Learn how to talk about facts in the past
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 |
| Jason: Hurry Up with my French Breakfast! C’est Jason. Jason here! |
| Ingrid: Bonjour à tous, Ingrid here! |
| Jason: In this lesson, you’re going to learn the most common French past tense. |
| Ingrid: You will be able to talk about facts in the past, thanks to “le passé composé.” |
| Jason: So what’s our conversation about? |
| Ingrid: Our conversation takes place on the phone. Marie-Louise is in a room in a luxury Parisian hotel and she is waiting for breakfast, so she decides to call the reception. This is formal French. |
| Jason: Okay, let’s listen to the conversation! |
| DIALOGUE |
| 1st time: natural native speed: |
| [Dans un grand hôtel parisien, au téléphone] |
| Marie-Louise: Bonjour, j'ai commandé un petit déjeuner il y a une demi-heure et il n'est pas arrivé, que se passe-t-il? |
| Réceptionniste: Je suis navré madame, nous avons peut-être oublié de noter cette commande. Malheureusement cela est déjà arrivé. |
| Marie-Louise: Je vois, je vous ai pourtant bien précisé le numéro de chambre! |
| Réceptionniste: Oui madame, il est noté: chambre 103. Veuillez nous excuser pour ce désagrément, votre commande arrive tout de suite. |
| (1 time slowly) |
| [Dans un grand hôtel parisien, au téléphone] |
| Marie-Louise: Bonjour, j'ai commandé un petit déjeuner il y a une demi-heure et il n'est pas arrivé, que se passe-t-il? |
| Réceptionniste: Je suis navré madame, nous avons peut-être oublié de noter cette commande. Malheureusement cela est déjà arrivé. |
| Marie-Louise: Je vois, je vous ai pourtant bien précisé le numéro de chambre! |
| Réceptionniste: Oui madame, il est noté: chambre 103. Veuillez nous excuser pour ce désagrément, votre commande arrive tout de suite. |
| (1 time natural native speed with the translation) |
| [Dans un grand hôtel parisien, au téléphone] |
| Marie-Louise: Bonjour, j'ai commandé un petit déjeuner il y a une demi-heure et il n'est pas arrivé, que se passe-t-il? |
| Hello, I ordered breakfast half an hour ago and it is still not here. What’s happening? |
| Réceptionniste: Je suis navré madame, nous avons peut-être oublié de noter cette commande. Malheureusement cela est déjà arrivé. |
| I am terribly sorry Madam, we may have forgotten to take this order. Unfortunately, it has already happened sometimes. |
| Marie-Louise: Je vois, je vous ai pourtant bien précisé le numéro de chambre! |
| I see… Though I have also specified my room number. |
| Réceptionniste: Oui madame, il est noté: chambre 103. Veuillez nous excuser pour ce désagrément, votre commande arrive tout de suite. |
| Yes Madam, it is written down: room 103. Please accept our apologies for this annoyance; |
| your order is coming immediately. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Ingrid: Jason, what do you eat for breakfast? |
| Jason: It depends… it can be eggs, bacon or cereal… |
| Ingrid: Very salty and so far from the traditional French breakfast. |
| Jason: What is this traditional French breakfast? |
| Ingrid: The traditional French breakfast in most French hotels is very similar to what the average French people eats. There is always bread… |
| Jason: Aahhh “la baguette” |
| Ingrid: Indeed, we eat a slice of bread with butter, jam and honey… There are also Viennese pastries… The most famous, one of our ambassadors, is “le croissant!” |
| Jason: That’s all? |
| Ingrid: Yes, but you can eat more than one! We also drink a hot beverage such as black or milk coffee, chocolate or tea, with a glass of fruit juice. |
| So, does it sound yummy? |
| Jason: sure, I have a last question: to dunk or not to dunk the slice of bread in your hot beverage? |
| Ingrid: It’s up to you! There are two camps, feel free to do it if you'd like! |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Okay, so now, let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| The first expression we shall see is: |
| Next: |
| Commander [natural native speed] |
| Meaning “To order” |
| Commander [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Commander [natural native speed] |
| Il y a une demi-heure [natural native speed] |
| Meaning “Half an hour ago” |
| Il y a une demi-heure [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Il y a une demi-heure [natural native speed] |
| Être navré [natural native speed] |
| Meaning “To be terribly sorry” |
| Être navré [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Être navré [natural native speed] |
| Noter [natural native speed] |
| Meaning “to write down” |
| Noter [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Noter [natural native speed] |
| Malheureusement [natural native speed] |
| Meaning “unfortunately” |
| Malheureusement [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Malheureusement [natural native speed] |
| Pourtant [natural native speed] |
| Meaning “Though” |
| Pourtant [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Pourtant [natural native speed] |
| Préciser [natural native speed] |
