Learn how to say "must" and "need to"
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Greg: Hello everyone, I’m Greg. Personal Problems in France. |
| Mailys: Bonjour tout le monde. This is Mailys. In this lesson, we will learn how to say “must” and “need”. |
| Greg: In this lesson, Jacques is a little absent-minded at work because he's a bit depressed about Mireille. He is using formal French with a senior teacher at the school where he works. |
| Mailys: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Mme Joyal: Jacques, vous devez laver le plancher encore une fois; il est encore sale. Vous devez faire attention ! |
| Jacques: Oui, madame Joyal, je suis désolé. Je ne sais pas où j'ai la tête aujourd'hui. |
| Mme Joyal: Vous êtes malade ? |
| Jacques: Non, ça va. C'est plutôt un problème personnel... |
| Mme Joyal: Je comprends, mais les planchers doivent être propres ! C'est septembre et les enfants ont besoin de vous ! |
| Jacques: Oui, je sais, je sais, je dois faire plus attention... |
| Greg: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Mme Joyal: Jacques, vous devez laver le plancher encore une fois; il est encore sale. Vous devez faire attention ! |
| Jacques: Oui, madame Joyal, je suis désolé. Je ne sais pas où j'ai la tête aujourd'hui. |
| Mme Joyal: Vous êtes malade ? |
| Jacques: Non, ça va. C'est plutôt un problème personnel... |
| Mme Joyal: Je comprends, mais les planchers doivent être propres ! C'est septembre et les enfants ont besoin de vous ! |
| Jacques: Oui, je sais, je sais, je dois faire plus attention... |
| Greg: Now let’s hear it with the English translation. |
| Mme Joyal: Jacques, vous devez laver le plancher encore une fois; il est encore sale. Vous devez faire attention ! |
| Mme Joyal: Jacques, you need to wash the floor one more time; it's still dirty. You need to be careful! |
| Jacques: Oui, madame Joyal, je suis désolé. Je ne sais pas où j'ai la tête aujourd'hui. |
| Jacques: Yes, Mrs. Joyal, I'm sorry. I don't know where my head's at today. |
| Mme Joyal: Vous êtes malade ? |
| Mme Joyal: Are you sick? |
| Jacques: Non, ça va. C'est plutôt un problème personnel... |
| Jacques: No, I'm fine. It's a personal problem instead... |
| Mme Joyal: Je comprends, mais les planchers doivent être propres ! C'est septembre et les enfants ont besoin de vous ! |
| Mme Joyal: I understand, but the floors need to be clean! It's September, and the children need you! |
| Jacques: Oui, je sais, je sais, je dois faire plus attention... |
| Jacques: Yes, I know, I know, I need to be more careful... |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Greg: In this lesson, we'll talk about the French Education System. Mailys, I've often heard that the French Education System is one of the most successful in the world. Can we tell people a bit about how it works? |
| Mailys: Sure. The pre-university system is usually divided into 4 stages. ‘L'École maternelle’ is for children ages 2 to 5 and is meant to prepare them for elementary school. |
| Greg: And elementary school, called ‘l'École primaire’, is for children ages 6 to 11. |
| Mailys: Next comes ‘le Collège’, for ages 12 to 15, followed by ‘le Lycée’, equivalent to the American high school, for students ages 16 to 18. |
| Greg: Interestingly, the grading system is not out of 100, but out of 20. |
| Mailys: Yes, and the passing grade is 10. The teachers are very strict so it's common for students to repeat a year. |
| Greg: And the final exam that students need to pass to graduate is called the ‘baccalauréat’, or the ‘bac’ for short. |
| Mailys: Ok, let’s move on to the vocab now. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Greg: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| The first word we shall see is: |
| Mailys: devoir [natural native speed] |
| Greg: to have to, must |
| Mailys: devoir [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mailys: devoir [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Mailys: plancher [natural native speed] |
| Greg: floor |
| Mailys: plancher [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mailys: plancher [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Mailys: fois [natural native speed] |
| Greg: time, occurrence (once, twice, etc.) |
| Mailys: fois [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mailys: fois [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Mailys: sale [natural native speed] |
| Greg: dirty |
| Mailys: sale [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mailys: sale [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Mailys: faire attention [natural native speed] |
| Greg: to be careful |
| Mailys: faire attention [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mailys: faire attention [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Mailys: tête [natural native speed] |
| Greg: head |
| Mailys: tête [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mailys: tête [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Mailys: personnel [natural native speed] |
