Learn how to say that you like to play a sport or participate in athletics
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Virginie:Hello everyone! This is Virginie and welcome to this new Absolute Beginner Lesson. |
| Eric: Hello, Eric here! Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 23 - May I Have This Dance in France? |
| Virginie: You're here on FrenchPOD101.com, where we study modern French in a fun, educational format! |
| Eric: So, brush up on the French that you started learning long ago, or start learning today. |
| Virginie: And thanks for being here with us for this lesson. Okay. What are we looking at today, Eric? |
| Eric: In this lesson you're going to be learning about activities. |
| Virginie: Oh, sport, hobbies, that kind of things? |
| Eric: Exactly. |
| Virginie: Nice. |
| Eric: Rob and his friend Marc are in the country. |
| Virginie: And they're trying to figure out what they're going to do, right? |
| Eric: Right. And we can see that Rob can be a little picky when it comes to his sports. |
| Virginie: Mark is resourceful. He will find a solution. Now, before we listen to the conversation we want to ask you guys something. |
| Eric: Do you read the lesson notes, while you listen? |
| Virginie: Yeah, we actually received an e-mail with tip that said, you know, read the lesson notes while you're listening because it's really helping, understanding what we're talking about. |
| Eric: So let's have a listen to the dialogue. |
| Virginie: Okay. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| Marc: Alors…tu fais du tennis, Rob? |
| Rob: Non, je ne fais pas de tennis. |
| Marc: Okay. On fait du vélo alors demain? |
| Rob: D’accord. Giulia et moi nous faisons souvent du vélo dans Paris. |
| Marc: Vraiment? Donc tu aimes le vélo. |
| Rob: Oui. Je fais de l’aviron aussi. |
| Marc: Ah oui? Avec Giulia et Sarah? |
| Rob: Non, elles, elles font de la danse. |
| Marc: Okay. Demain, vélo au bord de la Marne! |
| Eric: One more time with the translation. |
| Marc: Alors…tu fais du tennis, Rob? |
| Eric: So…do you play tennis, Rob? |
| Rob: Non, je ne fais pas de tennis. |
| Eric: No, I don't play tennis. |
| Marc: Okay. On fait du vélo alors demain? |
| Eric: Okay. Then should we bike tomorrow? |
| Rob: D’accord. Giulia et moi nous faisons souvent du vélo dans Paris. |
| Eric: Okay. Giulia and I often bike in Paris. |
| Marc: Vraiment? Donc tu aimes le vélo. |
| Eric: Really? So you like biking. |
| Rob: Oui. Je fais de l’aviron aussi. |
| Eric: Yes. I do rowing also. |
| Marc: Ah oui? Avec Giulia et Sarah? |
| Eric: Oh yeah? With Giulia and Sarah? |
| Rob: Non, elles, elles font de la danse. |
| Eric: No, they dance. |
| Marc: Okay. Demain, vélo au bord de la Marne! |
| Eric: Okay. Tomorrow, biking along the Marne! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: So where is Marc's country house? And who is Marc anyway? |
| Virginie: It's a lot of new characters. |
| Eric: Yeah, through Pauline. |
| Virginie: Well, he's probably, you know, a friend from the university, a friend of Rob's. |
| Eric: I see. Okay. They must have a family house out there, in the country. |
| Virginie: I believe he's saying, it's on the Marne, which is a French river. It's also a department La Marne is departments and it's a river, too. |
| Eric: And the departments are the administrative districts of France. |
| Virginie: Yeah, yeah. |
| Eric: I think you were telling me before about La Marne is where Euro Disney is. |
| Virginie: Well, you probably heard the name Marne which is the exact town where Disneyland is. |
| Eric: A very famous cultural center of France. |
| Virginie: Right. It's so French. It is so French. So yeah, whenever you go to Disneyland in France, they're going to go along the river. Hopefully, it would be a nice trip because it's a beautiful river. And it's a beautiful department, too. |
| Eric: It's also pretty famous for being a weekend destination for Parisians, just east to the city. |
| Virginie: I wish actually we could show pictures on this show but we can't. |
| Eric: Well, yeah, I think there were some, you know, the artists painted that area, Cézanne, Pissarro. |
| Virginie: Yeah. It's been painted over and over and over again. And you still see how beautiful it is and you know, French people used to go there. They still go there and they used to have picnics. And so you'll find that in Cezanne's painting and Renoir. |
| Eric: Wow. |
| Virginie: Yeah, it's very inspiring. It's very green. It's beautiful. |
| Eric: It's beautiful. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Virginie: Let's listen to our vocabulary for today. |
| Eric: First, |
| Virginie: Faire [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: To do or to make. |
