprendre le français plus tôt !
Bonjour Robert,
I had no idea about Comme d'habitude! That's good to know! 😄
As for tenses, I have to admit you confused me for a second there, but you're both right and wrong. What matters is the first tense that is used, that's what sets the temporality of your sentence. If you start with the past compound, then you're obviously talking about the past, hence why "Si j'avais pris..." is correct. It gets a little tricky with "je ne serais pas...", so bear with me here. The idea the speaker is trying to express is: I did [A] in the past, which resulted in [B], a past event that continues in the present.
In short: the speaker took someone's advice in the past. That event is over and one with, hence the past compound. However the consequence of the event, the situation they're talking about, has started in the past AND is sill ongoing now. It hasn't been resolved yet, hence the conditionnel présent. The speaker is using this tense here as a way to reinforce the idea that the problem is still very much current, probably to highlight their annoyance.
Does it make sense?
Do let me know! 😄
Belle journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101
Hello, I have a question about one of the examples:
--
Si j'avais pris en compte tes conseils, je ne serais pas dans cette situation.
"If I had taken your advice into consideration, I wouldn't be in this situation."
--
That's plus-que-parfait followed by the present conditional. It doesn't seem to fit the rest of the lesson, which is all about the past. I would have expected something like: Si j'avais pris en compte tes conseils, je n'aurais pas été dans cette situation.
If we wanted to talk about the present, I'd expect something like: "si je prenais en compte tes conseils, je ne serais pas dans cette situation."
Do I have this all wrong?
Hello,
Virginie said that "Comme D'habitude" is a cover of My Way.
But Comme D'habitude was written FIRST!
Then later, Paul Anka took the tune and rewrote the lyrics into My Way. It wasn't a translation, but just totally new lyrics to the same tune.
Bonjour Mervat,
Je t'en prie, ravie d'avoir pu aider ! 😄
Bonne journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101
Bonjour Marion,
Merci beaucoup! C'est plus clair maintenant. 😄
Mervat
Bonjour Nina,
I'm going to reply to each of your questions in order:
1. "Il" is used to refer to a third person, the person that criticized "elle". As for "lui", it is used to indicate whom "il" criticized and is a pronoun that is used to avoid repeating "à elle". You can see this as a pointing arrow. IL a fait des reproches à ELLE.
2. This is just a typo, français does take a ç.
3. If you only want to say "I fell yesterday", you would say "Je suis tombé(e) hier", yes. You could also say "Je suis tombé dans la rue avant de te voir hier", that would work. Both structures are okay here.
Bonjour Mervat,
Thank you for helping out! Hopefully my answers clear things up some more! 😄
Bonne journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101.com
Bonjour John,
Merci pour ton commentaire ! "On" can take an S when this pronoun is used to refer to multiple subjects, however it isn't mandatory. In French, conjugating "on" in plural and singular is both correct so it's up to you to decide what you prefer.
To sum up, "On serait allés" is correct, as is "On serait allé".
Just FYI, here you have to conjugate the verb in plural/singular and masculine/feminine depending on the subject as it is used with the auxiliary "être" (serait). For more info on this, please ask your tutor about conjugating with auxiliaries! 😄
Bonne journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101.com
Hi Nina,
I will try to answer this for you as much as I can:
1-Si elle n'avait rien dit, il ne lui aurait pas fait de reproches.
Il n'aurait pas fait de reproches (a elle).
Il ne( lui )aurait pas fait de reproches.
2-The Francais one is an error, the both should have the cedille under the C.
3- I agree. but because they used avant de, then the verb that follows has to be in the infinitive( voir )
I hope this of help to you
Bonjour Nancy,
Merci pour votre message.
8 années ? C'est beaucoup ! Cela devait être un voyage passionnant !
Qu'avez-vous fait ? Qu'avez-vous aimé ?
Bonne journée !
Marie Alice
Team FrenchPod101.com
j’ai parcouri l’europe pendant huit ans. je ne le regrette
pas
Bonjour Olivia,
C'est un joli compliment !
Merci !
Continuez comme ça !
Bonne journée,
Marie Alice
Team FrenchPod101.com
Je ne sais pas comment vous le faites, mais mon français s'est amélioré rapidement avec juste de quelque leçons ~ et je vais à beaucoup de courses de français tous les jours dans mon université. Merci beaucoup 😄
Merci Mike votre commentaire m'a fait rire !
Il faut dire:
"Si j'avais mangé plus le matin"
Bonne journée !
Marie Alice
Team FrenchP101.com
Si j'avais mangé plus a la matin, je n`aurais pas faim.😜