| Greg: personal |
| Mailys: personnel [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mailys: personnel [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Mailys: comprendre [natural native speed] |
| Greg: to understand, to comprehend |
| Mailys: comprendre [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mailys: comprendre [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Mailys: propre [natural native speed] |
| Greg: clean, (one's) own |
| Mailys: propre [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mailys: propre [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Mailys: plus [natural native speed] |
| Greg: more |
| Mailys: plus [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mailys: plus [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Greg: Let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. ‘Fois’ means “time”, and it's used to count the number of times something happens, as in “I went 3 times”. |
| Mailys: To say “once” or “twice”, we simply say ‘une fois’, ‘deux fois’, etc. |
| Mailys: Il lave toujours le plancher deux fois. |
| Greg: He always washes the floor twice. |
| Mailys: Les enfants mangent trois fois par jour. |
| Greg: The kids eat three times a day. |
| Greg: ‘Faire attention’ means “to pay attention” or “to be careful”. |
| Mailys: It's made up of the verb ‘faire’, which we introduced in lesson 7, and the noun ‘attention’. |
| Greg: The preposition ‘à’ is used to introduce another noun. For example... |
| Mailys: Vous devez faire attention! C'est dangereux ici! |
| Greg: You have to be careful! It's dangerous here! |
| Mailys: Il fait attention à son travail parce que c'est un projet important. |
| Greg: He's careful with his work because it's an important project. |
| Greg: ‘Comprendre’ means “to understand” or “to comprehend”. Here is its irregular conjugation. |
| [B and A alternate] |
| je comprends, |
| tu comprends, |
| il comprend, |
| nous comprenons |
| vous comprenez, |
| ils comprennent, |
| Mailys: Here are some sentences. Elle comprend très bien le français. |
| Greg: She understands French very well. |
| Mailys: Nous ne comprenons pas pourquoi il est malade. |
| Greg: We don't understand why he is sick. |
| Greg: And finally, ‘Plus’ means “more.” The preposition ‘de’ is used to introduce a noun. |
| Mailys: Je veux plus de pain. |
| Greg: I want more bread. |
| Mailys: Ils ont plus d'enfants que nous. |
| Greg: They have more children than we do. |
| Greg: When it's used with an adjective, ‘plus’ is the equivalent of the English “-er” as in “faster” or “smaller”. |
| Mailys: In this case, the ‘s’ is not pronounced. The second part of the comparison is introduced by ‘que’. |
| Mailys: Il est plus gentil qu'elle. |
| Greg: He is nicer than her. Okay, now onto the grammar point. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Greg: The focus of this lesson is expressing obligation with verbs like “must”, “have to” and “need to”. |
| Mailys: The first verb we'll look at is ‘devoir’ which means “must” or “to have to”. It's an irregular verb, so let's first look at the conjugation. |
| je dois |
| tu dois |
| il doit |
| nous devons |
| vous devez |
| ils doivent |
| Greg: ‘Devoir’ is usually followed by another verb in the infinitive. |
| Mailys: Tu dois écouter le professeur. |
| Greg: You have to listen to the teacher. |
| Mailys: Vous devez arriver à l'heure. |
| Greg: You must arrive on time. |
| Mailys: ‘Devoir’ can also be used to indicate an assumption, as in “it's got to be” or “it must be”. |
| Mailys: Il doit faire chaud dehors parce que le soleil brille très fort. |
| Greg: It must be hot outside because the sun is shining very strongly. |
| Mailys: Tu veux un tatouage? Ouille, ça doit vraiment faire mal. |
| Greg: You want a tattoo? Ouch, it must really hurt. |
| Greg: To say that you “need something”, or “need to do something”, we use the expression ‘avoir besoin’. Literally, it means “to have need”. It is always followed by ‘de’. |
| Mailys: As-tu besoin de mon aide? |
| Greg: Do you need my help? |
| Mailys: Cette soupe a besoin d'un peu plus de sel. |
| Greg: This soup needs a bit more salt. |
| Mailys: Nous avons besoin d'aller au marché. |
| Greg: We need to go to the market. |
| Greg: We would also like to introduce another common expression that doesn't appear in the dialogue - ‘il faut’. |
| Mailys: It's an impersonal verb - You can review lesson 7 to learn more about impersonal verbs. |
| Greg: The usage of ‘il faut’ can get quite complex, but one simple way to use it is to add an infinitive verb. |
| Mailys: Il faut partir! |
| Greg: We have to go! |
| Greg: There is no subject, so the exact meaning depends on the context. |
| Greg: Il faut laver le plancher! |
| Mailys: You have to wash the floor! |
Outro |
| Mailys: And that’s it for this lesson! Make sure you join us for lesson 15! |
| Greg: I hope Jacques feels better. Maybe Mireille will call him back! |
| Mailys: We'll find out soon! À bientôt! |
| Greg: See you soon! |
Comments
Hide