Learn how to ask someone about what they do for a living and how to respond with your chosen profession
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Intro |
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| Virginie: Salut tout le monde! Hi, everyone. |
| Eric: Eric here! |
| Virginie: Talking About This in French is Real Work! What Do You Do? Hi, Eric. In this lesson you will learn how to ask someone what he or she does. |
| Eric: Today's dialog takes place at the museum. |
| Virginie: Remember how Giulia recommended that Rob goes to the Museum of Art? |
| Eric: Well, he followed her advice. |
| Virginie: And now Rob stands fascinated in front of a Giacometti sculpture. |
| Eric: He starts taking notes on his notepad. A young woman comes to him. |
| Virginie: She probably thinks he's cute. |
| Eric: Maybe. This is our first dialog. We're going to use the formal way of speaking. The speakers are using it because they've never met before. Okay, let's start the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
| Sarah: Vous êtes étudiant? |
| Rob: Pardon? Ah, oui. |
| Sarah: Vous êtes étudiant à l’université? |
| Rob: Oui. Et vous, qu’est-ce que vous faites? |
| Sarah: Je suis comédienne. |
| Rob: De cinéma? |
| Sarah: Non, de théâtre. |
| Eric: One more time with the translation. |
| Sarah: Vous êtes étudiant? |
| Virginie: Are you a student? |
| Rob: Pardon? Ah, oui. |
| Eric: Excuse me? Oh, yes. |
| Sarah: Vous êtes étudiant à l’université? |
| Virginie: Are you a student at the university? |
| Rob: Oui. Et vous, qu’est-ce que vous faites? |
| Eric: Yes. And you, what do you do? |
| Sarah: Je suis comédienne. |
| Virginie: I am an actress. |
| Rob: De cinéma? |
| Eric: A movie actress? |
| Sarah: Non, de théâtre. |
| Virginie: No, a theater actress. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: So, Virginie, is it usual for a French women to pick up men at museums? |
| Virginie: No, not only in Museums! |
| Eric: What a country. |
| Virginie: More seriously, she's just talking to him. She saw him taking notes and she's just curious. |
| Eric: Okay. And what's her name? |
| Virginie: Sarah |
| Eric: Okay. One more question. Who is Giacometti? |
| Virginie: He was an Italian artist who lived in Paris. |
| Eric: And is he popular in France? |
| Virginie: Yes, he's pretty famous. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| Virginie: Oui [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Yes. |
| Virginie: Oui [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Oui [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next. |
| Virginie: Pardon [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Pardon, excuse me. |
| Virginie: Pardon [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Pardon [natural native speed] |
| Eric: The next one. |
| Virginie: Le théâtre [natural native speed] |
| Eric: The theater. |
| Virginie: Le théâtre [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Le théâtre [natural native speed] |
| Eric: And next. |
| Virginie: Ah, oui [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Oh, yes. |
| Virginie: Ah, oui [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Ah, oui [natural native speed] |
| Eric: And next. |
| Virginie: Un cinéma [natural native speed] |
| Eric: The cinema. |
| Virginie: Un cinéma [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Un cinéma [natural native speed] |
| Eric: And finally. |
| Virginie: Faire [natural native speed] |
| Eric: To do or to make. |
| Virginie: Faire [slowly - broken down by syllable]. Faire [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Eric: Okay. So, let's have a closer look at this dialogue. |
| Virginie: Yes. The first word we’ll look at is.... |
| Eric: Well, I think we should start with the formal pronoun vous... |
| Virginie: Yes. Sarah asks Rob ""vous etes etudiant?"" Are you a student? |
| Eric: And she does so because he's a stranger, she doesn't know him. |
| Virginie: Now do you remember how Giulia and Rob in our previous dialogue said Tu right away when they first met? |
| Eric: Yes, right. Why didn't they say Vous since they didn't know each other either? |
| Virginie: Well that's because they knew they were both students. |
| Eric: So they were sort of in the same zone, part of the same planet. |
| Virginie: Right. They knew that on the student planet people say TU to each other. |
| Eric: Okay. That makes sense. |
| Virginie: It's very subtle. It gets easier when you have lived in France for awhile. |
| Eric: So Sarah say vous etes, ""you are"". |
| Virginie: Now we would like to talk about the word ""Pardon?"" |
| Eric: That means ""excuse-me, or pardon-me, right? |
| Virginie: Yes, and it's used the exact same way as in English. |
| Eric: Pardon? |
| Virginie: I said it's used the exact same way as in English. |
| Eric: I know. I was only practicing. |
| Virginie: Oh okay, sorry. So what's our next word, Eric? |
| Eric: Comedienne. Sarah says that she's a comedienne, which means an actress. |
| Virginie: Yes, and comedienne is used for both theatre and cinema in French. |
| Eric: But it's also the word ""actrice"" in French, which is actress too. |
| Virginie: That's right. But actrice is only used for cinema actresses. |
| Eric: Okay. So comedienne is for both the cinema and the theatre, but actress is only for cinema. |
| Virginie: Yes! |
| Eric: Okay so let's go into some grammar. |
Lesson focus |
| Virginie: The grammar focus today is the question ""qu'est-ce que vous faites?"", what do you do? |
| Eric: And if you listened to our previous lesson this is going to be pretty easy. |
| Virginie: Yes. Last week we saw that the words ""Qu'est-ce que"" at the beginning of question stand for ""what."" |
| Eric: With that said, the second part of the question is ""vous faites"" |
| Virginie: Which means ""you do."" So the entire question is literally ""what you do?"" |
| Eric: Qu'est-ce que vous faites? |
| Virginie: And if Eric actually asks me… |
| Eric: Qu'est-ce que vous faites? |
| Virginie: I will answer, Je suis professeur de francais, I am a French teacher. I just used the verb, to be, etre, that you already know. |
| Eric: Now since I know Virginie pretty well, I will use the informal you, ""tu"" as opposed to the vous. Qu'est-ce que tu fais? |
| Virginie: Je suis professeur de Francais. |
| Eric: Now ""vous faites"" and ""tu fais"" both are conjugations of the verb ""faire"", to do or to make. |
| Virginie: And you'll find the whole conjugation in the lesson notes. |
| Eric: Okay, well I think that will do it for our grammar focus. |
| Virginie: But before we go we would like to talk about the little word ""et"" |
| Eric: Okay and that means ""and"". You probably noticed it in previous lessons. |
| Virginie: Yes in our dialog Rob asks Sarah ""et vous"" |
| Eric: And that means ""What about you?"", ""and you"". |
| Virginie: Okay, now I think we're all set. |
Outro |
| Eric: Well, that just about does it for today. Okay, great. Good bye. |
| Eric: Bye. Salut! |
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