| Virginie: Faire [slowly - broken down by syllable], faire [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: Then. |
| Virginie: Le tennis [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: Tennis. |
| Virginie: Le tennis [slowly - broken down by syllable], le tennis [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: Okay. |
| Virginie: Vélo [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: Bike or biking. |
| Virginie: Vélo [slowly - broken down by syllable], vélo [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: Okay. |
| Virginie: Souvent [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: Often. |
| Virginie: Souvent [slowly - broken down by syllable], souvent [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: All right. |
| Virginie: Dans [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: In. |
| Virginie: Dans [slowly - broken down by syllable], dans [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: All right. |
| Virginie: L'aviron [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: Rowing. |
| Virginie: L'aviron [slowly - broken down by syllable], l'aviron [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: Okay. |
| Virginie: Ah oui? [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Oh yes? |
| Virginie: Ah oui? [slowly - broken down by syllable], ah oui? [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: Next. |
| Virginie: Elles [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: They (female). |
| Virginie: Elles [slowly - broken down by syllable], elles [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: Okay. |
| Virginie: La danse [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: Dance or dancing. |
| Virginie: La danse [slowly - broken down by syllable], la danse [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: And finally. |
| Virginie: Au bord de [natural native speed]. |
| Eric: Along. |
| Virginie: Au bord de [slowly - broken down by syllable], au bord de [natural native speed]. |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Virginie: Okay. We have an adverb of frequency in our dialogue. |
| Eric: We do, an adverb of frequency, indeed. |
| Virginie: Yes, very sexy. |
| Eric: Souvent. |
| Virginie: Souvent. |
| Eric: Often. |
| Virginie: Rob says, ""Nous faisons souvent du velo dans Paris."" |
| Eric: We often go bike riding in Paris. |
| Virginie: Usually ""often"" is placed right after the verb. |
| Eric: So here we have ""nous faisons souvent."" |
| Virginie: But you also find ""souvent"" at the beginning of a sentence. |
| Eric: You could say, ""Souvent je fais du velo."" |
| Virginie: Often, I bike. |
| Eric: Or again, in the dialogue, ""Nous faisons souvent du velo."" |
| Virginie: Right after the verb, right? Or, ""je vais souvent au cinema."" |
| Eric: Je fais souvent la vaisselle."" I often do the dishes. Now, we also have ""au bord de la Marne."" |
| Virginie: And that's along the Marne River. |
| Eric: ""Au bord,"" mean sort of like bordering or along. |
| Virginie: ""Au bord."" It's three words. And in this three words, there is the word ""bord"" and ""bord: means ""edge"" ""side."" |
| Eric: Right. S another example, ""Au bord de la route."" On the side of the road. |
| Virginie: Au bord de la piscine. |
| Eric: On the pool side. |
| Virginie: Au bord de la crise de nerf. |
| Eric: On the edge of a nervous breakdown. |
| Virginie: Let me say that again. It can be useful, ""Au bord de la crise de nerf."" There's an Almodovar movie that's called ""femmes au bord de la crise nerf? I know if you're there. |
| Eric: I don't know that but the title would be ""Women on the verge of nervous breakdowns?"" |
| Virginie: Yeah. Exactly. |
| Eric: Wow. |
| Virginie: It's a good movie. |
| Eric: It sounds good. |
| Virginie: Believe me, I'm a woman. We have a funny thing, too, in our dialogue. We have Rob saying, ""Elles, elles font de la danse."" So you have twice the word ""elle."" |
| Eric: That happens a lot in French over PT subject a few times. So this is used to sort of like insist or to emphasize who we're talking about, if there's any ambiguity or just to make your point a little bit clearer. |
| Virginie: Yes. |
| Eric: Like if you want to say ""Elle, elle est gentille"".. you're kind of emphasizing that she's nice. |
| Virginie: It's like ""her, she is nice,"" you know. Yeah. |
| Eric: It doesn't really work in English but you get the point. |
| Virginie: I'm trying. |
| Eric: It's just kind of emphasizing the subject again. |
Lesson focus |
| Virginie: Okay. What do we have in our grammar menu? Today, we are talking about activities. |
| Eric: And I think we're going to be using a formula that's pretty common, which is ""faire"" and then the activity. |
| Virginie: All right. |
