Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Notes

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Virginie: Hello everyone, bonjour!
Eric: Hello, Eric here. Your One Stop Shop for All Your French Needs.
Virginie: Hi, this is Virginie and I am here with Eric. How are you, Eric, today?
Eric: Doing very well. How are you?
Virginie: I am good. Thank you.
Eric: In this lesson, we are going to be following Joe as he visits the convenient store before going to his hotel.
Virginie: So Joe is buying a lot of things for his trip to the center of Paris.
Eric: This conversation takes place in a convenient store on Monday, Day 3.
Virginie: Yes, and Joe is speaking with store clerk. Let’s listen to that conversation.

Lesson conversation

Employé de magasin: Bonsoir.
Joe : Bonsoir.
(Il pose ses articles sur le comptoir.)
Employé de magasin : Trois bouteilles d'eau, une cannette de jus d'orange et un sandwich. Ce sera tout ?
Joe : (Il remarque quelque chose sur le comptoir) Qu'est-ce que c'est, ça ?
Employé de magasin : Des croissants au jambon. C'est délicieux.
Joe : Alors, un croissant s'il vous plaît.
Employé de magasin : Ça fait 15 euros.
Joe : Tenez.
Employé de magasin : Votre monnaie.
Joe : Merci.
Eric: One more time, a little more slowly.
Employé de magasin : Bonsoir.
Joe : Bonsoir.
(Il pose ses articles sur le comptoir.)
Employé de magasin : Trois bouteilles d'eau, une cannette de jus d'orange et un sandwich. Ce sera tout ?
Joe : (Il remarque quelque chose sur le comptoir) Qu'est-ce que c'est, ça ?
Employé de magasin : Des croissants au jambon. C'est délicieux.
Joe : Alors, un croissant s'il vous plaît.
Employé de magasin : Ça fait 15 euros.
Joe : Tenez.
Employé de magasin : Votre monnaie.
Joe : Merci.
Eric: One more time, with the translation.
Employé de magasin : Bonsoir.
Eric: Hello.
Joe : Bonsoir.
Eric: Hello.
(Il pose ses articles sur le comptoir.)
Eric(places items on the counter)
Employé de magasin : Trois bouteilles d'eau, une cannette de jus d'orange et un sandwich. Ce sera tout ?
Eric: Three bottles of water, a can of orange juice, and a sandwich. That will be it?
Joe : (Il remarque quelque chose sur le comptoir) Qu'est-ce que c'est, ça ?
Eric: (notices pastries at the counter) What is this?
Employé de magasin : Des croissants au jambon. C'est délicieux.
Eric: Ham croissants. It's delicious.
Joe : Alors, un croissant s'il vous plaît.
Eric: Well, a croissant, please.
Employé de magasin : Ça fait 15 euros.
Eric: It's fifteen euros.
Joe : Tenez.
Eric: Here.
Employé de magasin : Votre monnaie.
Eric: Your change.
Joe : Merci.
Eric: Thank you.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Virginie: So I think Joe is in a local grocery store.
Eric: Are you talking about one of those really small épicerie or something like that?
Virginie: Yes, épicerie is the word for grocery store. Yes, I think so. It looks really small.
Eric: Well, he still probably can find whatever he needs for few days in Paris.
Virginie: Right.
Eric: So Virginie, are there a lot of huge supermarket chains?
Virginie: In France, yes. We have a very well-known Carrefour, I think you must know it Eric.
Eric: That’s sort of like the equivalent of Wal-Mart.
Virginie: Yeah, it’s pretty international. That’s our biggest chain. Then we have leclerc, and I think that’s it for the biggest ones.
Eric: I see.
Virginie: Yeah, but in the center of Paris, you won’t find them. You have to go in the suburbs to find big, huge malls and grocery stores.
Eric: Just like in the New York.
Virginie: Yes.
Eric: But in the center of Paris, you do have really nice open air markets.
Virginie: Oh yes, and that’s very French, right?
Eric: Indeed.
Virginie: Yes. I remember when I was living in Paris, there was an open air market and it was called the Aligre market. And it was a vegetable and meat and fish market. It was really nice.
Eric: Virginie will prepare her amazing plate there, right?
Virginie: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: Sounds delicious.
Virginie: It’s a very nice atmosphere too. People are screaming around, hey buy my fish. You can buy my fish.
Eric: Well, let’s have a look at a little bit of vocabulary now.
VOCAB LIST
Virginie: trois [natural native speed]
Eric: three
Virginie: trois [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: trois [natural native speed]
: Next:
Virginie: une bouteille [natural native speed]
Eric: a bottle
Virginie: une bouteille [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: une bouteille [natural native speed]
: Next:
Virginie: l'eau [natural native speed]
Eric: water
Virginie: l'eau [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: l'eau [natural native speed]
: Next:
Virginie: un / une [natural native speed]
Eric: a, an
Virginie: un / une [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: un / une [natural native speed]
: Next:
Virginie: un jus d'orange [natural native speed]
Eric: an orange juice
Virginie: un jus d'orange [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: un jus d'orange [natural native speed]
: Next:
Virginie: le jambon [natural native speed]
Eric: the ham
Virginie: le jambon [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: le jambon [natural native speed]
: Next:
Virginie: ça [natural native speed]
Eric: it
Virginie: ça [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: ça [natural native speed]
: Next:
Virginie: la monnaie [natural native speed]
Eric: the change (coins)
Virginie: la monnaie [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: la monnaie [natural native speed]
: Next:
Virginie: tenez [natural native speed]
Eric: here you go, here it is
Virginie: tenez [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: tenez [natural native speed]
: Next:
Virginie: un croissant au jambon [natural native speed]
Eric: a ham croissant
Virginie: un croissant au jambon [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: un croissant au jambon [natural native speed]
: Next:
Virginie: qu'est-ce que / qu'est-ce qu' [natural native speed]
Eric: what
Virginie: qu'est-ce que / qu'est-ce qu' [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: qu'est-ce que / qu'est-ce qu' [natural native speed]
: Next:
Virginie: Ce sera tout ? [natural native speed]
Eric: That's it?
Virginie: Ce sera tout ? [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: Ce sera tout ? [natural native speed]
: Next:
Virginie: voilà [natural native speed]
Eric: here you are, here it is, here is
Virginie: voilà [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: voilà [natural native speed]
: Next:
Virginie: merci [natural native speed]
Eric: thank you
Virginie: merci [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: merci [natural native speed]
: Next:
Virginie: le beurre [natural native speed]
Eric: butter
Virginie: le beurre [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Virginie: le beurre [natural native speed]
KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES
Eric: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson.
Virginie: The first word/phrase we’ll look at is....
Virginie: This is long list of vocab that we have here
Eric: Let's pick a few words
Virginie: First let's see "monnaie"
Eric: Yes the clerk is giving Joe his "monnaie"
Virginie: His change.
Eric: Virginie, how would I ask "do you have any change?
Virginie: You would ask, "tu as de la monnaie"
Eric: Oh, ok, it's you have "tu as", followed by "de la", which in French is "some" at the feminine form
Virginie: And finally you have monnaie, change. Again, tu as de la monnaie?
Eric: OK that can be useful.
Virginie: OUr next word is "tenez",
Eric: And that's here you go, formal
Virginie: Oui. You can use it whenever you hand something to someone.
Eric: It's the imperative form of the verb tenir, to hold.
Virginie: It's like you're saying "hold"
Eric: I think we already saw "tiens", the informal way, in a previous lesson.
Virginie: Oui oui.
Eric: OK what's next?
Virginie: Mmmmm.joe is buying trois bouteilles d'eau.
Eric: Three bottles of water.
Virginie: Bouteille is bottle/bottles, and water is eau (spell)
Eric: And you can see that the preposition "de" that we talked about in the previous lesson is here again!
Virginie: Oui cette preposition, this preposition likes to sneak in everywhere it can.
Eric: Again, it is "of", and "de" allows the eau to specify what kind of bottle is it.
Virginie: Une bouteille d'eau.
Eric: Now what would be a bottle of coke
Virginie: Une bouteille de coca
Eric: Coca. That's cute.
Virginie: Coca cola!
Eric: Coca is completing bouteille
Virginie: Now for the rest of the vocab you can refer to our lesson notes.

