Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Notes

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Lesson Transcript

Intro

Eric: Without These Words, You Can't Play Twenty Questions in French.
Virginie: Today, you will learn about adjectives but this time, who are placed after the noun.
Eric: Basically, most adjectives in French.
Virginie: And remember, in the previous lesson, we saw adjectives that were placed before the noun.
Eric: Rob is going to Toulouse to visit Sarah. He had never gone before and he's really surprised by the beautiful ville.
Virginie: [*] the Pink City.
Eric: Why don't we have a listen to this conversation?

Lesson conversation

Rob: C’est une belle ville.
Sarah: Oui, c’est une ville agréable.
Rob: Oh, il y a une église gigantesque ici.
Sarah: Oui, c’est Saint–Sernin.
Rob: J’aime bien les briques rouges.
Sarah: Et le ciel bleu.
Rob: Ah…le Sud.
Eric: One more time with the translation.
Rob: C’est une belle ville.
Eric: It's a beautiful city.
Sarah: Oui, c’est une ville agréable.
Virginie: Yes, it's a pleasant city.
Rob: Oh, il y a une église gigantesque ici.
Eric: Oh! There is a gigantic church here!
Sarah: Oui, c’est Saint–Sernin.
Virginie: Yes, it is Saint-Sernin.
Rob: J’aime bien les briques rouges.
Eric: I like the red bricks.
Sarah: Et le ciel bleu.
Virginie: And the blue sky!
Rob: Ah…le Sud.
Eric: Ah…the South!
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Eric: Well, Rob and Sarah seem to be having a nice time.
Virginie: Yes, you know, walking in the streets of Toulouse, la ville rose.
Eric: The pink city, right, the nickname for Toulouse.
Virginie: And that's the nickname for Toulouse, you know why, Eric?
Eric: I do because there are lots of red brick buildings.
Virginie: Yes, exactly. There are a lot of them.
Eric: It's very beautiful. I was there very briefly. It felt like, you know, a very nice break from the rest of the French cities which are kind of like don't have as many colors.
Virginie: Yeah, it's true. And it has a very…
Eric: Warm feel.
Virginie: Yes. And it's like a village. It looks smaller than other French cities, I think. I mean, big cities.
Eric: Yeah. I think you were telling me before that a lot of other French cities will have, you know, a very strong architectural specificities, like Strasbourg.
Virginie: Strasbourg has a very specific identity.
Eric: Really?
Virginie: Definitely.
Eric: I've never been to Strasbourg.
Virginie: Do you know where it is? It's in the Northeast.
Eric: Basically on the German border.
Virginie: And it's in the region called Alsace.
Eric: You may remember from your history classes, Alsace Lorraine. Strasbourg was a main crossroads for people migrating and this has been from as early as the Stone Age era and became a main location for settlement to which with presence on the Rhine River.
Virginie: Yeah. Yes, Strasbourg's definitely has a strong history.
VOCAB LIST
Virginie: Okay. Let's talk about our vocabulary. Une ville.
Eric: A city, a town
Virginie: Une ville, une ville.
Eric: Next.
Virginie: Belle. [natural native speed]
Eric: Beautiful
Virginie: Belle [slowly - broken down by syllable], belle [natural native speed].
Eric: Okay.
Virginie. Agréable [natural native speed].
Eric: Pleasant, nice.
Virginie: Agréable [slowly - broken down by syllable], agréable [natural native speed].
Eric: Next.
Virginie: Une église [natural native speed].
Eric: A church.
Virginie: Une église [slowly - broken down by syllable], une église [natural native speed].
Eric: Okay.
Virginie: Gigantesque [natural native speed].
Eric: Gigantic.
Virginie: Gigantesque [slowly - broken down by syllable], gigantesque [natural native speed].
Eric: Then.
Virginie: Une brique [natural native speed].
Eric: A brick.
Virginie: Une brique [slowly - broken down by syllable], une brique [natural native speed]. Rouge [natural native speed].
Eric: Red.
Virginie: Rouge [slowly - broken down by syllable], rouge [natural native speed].
Eric: Then.
Virginie: Le sud [natural native speed].
Eric: South.
Virginie: Le sud [slowly - broken down by syllable], le sud [natural native speed].
Eric: The next one.
Virginie: Le ciel [natural native speed].
Eric: The sky.
Virginie: Le ciel [slowly - broken down by syllable], le ciel [natural native speed].
Eric: Next.
Virginie: Bleu/bleue [natural native speed].
Eric: Blue.
Virginie: Bleu/bleue [slowly - broken down by syllable], bleu/bleue [natural native speed].
KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES
Virginie: Let’s start with a nice word.
Eric: ""Agreable.""
Virginie: Which means nice.
Eric: And this is sort of used pretty frequently; pleasant, nice, ""Agreable.""
Virginie: Yeah, you can use it either for a person or for a thing, like a city, a country, a meal and pretty much anything.
Eric: Slight nuance though, if using ""Agreable"" to refer to a person, it means of good company, pleasant.
Virginie: That's true.
Eric: It's more like gentil is nice.
Virginie: gentil is the actual word for a nice person. If you say that someone is ""agreable"" that really means she's or he's of good company and…
Eric: Pleasant.
Virginie: Yeah. So in our dialogue Sarah say, ""C'est une ville agreeable."" It's a nice city, meaning it's nice to hang out in that city. It has a nice feeling to it.
Eric: And I think we also saw a few adjectives that are to do with color, like ""rouge et bleu"" red and blue. Rouge because it ends in ""e"" is the same regardless of masculine or feminine.
Virginie: Yes, it could be ""une ville rouge,"" a Red City, which is pretty unusual but still.
Eric: Possible.
Virginie: Or…
Eric: un gars rouge, a red man.
Virginie: Yes.
Eric: And it's the same with ""agreable."" ""Agreable"" also ends in ""e"" so as an adjective you don't have to change it for masculine or feminine. It's the same. But ""bleue"" is not the same. ""Bleue,"" in the masculine version is B-L-E-U and the feminine version?
Virginie: B-L-E-U-E.
Eric: Exactly, since it doesn't end in ""e"" already, you have to have to add the ""e.""
Virginie: Yes. But it will sound exactly the same. For example if I say, ""The sea is blue,"" and the sea is feminine, it's going to be, ""La mer est bleue."" And if I want to say, if the sky is blue just like in our dialogue, it's going to be ""Le ciel est bleu."" And it's the exact same pronunciation. All right. So what about our grammar point? What is it?

