Learn how to describe the passage of time
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Virginie: Hi, everyone this is Virginie and welcome to frenchpod101.com. |
| JP: Hi, everyone, this is JP, Virginie, it's great to see you. |
| Virginie: Great to see you, too. |
| JP: Will Time Apart Allow Your French Feelings to Fade? And in this lesson, we're going to learn some time expressions and ways of framing an action in time. |
| Virginie: And we also have some special new French idioms for you. |
| JP: We're not really going to hear a conversation today per se. |
| Virginie: No it's a letter. |
| JP: It's a letter, so Ahmed is writing to his girlfriend who just broke up with him. |
| Virginie: Yeah and he's trying to explain to her how much impact this breakup has on him, it's a very sad letter. |
| JP: Oh no. Let's listen to the conversation. |
| Virginie: Okay. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Mon Coeur, pourquoi, pourquoi, pourquoi ? |
| Ma vie n’a plus de sens depuis que tu m’a quitté. |
| Alors, je vais t’écrire une lettre par jour jusqu’à ton retour. |
| J’ai le coeur gros. |
| Il y a deux jours, je suis allé dans notre parc. |
| Tous les soirs, j’écoute notre chanson. |
| Je te promets que désormais, je ne jouerai plus le bourreau des coeurs. |
| A partir d’aujourd’hui, je ferai tout pour te récupérer. |
| J’apprendrai les paroles d’ABBA par coeur. |
| Oh, mon lapin! |
| Virginie: Encore une fois, avec des sous-titres. |
| JP: Once again, with English subtitles. |
| Mon Coeur, pourquoi, pourquoi, pourquoi ? |
| Sweetheart, Why, why, why? |
| Ma vie n’a plus de sens depuis que tu m’a quitté. |
| My life doesn't make sense anymore since you left me. |
| Alors, je vais t’écrire une lettre par jour jusqu’à ton retour. |
| So, I will write you a letter a day until your return. |
| J’ai le coeur gros. |
| I am sad. |
| Il y a deux jours, je suis allé dans notre parc. |
| Two days ago, I went to our park. |
| Tous les soirs, j’écoute notre chanson. |
| Every night, I listen to our song. |
| Je te promets que désormais, je ne jouerai plus le bourreau des coeurs. |
| I promise that from now on, I won't play the womanizer anymore. |
| A partir d’aujourd’hui, je ferai tout pour te récupérer. |
| From today on, I will do anything to get you back. |
| J’apprendrai les paroles d’ABBA par coeur. |
| I will learn the lyrics of ABBA songs by heart. |
| Oh, mon lapin! |
| Oh, my sweetie! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| JP: Alright now we know why that guy's been dumped. |
| Virginie: Et oui, “je ne jouerai plus le bourreau des coeurs.” |
| JP: “Oh no I will not be the womanizer anymore” |
| Virginie: I guess he has what he deserves. Okay, but he is ready to make it up to her. |
| JP: Yes. |
| Virginie: Voilà. |
| JP: By learning all the Abba songs by heart? No, what is this, is this a sign of love in France? |
| Virginie: It's a proof of love. |
| JP: Okay. |
| Virginie: Oui, c’est une preuve d’amour. |
| JP: “Proof of love”. |
| Virginie: I suppose she's a big fan of Abba. |
| JP: Okay and she needs him to learn the songs in order for her to believe that he's really committed to her. |
| Virginie: Oui voilà, exactement. |
| JP: And he's ready to do that. Okay, so we heard a few idioms right? |
| Virginie: Oui. And we're going to list them right away and then we'll get back to them later, I'll explain them later. |
| JP: Okay should I give the literal translation? |
| Virginie: Just the literal translation. |
| JP: Okay just literal. |
| Virginie: And then yeah, we'll explain the meanings later. |
| JP: Okay. |
| Virginie: And just so you know all these idioms and all these expressions use the word “coeur” because our theme is love. Okay, first one is “mon coeur”. |
| JP: Literally this is, “My heart”. |
| Virginie: The second one is “j’ai le coeur gros”. |
| JP: Okay literally, “My heart is swollen”. |
| Virginie: Voilà. |
| JP: Yikes. |
| Virginie: Painful huh? |
| JP: Yeah. |
| Virginie: Le troisième c’est, “je ne jouerai plus le bourreau des coeurs”. |
| JP: Literally this is “I will not act like a heart executioner”. |
| Virginie: Voilà. |
| JP: The executioner of hearts, right? |
