Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Transcript

Hi!
Welcome to Introduction to French.
My name is Alisha and I'm joined by...
Hi everyone! I'm Candice
In this lesson, we'll focus on teaching you the most useful French words and phrases for absolute beginners!
Make sure you're repeating the words out loud after I say the examples!
Are you ready? Let's get started!
Expressing Thanks and Forgiveness
The best phrase to learn when studying a new language is one that expresses gratitude and appreciation. If you had to learn only a single phrase, this would be it!
We taught you this phrase in the first lesson of this series. Do you remember what it was?
Merci beaucoup
it means "thanks a lot"
Merci beaucoup
Keep repeating after Candice until you get it!
Merci beaucoup
Your turn!
Merci beaucoup
Merci beaucoup
One last time.
Merci beaucoup
Apologizing and Excusing Yourself
OK. The next phrase we'll teach you, is perhaps the second most useful of all phrases. It's to apologize or to excuse yourself.
excusez-moi
it means “excuse me”
excusez-moi
Use this phrase when you're hustling through the busy streets of Paris.
excusez-moi
Your turn!
excusez-moi
Once more.
excusez-moi
OK. One last time.
excusez-moi
Well done. You can also excuse yourself by saying...
Pardon
Try it!
Pardon
And again.
Pardon
One last time.
Pardon
If you want to apologize directly for something you've done, you can say...
Je suis désolé. “I’m sorry.”
Je suis désolé.
Je suis désolé.
One more time.
Je suis désolé.
Well done. Now you can say "thank you," "excuse me," and "I'm sorry" in French. Let's move on.
Where is...?
Asking where something is, is an incredibly important and useful phrase to learn. You're going to need this when you're asking where the bathroom, the train station, or where the hotel is.
To ask where something is say...
Pouvez-vous me dire où se trouve...
and then add the place of location.
Pouvez-vous me dire où se trouve...
Pouvez-vous means “Can you,”
me dire means “tell me,”
où means "where,"
and se trouve means “is located.”
Altogether, it means "Can you tell me where something is located?"
For example, if you wanted to say "Can you tell me where the bathroom is located?" We would start with...
Pouvez-vous me dire où se trouve
And then add "the bathroom."
les toilettes “the bathroom”
Pouvez-vous me dire où se trouvent les toilettes?
Because it's a plural it's conjugated
trouve --> trouvent
Try it!
Pouvez-vous me dire où se trouvent les toilettes?
Pouvez-vous me dire où se trouvent les toilettes?
For the train station, it would be...
la gare “train station”
Pouvez-vous me dire où se trouve la gare?
Pouvez-vous me dire où se trouve la gare?
And for the hotel...
l'hôtel “hotel”
Pouvez-vous me dire où se trouve l'hôtel?
Pouvez-vous me dire où se trouve l'hôtel?
You can also add “Excuse me” before you ask where something is, to be polite.
Excusez-moi,pouvez-vous me dire où se trouve l'hôtel?
You can ask where anything is, by saying...
Pouvez-vous me dire où se trouve
and then adding the place or location.
In this final lesson, you learned how to say "thank you," "excuse me," "I'm sorry," and to ask where something is in French.
And in this series, we introduced you to the basics of French pronunciation, grammar, writing, and more.
Let's conclude with some parting advice from Candice, and listen to some of her tips on how to learn French from a native French perspective.
Parting Advice - Insider Knowledge
The best way to begin learning French is to start with simple words and build up your vocabulary. From there, you can start learning simple phrases and creating basic sentences. Don't concern yourself too much with articles and complex grammar when first starting out. Focus on stringing together words. Your goal is to communicate, and you don't have to be grammatically correct to do that.
Learning basic word order and using the vocabulary that you know, can get you a very long way. Remember, French uses the same subject-verb-object word order as English. Focus on this aspect, and you'll be able to speak French in no time!
Lastly, learning French, like any language, requires you to immerse yourself in the language. Exposure to the language is key. One simple thing you can do to immerse yourself, is to watch contemporary French videos, like our videos here at FrenchPod101.com. This will ensure that you're learning real, applicable French in the fastest way possible.
You've reached the end of this “Introduction to French” curse, but it's only the beginning of your journey to French fluency! Where do you go from here? Try our Innovative French Culture series, where we teach you beginner vocab and even more useful phrases! Or check out any of our other video series. We have many different categories for you to choose from.
Good luck as you continue learning French, and I'll see you in another video!
Bye!
Bye~!

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