Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Notes

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Lesson Transcript

Introduction
Virginie: Bonjour tout le monde! Hello.
Eric: Hello, Bonjour! Eric here. You Paid What? The Best Places To Shop in France.
Virginie: Hi, Virginie here. I am with Eric.
Eric: Virginie, how are you today?
Virginie: I am good Eric. How are you?
Eric: I am great.
Virginie: Okay good. So what are we going to see in this lesson?
Eric: Well, in this lesson, we are going to be learning how to say more and less.
Virginie: And by the end of this lesson, you will also be able to say what you want.
Eric: Joe is going to be heading to the market to do a little bit of shopping for some good local food.
Virginie: So he goes to an open-air market.
Eric: So let’s have a listen to the dialogue.
Dialogue
Vendeur 1 : Le beau poisson ! Qui veut mon poisson ?
Vendeur 2 : Elle est belle, la salade, elle est belle !!!
Joe : Excusez-moi, qu'est-ce que c'est, ça ?
Vendeur 1 : Du lapin à la moutarde.
Joe : Qu'est-ce qu'il y a dedans ?
Vendeur 1 : Du lapin, de la moutarde, et de la crème fraîche.
Joe : Combien ça coûte ?
Vendeur 1 : Cinq euros la pièce, quinze euros les cinq.
Joe : Et ça, qu'est-ce que c'est ?
Vendeur 1 : Des blocs de chèvres. Trois euros la pièce.
Joe : Je vais prendre un de chaque.
Vendeur 1 : Voilà, ça fait huit euros.
Joe : Voilà cinq cent euros.
Vendeur 1 : Vous avez un billet plus petit ?
Joe : Non, désolé.
Vendeur 1 : Voilà votre monnaie.
Joe : Merci.
Eric: One more time, a little more slowly.
Virginie: Encore une fois, plus lentement.
Vendeur 1 : Le beau poisson ! Qui veut mon poisson ?
Vendeur 2 : Elle est belle, la salade, elle est belle !!!
Joe : Excusez-moi, qu'est-ce que c'est, ça ?
Vendeur 1 : Du lapin à la moutarde.
Joe : Qu'est-ce qu'il y a dedans ?
Vendeur 1 : Du lapin, de la moutarde, et de la crème fraîche.
Joe : Combien ça coûte ?
Vendeur 1 : Cinq euros la pièce, quinze euros les cinq.
Joe : Et ça, qu'est-ce que c'est ?
Vendeur 1 : Des blocs de chèvres. Trois euros la pièce.
Joe : Je vais prendre un de chaque.
Vendeur 1 : Voilà, ça fait huit euros.
Joe : Voilà cinq cent euros.
Vendeur 1 : Vous avez un billet plus petit ?
Joe : Non, désolé.
Vendeur 1 : Voilà votre monnaie.
Joe : Merci.
Eric: One more time, with the translation.
Virginie: Encore une fois, avec la traduction.
Vendeur 1 : Le beau poisson ! Qui veut mon poisson ?
: Nice fish here! Who wants my fish?
Vendeur 2 : Elle est belle, la salade, elle est belle !!!
: Beautiful salad! The salad is beautiful!!
Joe : Excusez-moi, qu'est-ce que c'est, ça ?
: Excuse me, what is this?
Vendeur 1 : Du lapin à la moutarde.
: Rabbit with mustard.
Joe : Qu'est-ce qu'il y a dedans ?
: What's in it?
Vendeur 1 : Du lapin, de la moutarde, et de la crème fraîche.
: Rabbit, mustard, and heavy cream.
Joe : Combien ça coûte ?
: How much does it cost?
Vendeur 1 : Cinq euros la pièce, quinze euros les cinq.
: Five euros each. Fifteen euros for five.
Joe : Et ça, qu'est-ce que c'est ?
: And this, what is this?
Vendeur 1 : Des blocs de chèvres. Trois euros la pièce.
: Goat cheese blocks. Three euros each.
Joe : Je vais prendre un de chaque.
: I'll take one of each.
Vendeur 1 : Voilà, ça fait huit euros.
: Here you are. That's eight euros.
Joe : Voilà cinq cent euros.
: Here are five hundred euros.
Vendeur 1 : Vous avez un billet plus petit ?
: Do you have a smaller bill?
Joe : Non, désolé.
: No, sorry.
Vendeur 1 : Voilà votre monnaie.
: Here is your change.
Joe : Merci.
: Thank you.
Post Conversation Banter
Eric: Wow, people are screaming.
Virginie: Yes, that’s the way it goes on French open-air markets. It screams all over the place. It’s very friendly too.
Eric: That’s great. Did you have like one where you grew up or something like that?
Virginie: Oh yeah in my little village, yes we had a market every Thursday morning I believe, yeah.
Eric: Well, wow!
Virginie: With cheese and lot of other things. It was really good.
Eric: It sounds pretty awesome.
Virginie: Yes. What you can get in French open-air markets is obviously fresh food and vegetables and cheese and also meat, whatever you can eat, you can find it.
Eric: Amazing, okay. What about large cities? Do they have different types of markets, different styles or something like that?
Virginie: It’s a little different but it’s still the same atmosphere, I guess. I guess in Paris, for instance, it’s more crowded. So it’s a little more stressful, but if you go to any village in France, it’s very laid-back and relaxed and, you know, people know each other. So you just stop at the cheese person and you start talking about your mama, et cetera, et cetera.
Eric: What other kind of like open-air markets like free markets in France?
Virginie: Yes, there is actually one in Paris that’s pretty famous. It’s at the porte de Saint-Ouen and it’s called the Marché de Saint-Ouen, Marché aux puces, flea market.
Eric: What can you find there?
Virginie: Well, you can find everything, stolen bicycles mostly.
Eric: That seems like a useful item.
Virginie: And then you can find antiques. There are a lot of antique little, like, booth, yeah.
Eric: Antiques, yeah.
Virginie: Yeah antiques. Then, you can find old books.
Eric: Well, that sounds more interesting than stolen bicycles to me.