Lesson focus

Eric: What's our focus today, Virginie?
Virginie: The focus of this lesson is noun genders in French
Eric: Oh I see. I used to have such a hard time figuring out the genders when I was learning French.
Virginie: I know, it's tough.
Eric: French has two genders.
Virginie: Masculine and feminine
Eric: And contrary to what you've probably been told there are ways to guess which gender a noun is
Virginie: Yes! Depending on how it ends
Eric: OK let's pick our examples from the dialogue.
Virginie: Shall we start with the feminine words?
Eric: Yes, ladies first.
Virginie: Ah. So..une cannette is feminine
Eric: Une cannette is a can
Virginie: And it ends with ette
Eric: That's our first rule, all nouns ending with ette in French are feminine.
Virginie: Yes. Then, but that's not in our dialogue, all words ending with ion (spell)
Eric: Like une institution, an institution, or
Virginie: Or une mission, a mission
Eric: Now you'll find a complete list in our lesson notes.
Virginie: OK. Masculine words have more of a firm rule.
Eric: Yes. All noun ending with a consonant are masculine.
Virginie: Except for a very few.
Eric: ell, our example from the dialog here is sandwich
Virginie: Sandwich..mm..doesn't sound that French.
Eric: Well, it's in French dictionaries...so sandwich ends with the consonant h
Virginie: Therefore it's masculine.
Eric: Now nouns ending with MENT are also masculine.
Virginie: Like le piment, pepper
Eric: Or le moment
Virginie: The moment. Great.
Eric: Again, there are other categories to help you figure out genders
Virginie: And you will find them in the lesson notes.
Eric: Now let's take a look at that question Joe asks the store clerk
Virginie: Yes he asks "qu'est-ce que c'est ca", what is this?
Eric: Now we already know that qu'est-ce que means what
Virginie: And then c'est (SPELL) means it is.
Eric: So literally it is "what it is"
Virginie: The question qu'est ce que c'est works by itself and means "what is ti or this?
Eric: But joe, is pointing at something, some croissants I believe.
Virginie: So he adds at the end of the question the little demonstrative "ca", which is this.
Eric: He insists on what he's pointing out
Virginie: Literally it is "what is it, this?” Qu'est-ce que c'est ca ?
Eric: And this construction is very frequent in French to find this word "ca" at the beginning or at the end of a sentence.
For example, you can say, ca c'est bien, or c'est bien, ca.
Eric: so if you go to France be ready to hear "ca" a lot.

Outro

Eric: OK! So thank you for listening to this lesson.
Virginie: Merci d'avoir écouté. Thank you for listening. And, au revoir.
Eric: Au revoir !

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