Learn how to describe the possessions you own and how to ask about someone else's
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| INTRODUCTION | |
| Virginie:Bonjour a tous. | |
| Eric: Hello, everyone, Eric here! Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 10 - Is Everything You Own in That French Purse?! | |
| Virginie: Hello everyone! I'm Virginie and welcome to FrenchPOD101. I'm here with Eric. | |
| Eric: And with us, you'll learn to speak French with fun and effective lessons. | |
| Virginie: Yes, because we're very funny. We also provide you with cultural insights and tips you won't find in a textbook. | |
| Eric: In this lesson Rob needs to make a phone call, but he doesn't have a phone. | |
| Virginie: Rob is not very equipped, so he has to ask Giulia is she has a phone. | |
| Eric: Let's listen to the conversation. | |
Lesson conversation |
|
|---|---|
| Rob: Giulia, tu as un tรฉlรฉphone portable? | |
| Giulia: Oui. | |
| Giulia: Nonโฆnonโฆ | |
| Rob: (rires) Quโest-ce que tu as dans ton sac? | |
| Giulia: Jโaiโฆun portefeuille, un stylo, un paquet de Kleenexโฆ | |
| Rob: (rires) Et un tรฉlรฉphone portable? | |
| Giulia: Ah! Voilร ! | |
| Eric: One more time with the translation. | |
| Rob: Giulia, tu as un tรฉlรฉphone portable? | |
| Eric: Giulia, do you have a cell phone? | |
| Giulia: Oui. | |
| Virginie: Yes. | |
| Giulia: Nonโฆnonโฆ | |
| Virginie: Noโฆnoโฆ | |
| Rob: (rires) Quโest-ce que tu as dans ton sac? | |
| Eric: (laughs) What do you have in your bag? | |
| Giulia: Jโaiโฆun portefeuille, un stylo, un paquet de Kleenexโฆ | |
| Virginie: I haveโฆa wallet, a pen, a pack of Kleenexโฆ | |
| Rob: (rires) Et un tรฉlรฉphone portable? | |
| Eric: (laughs) What about a cell phone? | |
| Giulia: Ah! Voilร ! | |
| Virginie: Ah! There it is! | |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER | |
| Eric: Wow. She had a lot of things in that purse. | |
| Virginie: Yes that's the purpose of a purse. Being full. | |
| Eric: Full of kinds of things. | |
| Virginie: Oui, exactly. Women have a busy life. They need a place to store all kinds of things. | |
| Eric: So, do women in France work a lot? | |
| Virginie: Oh yes. Most women have jobs. | |
| Eric: Okay. | |
| Virginie: But the pay actually is lower than men's. | |
| Eric: Ah. | |
| Virginie: Yes, that's pretty bad. And you know what, they only got the right to vote in 1944. | |
| Eric: Wow. | |
| Virginie: I know. France needs to improve, but it's getting there. | |
| Eric: But, there is something pretty good in France when you're a woman? | |
| Virginie: What is it? | |
| Eric: Don't you get a three-month leave after giving birth. | |
| Virginie: Oh yes. But that's just normal. | |
| Eric: And get time off too? | |
| Virginie: Men, yes. They get a two-week leave, which is not enough, but still, it's nice. | |
| VOCAB LIST | |
| Eric: Okay interesting. So, let's take a look at our vocabulary. What do we have first? | |
| Virginie: Avoir [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: To have. | |
| Virginie: Avoir [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Avoir [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: Next. | |
| Virginie: Un portable [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: Cell phone. | |
| Virginie: Un portable [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Un portable [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: Okay. | |
| Virginie: Qu'est-ce que / qu'est-ce qu' [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: What. | |
| Virginie: Qu'est-ce que / qu'est-ce qu' [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Qu'est-ce que / qu'est-ce qu' [natural native speed]. Ton [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: Your (informal). | |
| Virginie: Ton [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Ton [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: Next. | |
| Virginie: Sac [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: Bag. | |
| Virginie: Sac [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Sac [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: Next one. | |
| Virginie: Un portefeuille [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: A wallet. | |
| Virginie: Un portefeuille [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Un portefeuille [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: And next | |
| Virginie: Un stylo [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: A pen. | |
| Virginie: Un stylo [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Un stylo [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: Okay. | |
| Virginie: Un paquet de Kleenex [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: A pack of Kleenex. | |
| Virginie: Un paquet de Kleenex [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Un paquet de Kleenex [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: And finally. | |
| Virginie: Voilร [natural native speed] | |
| Eric: Here you are or here it is. | |
| Virginie: Voilร [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Voilร [natural native speed]] | |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES | |
| Eric: Okay, the first word we're going to look at? | |
| Virginie: Let's start with ""un portable."" | |
| Eric: A cell phone. | |
| Virginie: Yes literally that's ""a holdable,"" a portable. | |
| Eric: Right, something you have with you all the time, you can bring around. | |
| Virginie: Yes, exactly un portable. It comes from the verb porter, which mean to hold, to carry. | |
| Eric: And that's also the same word for a laptop. | |
| Virginie: Exactly, oui, un ordinateur portable. | |
| Eric: The word ordinateur is computer, | |
| Virginie: And portable is still, literally holdable, portable, carryable. | |
| Eric: So, un portable is a cell phone, and un ordinateur portable is a laptop. | |
| Virginie: Yes. Now I would like to explain the word ""ton."" | |
| Eric: Right. Rob at some point in our dialog says ""ton sac."" | |