Virginie: Yeah it is and you can also find vinyl.
Eric: Vinyl records?
Virginie: Vinyl records, yes.
Eric: Great, great.
Virginie: It’s pretty nice. It’s very, very crowded too.
Eric: Right.
Virginie: Every weekend, I think, I believe it’s every Sunday. That’s in Paris, but in Bordeaux which is you know big wine city, you will have wine markets all over the place.
Eric: You see you can go to an open-air wine market?
Virginie: Yeah.
Eric: That sounds great.
Virginie: It is great, and in Marseille, you have a lot of fish markets because it’s by the sea.
Eric: Right, a big port, so…
Virginie: Yeah.
Eric: It makes sense. All right, so let’s look into little of the vocabulary now.
Vocab List
un poisson [natural native speed]
a fish
un poisson [slowly - broken down by syllable]
un poisson [natural native speed]
une salade [natural native speed]
a salad
une salade [slowly - broken down by syllable]
une salade [natural native speed]
la moutarde [natural native speed]
mustard
la moutarde [slowly - broken down by syllable]
la moutarde [natural native speed]
la crème fraîche [natural native speed]
heavy cream
la crème fraîche [slowly - broken down by syllable]
la crème fraîche [natural native speed]
le lapin [natural native speed]
rabbit (food)
le lapin [slowly - broken down by syllable]
le lapin [natural native speed]
le chèvre (cheese) [natural native speed]
goat cheese
le chèvre (cheese) [slowly - broken down by syllable]
le chèvre (cheese) [natural native speed]
beau [natural native speed]
beautiful
beau [slowly - broken down by syllable]
beau [natural native speed]
belle [natural native speed]
beautiful
belle [slowly - broken down by syllable]
belle [natural native speed]
chaque [natural native speed]
each
chaque [slowly - broken down by syllable]
chaque [natural native speed]
plus [natural native speed]
more (comparison form -er)
plus [slowly - broken down by syllable]
plus [natural native speed]
Eh bien... [natural native speed]
well...
Eh bien... [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Eh bien... [natural native speed]
qui [natural native speed]
who
qui [slowly - broken down by syllable]
qui [natural native speed]
Vocab and Phrase Usage
Eric: OK here we have the word "chevre" with two different meanings.
Virginie: Yes. If it's feminine "la chevre", it means the goat,
Eric: The animal.
Virginie: Oui. but if it's masculine, le chevre, it means "goat cheese".
Eric: Yes and that's what we have in our dialogue. Le chevre, goat cheese.
Virginie: Now what Joe buys is un bloc de chevre, which is like a goat cheese "bloc”
Eric: Description of what it is.
Virginie: I'm sure it must be fresh cheese, as we talked about earlier.
Eric: Hmm delicious. What 's next Virginie?
Virginie: Ok, let's talk about something else than food. the word "eh bien" for example
Eric: Eh bien is well.
Virginie: Yes and it's used like Well when at the beginning of a sentence.
Eric: For example. Let's say you're asked to do something and you're answering "well, it's complicated."
Virginie: In French, it will be "eh bien, c'est compliqué"
Eric: So it's just an interjection to start a sentence.
Virginie: Yes. A little bit like euh (we saw that a few lessons ago), only less hesitating, more affirmative.
Eric: Ah ok. French language has all these little words that sneak in all the time
Virginie: I know, we have a lot of them. You usually don't learn them at school, but you will certainly hear them a lot when talking to French people.
Eric: OK now let's look at the phrase "un de chaque".
Virginie: Oui. Joe says "je vais prendre un de chaque"
Eric: I am going to take one of each
Virginie: By the way did you identify the future tense here?
Eric: Ah oui, "je vais prendre", I'm going to take.
Virginie: OK now the second part of Joe's sentence is "un de chaque.”
Eric: One of each.
Virginie: We have "un"
Eric: That's one. Un here is the number one, not the article
Virginie: Oui. Then we have de
Eric: And that's of.
Virginie: And finally we have chaque
Eric: Which is literally "each."
Virginie: Again, that's one of each.
Eric: Very useful when shopping.
Virginie: Now, chaque also means every.
Eric: Oui. for example…
Virginie: En France, chaque region a un president.
Eric: In France, every region has a president. Is that true?
Virginie: Yes it's the president de region, the region president.
Eric: So remember, chaque can is both every and each.
Virginie: OUi. Now our market seller says something that is not in our vocab list.
Eric: Yes, she says "5 euros la piece"
Virginie: And that means "five euros each"
Eric: So we know cinq euro, five euros.
Virginie: And it is followed by "la piece",
Eric: Literally, "the piece", but really meaning "each.
Virginie: So she's saying that each rabbit with mustard is five euros.
Eric: Now this is specific to the market, right?
Virginie: Yes, you will say la piece when talking about vegetables, that you can buy by the unit, like cucumbers or cabbage.
Eric: And you will hear it on the market, too, when referring to something you can buy by the unit.
Virginie: Again, it's Cinq euros la piece.
Eric: The word la piece means so many different things in French1
Virginie: Oh yes. But for now, we'll just stick to la piece meaning each.
Eric: OK. let's do some grammar.