| Eric: Faire is ""to do,"" ""to make."" So if you faire an activity, you are doing that. |
| Virginie: So let's take a look at our dialogue and see where it is exactly. We have Marc saying, ""Alors…tu fais du tennis?"" |
| Eric: Instead of saying you play tennis here, he's saying, ""You do tennis?"" |
| Virginie: ""Tu fais"" you do where you make and then ""du tennis."" And then Marc also asks, ""On fait du velo."" |
| Eric: Another use of the word of faire, to go biking, they say, ""Du biking."" |
| Virginie: Exactly. And then later in the dialogue, we have ""elles font de la danse."" |
| Eric: They go dancing. |
| Virginie: They do dance, they practice dance; ""elles font de la danse."" So now let's take a look a little bit of how each structured because faire is followed by a preposition. |
| Eric: And this is going to be the proposition ""du"" or du la, or du,"" |
| Virginie: Right. Depending on whether your activity is masculine, feminine or whether it starts with a vowel, the little preposition after ""faire"" is going to change slight change. Eric, can you give us an example with this activity. |
| Eric: Right so. For example tennis masculine, ""Le tennis."" ""faire du tennis."" To play tennis, to do tennis? ""Du"" is spelled D-U. |
| Virginie: So now let's take a feminine sport. In our dialogue, we have ""la danse."" And it's feminine and if you want to say that you dance, you're going to say, ""Je fais de la danse."" |
| Eric: “Du La” is going to be feminine. |
| Virginie: ""Je fais de la danse."" Now… |
| Eric: No matter if your sport is masculine of feminine, if it is meeting with a vowel, it's going to ""du"" ""L"" apostrophe. For example, l’aviron . starts with a vowel, fais de l’aviron |
| Virginie: To row, and that's in our dialogue, too, I think Rob is rowing, right. That's a rater sport. Okay, so let’s have just a quick recap here. |
| Eric: So if it's a masculine sport, you're going to ""faire du,"" if it's a feminine sport. |
| Virginie: Fear du la. |
| Eric: And then if it's masculine or feminine and it begins with a vowel, you're going to say, fais de and “L"" apostrophe. |
Outro |
| Virginie: All right. Now before we leave. We don't know if you have already tried our tool on FrenchPOD101.com. |
| Eric: Right. This is line by line audio. |
| Virginie: And it's a great tool for improving your listening comprehension. |
| Eric: And what you can do is listen to the lines that conversation again and again. And then every word in syllable become very clear. |
| Virginie: Yeah. So once again, you can try the line by line audio in the premium learning center at FrenchPOD101.com. Well, thank you all for listening and you have a great day. And Eric, you have a great day, too. |
| Eric: You too, Virginie. Have a great day! Take care! |
| Virginia: Bye-bye. |
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35 Comments
HideEt vous, vous faites du tennis? du basket? de la danse? Moi, je fais du tennis!
Salut bubu,
Thanks a lot for your feedback. We are continuously working on improving our site, app, and materials, therefore the opinion of our students is highly valuable.
I will forward your message to our team for consideration! 😇
Bonne journée,
Levente
Team FrenchPod101.com
Bonjour...Hi I am at the beginner level. when i chcking the extra notes can you also add the pronunciation or saying the whole sentences in french. these are additional notes but then i dont know the right pronunciation there. thanks ..new feature..viola!!
Bonjour Derya,
Juste quelques corrections : je fais de la randonnée (randonner is the verb to hike) et je ne fais pas de basket.
Bonne journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101
Bonjour ,
Les phrases suivant , ils sont correct?
je fais de la randonner ...
je fais du yoga
tu fais du yoga?
je ne fais pas de la basket
Bonjour Gabriela,
Moi aussi j'en ai fait quand j'étais plus jeune !
Bonne journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101
Moi, je fais du football!
Bonjour Chanse,
Yes, public schools are very cheap here as the government believes that everyone should be able to attend university, regardless of their background and income!
Bonjour Umesh,
In negative sentences, "du" becomes "de". Quite simple, isn't it? 😄
Bonne journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101
Tu fais DU tennis ?
No, je ne fais pas DE tennis
Why du in question but de in answer? What is the reason ? Kindly explain. Thanks.
Wow Marion, that is crazy. So cheap compared to over here. I appreciate the replies. 👍 It costs 500$ per term of French class. So much money!
Bonjour Chanse,
University fees are very low in France, I don't even remember how much mine were! I think all in all, I paid less than 500 euros for my degree. 😉
Belle journée,
Marion
Team FrenchPod101