Dialogue

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Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Notes

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Lesson Transcript

Intro
Virginie: [*] Virginie. Virginie here!
Eric: Hi! How are you doing? This is Eric! Having Nightmares About a French Spelling Bee.
Virginie: Hi, Eric. How are you?
Eric: I'm great! How are you?
Virginie: I'm good. Thank you. In this lesson, you will learn about the French alphabet and how to spell in French.
Eric: Great! And Rob and Giulia are filling out paperwork for Rob's health insurance.
Virginie: Let's just listen to the conversation.

Lesson conversation
Giulia: Nom et prénom ?
Rob: Danford D-A-N-F-O-R-D, Robert.
Gilulia: Nationalité?
Rob: Tu sais bien!
Giulia: Américaine, bien sûr! Situation familiale ?
Rob: Célibataire.
Eric: One more time with the translation.
Giulia: Nom et prénom?
Virginie: Last name and first name?
Rob: Danford D-A-N-F-O-R-D, Robert.
Eric: Danford, D-A-N-F-O-R-D, Robert.
Gilulia: Nationalité ?
Virginie: Nationality?
Rob: Tu sais bien !
Eric: You know!
Giulia: Américaine, bien sûr! Situation familiale ?
Virginie: American, of course! Marital status?
Rob: Célibataire.
Eric: Single.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Eric: It's always nice to have a native help you out with the paper work.
Virginia: Yes, but remember Giulia in our day log is Italian.
Eric: I guess. But she seems to be pretty comfortable in France. Has she been there for a while?
Virginie: Yes. She's been there for a while. She's been there for, let's say, 10 years, so speaks very, very good French without an accent.
Eric: Wow! So Rob is getting health insurance.
Virginie: Oui.
Eric: How does student health insurance work in France?
Virginie: First of all, do you know that 70% of your health expenses is paid by the government?
Eric: Wow! Yeah, France is really well known for that. Just like England, I guess.
Virginie: Oui. But people need the other 30% paid off as , right?
Eric: Right.
Virginie: So, what happens here is you can subscribe to what is called a mutuelle.
Eric: A mutuelle. And what's that?
Virginie: It's like an insurance company that covers the cost for the 30% left.
Eric: Oh I see. And is it expensive?
Virginie: Well, in our case, today, it's for students, so it's really inexpensive. Maybe our listeners can leave something on the forum of the website to tell us how health insurance works in their country. I'm always very interested in these kind of things.
Eric: Yeah, it's interesting to compare. Okay. So let's take a look at the vocabulary.
VOCAB LIST
Virginie: Un nom de famille.
Eric: Last name.
Virginie: Un nom de famille, un nom de famille.
Eric: The next one.
Virginie: Un prénom.
Eric: First name
Virginie: Un prénom, un prénom.
Eric: Okay.
Virginie: Une nationalité.
Eric: A nationality.
Virginie: Une nationalité, une nationalité.
Eric: All right.
Virginie: Savoir.
Eric: To know.
Virginie: Savoir, savoir.
Eric: Okay.
Virginie: Une situation familial.
Eric: A marital status.
Virginie: Une situation familial, une situation familial.
Eric: Then.
Virginie: Célibataire.
Eric: Single.
Virginie: Célibataire, célibataire.
KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES
Virginie: So Eric, what are we looking at as far as vocabulary today?
Eric: Well, some of the basics first, prenom and nom de famille.
Virginie: Oui. C'est la base! That's the basics definitely. Prenom is first name.
Eric: And nom de famille is last name
Virginie: Literally it is ""name of family"". Nom de famille, last name.
Eric: So guys if you ever have to fill out some paper work in France, at least you have these two!
Virginie: Yes. And now you know Rob's last name as well.
Eric: Right, Danford.
Virginie: That's important.
Eric: Right. And later in the lesson, we're going to talk about how to spell in French.
Virginie: Now what you need to know is in French to say your last name. You can also just say ""nom.""
Eric: That's a little bit easier than saying ""nom de famille."" Just ""nom.""
Virginie: Exactly. It's shorter.
Eric: Now what else do we have?
Virginie: Let's look at ""situation familial.""
Eric: That's ""marital status.""
Virginie: Yes, but literally it reads ""familial situation."" Situation familial.
Eric: It's interesting that that uses the word ""familial.""
Virginie: It really only refers to whether you're married or not.
Eric: Okay. And what options can I choose from on the form?
Virginie: Well, you could say you're ""marie.""
Eric: Married.
Virginie: If you're not married, you can say you're ""celibataire.'
Eric: Which is what Rob picks.
Virginie: Yes, and that's ""single.""
Eric: Okay. What about ""divorced"" in French?
Virginie: Oh, it's divorce. Di-vor-ce.
Eric: And the last option would be ""widow"" or ""widower,"" right?
Virginie: Oui. So, it's veuf for males, and veuve for females. It's slightly different, the sound.
Eric: Veuf is V-E-U-F, the masculine version and veuve is V-E-U-V-E, veuve.
Virginie: I think that will be it for our vocab today.