Lesson focus

Virginie: The focus of this lesson is comparing with more and less.
Eric: Plus et moins.
Virginie: Plus and moins, yes.
Eric: let's look at our dialogue
Virginie: Joe hands the seller a 500 euro bill.
Eric: Ahaha, that's big!
Virginie: Yes, especially at the market, where you usually deal with small change.
Eric: So our seller is kind of annoyed.
Virginie: I think so. In any case, she says "vous avez un billet plus petit?"
Eric: Do you have a smaller bill?
Virginie: the word we look at here is smaller.
Eric: In French, it's plus petit.
Virginie: It's the adverb "plus"
Eric: And that's more
Virginie: and then the adjective you are comparing, here petit, small
Eric: Again, plus petit.
Virginie: and you will always use that same structure to say more with an adjective.
Eric: What is "taller"
Virginie: Plus grand.
Eric: OK now. what if I want to say "I am taller than Virginie?
Virginie: Je suis plus grand que Virginie.
Eric: Oh I see, you add "que" after the adjective.
Virginie: Oui. Plus grand que is taller than.
Eric: OK.
Virginie: Now let's see how to say "less" with an adjective.
Eric: This is not in our dialogue, but we need to talk about it.
Virginie: Oui. which adjective are we using eric?
Eric: Let's continue with grand, tall.
Virginie: OK this time I will have to say I am less tall than Eric.
Eric: Go ahead
Virginie: Je suis moins grande qu'Eric.
Eric: So here our adverb of comparison is "moins"
Virginie: Moins grande qu'eric. So, two things you need to know here
Eric: First since Virginie was speaking, grand became feminine, grande
Virginie: And then since Eric's name starts with a vowel, the "e" of "que" dropped in Front of Eric
Eric: So, once again
Virginie: (slowly) je suis moins grande qu'eric.
Eric: So, to recap
Virginie: I am taller than Virginie.
Eric: Je suis plus grand que Virginie. And I am less tall than Eric
Virginie. Je suis moins grande qu'eric.
Eric: OK. Now remember in a previous lesson we promised you would get the entire conjugation of the verb vouloir, to want
Virginie: Oui c'est vrai. Well, eh bien, you can find the whole conjugation in the lesson notes!
Eric: Great! Now in our dialogue, the seller is yelling "qui veut mon poisson"
Virginie: And that's "who wants my fish!!"
Eric: Last time we saw that to express a wish, you could use the verb vouloir followed by an infinitive
Virginie: As in je veux manger, remember?
Eric: I want to eat.
Virginie: Now you can have your verb vouloir followed by a noun, too.
Eric: Just like in our dialogue, qui veut mon poisson. Or, Je veux un chat.
Virginie: I want a cat.

Outro

Virginie: Ok, I think we're done for this lesson, Eric.
Eric: Thank you for listening!
Virginie: Thank you! Merci beaucoup ! Au Revoir !
Eric: Au Revoir !

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