Dialogue

Vocabulary (Review)

Learn New Words FAST with this Lesson’s Vocab Review List

Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.

Or sign up using Facebook
Already a Member?

Lesson Notes

Unlock In-Depth Explanations & Exclusive Takeaways with Printable Lesson Notes

Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.

Or sign up using Facebook
Already a Member?

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 !

Comments

Hide