| Virginie: Yes and that means ""your purse."" | |
| Eric: So, ""ton"" is your in English. | |
| Virginie: And that's informal, TON | |
| Eric: So this is just one of the possessive adjective that we're going to look at another time. | |
| Virginie: For now, just remember that ton is your. | |
| Eric: So, by the way, Virginie, is sac really a purse? | |
| Virginie: Yes, it's short for sac a mains. | |
| Eric: Oh I see. So, sac is purse, but it also can mean a bag, correct? | |
| Virginie: Yes, Eric, oui, sac is both purse and bag. | |
| Eric: Easy. | |
| Virginie: What else do we have here? | |
| Eric: The best word voila! | |
| Virginie: Oh yes. I know you like this word. Voila. It's an easy one. It means there you go, there you are, here it is. | |
| Eric: This is sort of the typically phrase we think of French people saying, ""Viola."" | |
| Virginie: Tout a fait. Absolutely. Viola! | |
| Eric: You can also have voila followed by a name. | |
| Virginie: Yes. Like in, Voila Eric! | |
| Eric: and Here is Eric! | |
| Virginie: Or Voila la grammaire. | |
| Eric: Here is the grammar. | |
| Virginie: Exactly. Absolutely there goes grammar! | |
Lesson focus |
|
| Eric: Well, we're going to be focusing on saying I have. | |
| Virginie: And how to say ""do you have?"" | |
| Eric: In our dialogue, Rob asked Giulia ""tu as un telephone portable?"" | |
| Virginie: ""Do you have a cell phone?"" | |
| Eric: So it's pretty easy. | |
| Virginie: Yes, it's really easy. | |
| Eric: First we have tu, which is you informal. | |
| Virginie: Then you have the verb to have, avoir, conjugated with tu, obviously. | |
| Eric: And that is ""as"" AS, as (spell). | |
| Virginie: Tu as, you have. | |
| Eric: Then all you need to do is add what you're inquiring about. | |
| Virginie: Here, it's a cell phone, right, so un telephone portable? | |
| Eric: And we have to remember the article which is un, un telephone portable. | |
| Virginie: Exactly. Un is a and we saw that in a previous lesson. And portable is again a cell phone. | |
| Eric: So what is the entire sentence? | |
| Virginie: Tu as un telephone portable? Literally ""you have a cell phone?"" | |
| Eric: So what if we want to ask about something else though? | |
| Virginie: Okay what about un stylo? | |
| Eric: A pen. | |
| Virginie: Tu as un stylo? | |
| Eric: Do you have a pen? | |
| Virginie: C'est facile, it's easy. Non? What do you think, Eric. | |
| Eric: Oui Virginie c'est facile. It's very easy. | |
| Virginie: Now let's look at what Giulia answers. | |
| Eric: Well, Giulia says ""J'ai...un portefeuille, un stylo, etc. | |
| Virginie: Which is I have a wallet, a pen, etc. | |
| Eric: To say I have is pretty simple. | |
| Virginie: It is ""j'ai."" | |
| Eric: Once more time? | |
| Virginie: Bien sur, of course, ""j'ai"". | |
| Eric: So that's j'ai. | |
| Virginie: Do you remember what happens if the verb after je starts with a vowel? | |
| Eric: Well, I think the ""e"" gets dropped, the vowel get dropped and we just replaced it with an apostrophe. | |
| Virginie: Okay, and that's the case here. | |
| Eric: A little recap it's j'ai, j'ai. | |
| Virginie: And it's I have | |
| Eric: And tu as. | |
| Virginie: Is you have | |
| Eric: One more thing, what if I want to ask ""do you have the pen?"" | |
| Virginie: Oh, you mean the one pen I gave you earlier? Well it will be ""tu as le stylo?"" | |
| Eric: Right. So that's a little more specific. We're using the definite article le. | |
| Virginie: Yes, because we know which exact pen we're talking about, so definite article. | |
Outro |
|
| Eric: Le, great. I think that does it for today. Okay so some of our listeners already know about one of the most powerful tools on FrenchPOD101.comโฆ | |
| Virginie: Yes, it is the line-by-line audio. | |
| Eric: This is a perfect tool for rapidly improving listening comprehension. | |
| Virginie: Yes, by listening to lines of the conversation you just heard again and again and again. | |
| Eric: So every time you hear it, it will become a little more clear. | |
| Virginie: Basically, what we do is we breakdown the dialog into comprehensible, bite-size sentences. | |
| Eric: So you can try the line-by-line audio in the Premium Learning Center at FrenchPOD101.com. Thank you so much. | |
| Virginie: Au revoir! | |
| Eric: Bye. |
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36 Comments
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Bonjour Faith,
Merci pour ton gentil commentaire ! ๐
Bonne journรฉe,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101
C'est intรฉressant mille a fois
Hi Don,
Thank you for posting!
In case of any questions, please feel free to contact us.
Sincerely,
Cristiane
Team FrenchPod101.com
Merci Beaucoup!
Sac a mains is a handbag in most of the english-speaking world and a purse is a smaller portable item ladies put their money in. I take it the use of 'purse' here is an americanism?
Hi Beatrice,
Thank you for posting.
Could you check if you have a free lifetime account? Those who have the free lifetime account can access only up to lesson 3 for free. If you have a basic or premium membership, please let us know which error message you see on the screen. Itโd be great if you could send us an email at contactus@FrenchPod101.com so that we can take a look at the issue closely.
Thank you,
Cristiane
Team FrenchPod101.com
I can't assess the lesson
Bonjour Forrest,
Thanks for posting.
Please find below some series on pronunciation that can help you having a parameter for any words you need to speak:
https://www.frenchpod101.com/index.php?cat=28
https://www.frenchpod101.com/index.php?cat=60
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(for example, if you type "suis", it will show the pronunciation of entries such as "I am")
Please let us know if you have further doubts :wink:
Cristiane
Team FrenchPod101.com
What if i cannot pronounce the other conjugations of a verb correctly ๏ผ
Thanks for your help on this, Marie. Really appreciated. :) :)
Peter