Lesson focus
Eric: Okay. So let's move on to some grammar.
Virginie: The focus of this lesson is spelling.
Eric: Right. That's pretty useful.
Virginie: Yes especially if you go to a hotel, if you want to ask for your reservation.
Eric: Even though most hotels in France will have English speaking employees. So before we jump in, here's a few facts about the French writing system.
Virginie: First, French uses the same alphabet as English.
Eric: Right. The same 21 consonants and five vowels.
Virginie: But the slight difference here is that French language also uses accent marks on some of its vowels.
Eric: And those are the accent aigu.
Virginie: The accent grave.
Eric: The accent circonflexe.
Virginie: And the trema, which is the umlaut.
Eric: And you can see what all these accents look like in the lesson notes attached to this lesson.
Virginie: But now we also have one last little mark called the cedilla and very specific.
Eric: Right. And this is sometimes on the letter c, right?
Virginie: Yes. And it modifies the pronunciation of the letter c.
Eric: So, again, just take a look at the lesson notes.
Virginie: I think we should give our listeners the alphabet. This is going to be straightforward. C'est parti! Let's go!
Eric: A.
Virginie: A.
Eric: B.
Virginia: B.
Eric: C.
Virginie: C.
Eric: D.
Virginie: D.
Eric: E.
Virginie: E.
Eric: F.
Virginie: F.
Eric: G.
Virginie: G.
Eric: H.
Virginie: H.
Eric: I.
Virginie: I.
Eric: J.
Virginie: J.
Eric: K.
Virginie: K.
Eric: L.
Virginie: L.
Eric: M.
Virginie: M.
Eric: N.
Virginie: N.
Eric: O.
Virginie: O.
Eric: P.
Virginie: P.
Eric: Q.
Virginie: Q.
Eric: R.
Virginie: R.
Eric: S.
Virginie: S.
Eric: T.
Virginie: T.
Eric: U.
Virginie: U.
Eric: V.
Virginie: V.
Eric: W.
Virginie: W.
Eric: X.
Virginie: X.
Eric: Y.
Virginie: Y.
Eric: Z.
Virginie: Z.
Eric: Well, Virginie, can you sing it for us?
Virginie: Opps, okay, I'm going to try. I can try. We don't really have an alphabet song in French but I can try to figure something out. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.
Eric: Thank you, Virginie for that beautiful rendition.
Virginie: You're welcome.
Eric: Now, if you'd like to, you can also hear this in our review track.
Virginie: Okay, now. Before we go Eric, just a quick note.
Eric: Ok.
Virginie: Just a quick note. The verbal group ""tu sais"" in our dialogue. You know Rob's says Tu sais. That means ""you know.""
Eric: Right. And the verb is ""savoir"", ""to know.""
Virginie: Yes. But we're not going to learn it today entirely. We'll see that in a further lesson.
Eric: But just so you know, that's one of the conjugations of ""savoir,"" you know.

Outro
Virginie: Okay. I think we're done here. Thank you for listening and have a great day. Merci et au revoir!
Eric: Thank you. Bye.

Grammar

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