Lesson focus

Eric: The focus of this lesson is placing the adjective after the noun.
Virginie: First example from the dialogue.
Eric: ""Oui, c'est une ville agréable.""
Virginie: Yes, it's a pleasant city
Eric: And as we just learned, ""agreable"" means nice or pleasant.
Virginie: And as you can see, it's placed right after the noun and the noun here is ""une ville."" ""Une ville agreable.""
Eric: Essentially, most adjectives are going to be coming after the noun. If it doesn't fall in to the categories that we talked about in the previous lesson, BAGS…
Virginie: Yes.
Eric: Then, it will probably be placed after the noun.
Virginie: So among them, just to give you an idea, you will have the color adjectives.
Eric: ""Les briques rouges"" the red bricks.
Virginie: Or ""le ciel bleu"", the blue sky.
Eric: It could also be adjectives involving a shape, ""une table ronde.""
Virginie: A round table. Do you know the “Les Chevaliers de la Table Ronde”?
Eric: The Knights of the Round Table?
Virginie: Yes. “Les Chevaliers de la Table Ronde”
Eric: This is super.
Virginie: Let's move on here, so adjectives for taste.
Eric: For example, what would we have?
Virginie: ""Une tarte sale.""
Eric: ""A salty tart.""
Virginie: ""Un fruit sucre.""
Eric: A sugary fruit. Or also personality, ""un homme sprotif,"" an athletic guy,
Virginie: ""Un homme intelligent.""
Eric: A smart guy.
Virginie: Before we go, let's take a look at the last example from our dialogue.
Eric: What was it, Virginie?
Virginie: It's ""une eglise gigantesque.""
Eric: A gigantic church.
Virginie: As a quick reminder, if the adjective refers to a basic size like tall or short or big and small, it will be placed before the noun. But here, ""gigantesque,"" is placed after probably because it's a long adjective.
Eric: It's a little more descriptive as well.
Virginie: Exactly.

Outro

Virginie: I think we're done for today and thank you very much for listening.
Eric: Thank you very much.
Virginie: Bye guys. Au revoir. [*]
Eric: [*]

Grammar

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