| Meaning “To specify” |
| Préciser [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Préciser [natural native speed] |
| Numéro de chambre [natural native speed] |
| Meaning “room number” |
| Numéro de chambre [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Numéro de chambre [natural native speed] |
| Veuillez nous excuser [natural native speed] |
| Meaning “Please accept our apologies” |
| Veuillez nous excuser [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Veuillez nous excuser [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases in this lesson. |
| Jason: What’s the first expression? |
| Ingrid: « Le petit déjeuner » ! my favourite meal |
| (Slowly) le petit déjeuner |
| This is French for « breakfast»… Do you know the name of the other meals Jason ? |
| Jason: Hummm…. Lunch is “déjeuner” isn’t it ? |
| Ingrid: Yes it is (Slowly) “déjeuner”. The initial meaning of this word is quite interesting since “jeuner” alone means “to fast” or "to not eat” so “déjeuner” actually means to stop the fasting or in other words, to start eating. |
| Jason: Very interesting indeed! And do you have a specific word for “snack,” for example if you eat something sweet during the afternoon? |
| Ingrid: Of course, and it is even very important for many French children but even some adults! It is the “goûter” that is usually eaten at around 4pm, after school. |
| Jason: And after it what do you have? |
| Ingrid: After we have the dinner which “le dîner”. And don’t be surprised because in France we are used to have dinner quite late compared to other nationalities, we generally have dinner at 8 or 8:30 pm. |
| Jason: And dinner is the last meal of the day? |
| Ingrid: Not exactly since traditionally we had « le souper » but now only a few older people still have it. It was a soup and sometimes some bread, which were traditionally eaten after the dinner. |
| Jason: So when we hear that food is very important for French people, it is not a joke! So what is our next expression? |
| Ingrid: The next one is “être navré” which is the equivalent of “to be sorry” but a bit stronger and more polite. It is usually used when you are sorry but also compassionate. |
| Jason: Great so if you are honestly sorry, then use it! For example, what would you say if you had broken your best friend’s favorite vase? |
| Ingrid: In this case, you can say “Je suis vraiment navrée” that is “I am very sorry” |
| Jason: Can you repeat it slowly please? |
| Ingrid: (slowly) Je suis vraiment navrée |
| Jason: Again at natural speed |
| Ingrid: (natural speed) Je suis vraiment navrée |
| Jason: Great listeners, so now let’s have a look at our grammar point which is, I must, say very very important today! |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Jason: So our grammar point is the use of “passé composé” |
| Ingrid: Yes, the most common French past tense. It can express either an action completed in the past, as in “j’ai rangé ma chamber” to say “I tidied my room” |
| Either an action repeated a number of times in the past, as in “j’ai lu ce livre trois fois” which is “I’ve read this book three times”. |
| Or finally, it can express a series of actions completed in the past, as in: “tu as cuisiné, nettoyé et fais la vaisselle” that is “you cooked, cleaned up and washed up” |
| Jason: lots of situations…But it is not the only tense to express past actions |
| Ingrid: Of course not… but I have a tip for our listeners: if you don’t know how to say something past in French, use “le passé composé”. Even if it may sound odd sometimes, French people will understand you. |
| Jason: This is practical… and how is “le passé composé"? |
| Ingrid: “le passé composé” is a compound conjugation. So the two parts are: present tense of the auxiliary verb : either “avoir” or “être” + the past participle of the main verb. |
| So now, when you learn a new French verb, you also have to learn its past participle. |
| Jason: And how do you conjugate “être” and “avoir” at present tense? |
| Ingrid: j’AI tu AS il/elle/on A nous AVONS vous AVEZ ils/elles ONT |
| Do you remember how to conjugate “être”? |
| Jason: je SUIS tu ES il/elle/on EST nous SOMMES Vous ÊTES ils/elles SONT |
| Ingrid: Good…; so “le passé composé” is made of one of those two auxiliaries plus the past participle of the verb. |
| Jason: and how do we know if it is “être” or “avoir”? |
| Ingrid: you can’t guess… you have to know it. But almost all the verbs use Avoir… |
| Jason: Is there an equivalent of this tense in English? |
| Ingrid: not really…. “le passé composé" can be sometimes translated by simple past, present perfect or even past emphatic… |
| Jason: So a new tense that is typically French for our listeners…. Anything else Ingrid? |
| Ingrid: Yes: Be careful to grammatical agreement of the past participle. But this will be explained in another FrenchPod101.com lesson, so keep listening! |
Outro |
| Jason: All right. That’s going to do it for this lesson. Bye everyone, à bientôt ! |
| Ingrid: À bientôt ! |
Comments
Hide