| Virginie: Oui c’est ça, voilà. Et le dernier c’est “par coeur”. |
| JP: Okay literally this is, “By heart”. |
| Virginie: Surely you guys guessed what it meant. |
| JP: Okay, let's look at the vocabulary. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Virginie: un coeur [natural native speed] |
| JP: a heart |
| Virginie: un coeur [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: un coeur [natural native speed] |
| Virginie: depuis [natural native speed] |
| JP: since |
| Virginie: depuis [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: depuis [natural native speed] |
| Virginie: le retour [natural native speed] |
| JP: the return |
| Virginie: le retour [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: le retour [natural native speed] |
| Virginie: promettre [natural native speed] |
| JP: to promise |
| Virginie: promettre [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: promettre [natural native speed] |
| Virginie: désormais [natural native speed] |
| JP: from now on |
| Virginie: désormais [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: désormais [natural native speed] |
| Virginie: récupérer [natural native speed] |
| JP: to get (something or someone) back |
| Virginie: récupérer [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Virginie: récupérer [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| JP: Okay, so now we've got the vocab, let's talk about those idioms. |
| Virginie: Donc la première expression, “mon coeur”, c’est facile. |
| JP: Okay “mon coeur” means “My heart”. |
| Virginie: Voilà. |
| JP: But we saw that he addressed the letter. |
| Virginie: Voilà. “Mon coeur” c’est elle, c’est sa copine. |
| JP: Okay so “mon coeur” is a way to talk to your girlfriend. |
| Virginie: Voilà, et ça veut dire “Sweetheart”. |
| JP: Baby. |
| Virginie: Mon coeur. C’est mignon ! |
| JP: Now dudes can say it to women right? |
| Virginie: Oui. |
| JP: Now can women say it to dudes? |
| Virginie: Oui. |
| JP: Okay. |
| Virginie: On a beaucoup d’expressions comme ça. |
| JP: Oh yeah? |
| Virginie: “Mon chat”... |
| JP: Okay “My cat”. |
| Virginie: “Ma chatte” |
| JP: “My cat”, “My kitty cat”. |
| Virginie: “Mon chaton”. |
| JP : “My big old cat”. |
| Virginie : Voilà. Bon la deuxième expression c’est “J’ai le coeur gros”. |
| JP: “J’ai le coeur gros” literally this was, “My heart is swollen”. |
| Virginie: Mais ça veut dire “je suis triste”. |
| JP: Oh okay “I'm sad”, because when you're sad sometimes you feel that heaviness in your chest. |
| Virginie: Voilà exactement. J’ai le coeur gros. |
| JP: “It's like your heart's swollen up”. |
| Virginie: And you can say that in any situation where your heart is getting broken, “j’ai le coeur gros”. |
| JP: Oh so sad. Okay, what's next? |
| Virginie: “Je ne jouerai plus le bourreau des coeurs”. |
| JP: “I shall no longer play the...” what is it? “the executioner of hearts”. |
| Virginie: Voilà, le bourreau is the executioner et “le bourreau des coeurs” c’est un.. a womanizer. |
| JP: A womanizer, okay. |
| Virginie: Voilà. It speaks for itself. |
| JP: “I'm not going to play the part of a womanizer anymore, I'm going to stay with you” basically. |
| Virginie: Voilà. “I'm going to be true”. |
| JP: “I'm going to be true”. |
| Virginie: JP are you a bourreau des coeurs ? |
| JP: No comment. No of course I'm not, of course I'm not. |
| Virginie: No, you're a true person. |
| JP: I'm true of course… Not really. |
| Virginie: I won't tell anyone. |
| JP: Okay don't tell anyone. |
| Virginie: La dernière expression c’est : “par coeur”. |
| JP: “By heart” now you can say this in English because he said, what did he say? He's going to, il va apprendre les chansons… Les paroles. |
| Virginie: Les paroles d’ABBA par coeur. |
| JP: Par coeur, okay. So he's going to learn the words to Abba by heart. |
| Virginie: Voilà. |
| JP: Okay so “apprendre par coeur” means “to memorize”. |
| Virginie: Et donc oui on peut l’utiliser à l’école, “j’apprends mes devoirs par coeur”. |
| JP: “I'm learning my homework by heart”. |
| Virginie: Et voilà pour les expressions idiomatiques et les expressions, et maintenant nous allons parler de grammaire. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| JP: So today we're going to talk about time and time markers. |
| Virginie: Yeah so there a lot of them in that monologue. |
| JP: Okay. |
| Virginie: Donc on va en voir juste quelques unes. |
| JP: Par exemple ? |
| Virginie: “Depuis”. |
| JP: “Depuis” okay so this is “since”. |
| Virginie: Voilà. |
| JP: “Depuis”. |
| Virginie: “Ma vie n’a plus de sens depuis que tu m’as quitté.” |
| JP: Okay, “My life no longer makes sense since you left me”. “Depuis que tu m’as quitté”. |
| Virginie: Donc c’est assez facile, c’est comme en anglais. |
| JP: Just like English “since”. |
| Virginie: En français on utilise “depuis” un peu différemment de l’anglais. |
| JP: Okay so you can't just translate it straight out all the time. |
| Virginie: Non, en anglais when you say “since” it's usually followed by a specific point of time. |
| JP: Right, like “since 1980” or “since you were born”. |
| Virginie: Or “Since yesterday”. |
| JP: “Since yesterday”, these are definite points in time. |
| Virginie: Voilà mais en français ça peut être la même chose et aussi une longueur dans le temps. Une durée. |
| JP: Okay “A length of time”, “A duration of time”. |
| Virginie: Donc par exemple, “J’habite à New York depuis dix ans”. |
| JP: Okay there is “depuis” but you can't really say “since” there in English. You would have to say, “I've been living in New York for ten years”. |
| Virginie: Voilà, donc en français “depuis dix ans”, literally “since ten years”. |
| JP: Alright but we're talking about an English problem now not a French problem. You can say “depuis” point in time, in the past or you can say “depuis” with a length of time. |
| Virginie: Next we have “désormais”. |
| JP: “Désormais”. “From now on”. |
| Virginie: “Désormais je ne jouerai plus le bourreau des coeurs”. |
| JP: Okay “From now on I won't play the womanizer”. |
| Virginie: Bon c’est très facile “désormais”, un autre exemple : “Désormais il doit travailler”. |
| JP: Okay “From now on he's got to work”. |
| Virginie: Vous pouvez noter qu’on utilise “désormais” quand il y a un changement de comportement. Avant, il faisait ça, mais désormais il va changer, il va faire autre chose. |
| JP: “Something is really going to change from now on, in the past it was one way, but désormais from now on it's going to be different”. |
| Virginie: Par exemple, il était fainéant. |
| JP: So “He was lazy”. |
| Virginie: Et désormais il va travailler. |
| JP: Okay, “From now he's going to work”. |
| Virginie: Voilà. |
| JP: Like “He will do it”, “He shall” work. |
| Virginie: Exactement. “He shall”. Next we have “il y a”. |
| JP: “Il y a”. We know “il y a” means “something exists” right? But when we're talking about “il y a” with a time- |
| Virginie: Voilà. |
| JP: -It's going to mean “ago”. |
| Virginie: Voilà, par exemple dans le dialogue, il dit : “Il y a deux jours, je suis allé dans notre parc”. |
| JP: “I went to our park two days ago”. “Il y a deux jours”. |
| Virginie: “Il y a” and then you put the time. Et c’est toujours un point dans le temps, un point précis. |
| JP: Okay, this is always going to be a point in time and not a duration. |
| Virginie: Voilà exactement. |
| JP: Okay. |
| Virginie: Et après ça nous avons “tous les soirs”. |
| JP: “Every night”. |
| Virginie: Donc la c’est la répétition dans le temps, he says “tous les soirs j’écoute notre chanson”. |
| JP: “Every night I listen to our song”. |
| Virginie: Each time you want to say “every” you're going to say “tous les” or “toutes les” if your noun is feminine. Donc “tous les jours”. |
| JP: “Every day” |
| Virginie: “Tous les matins”. |
| JP: That would be “Every morning”. |
| Virginie: “Tous les midis”. |
| JP: “Every mid day” “Every noon”. |
| Virginie: Tous les midis JP et moi on mange une soupe. |
| JP: That's right, every day Virginie and I eat soup. |
Outro |
| Virginie: Voilà. just so you know. Voilà pour nos petites expressions de temps et je crois que c’est tout pour aujourd’hui. Merci d’avoir écouté et très bonne journée à tous, à bientôt ! |
| JP: À la prochaine ! |
| Virginie: Au revoir ! |
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