Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Greg: Hello everyone, I’m Greg. French Picnic, Part 1.
Mailys: Bonjour, tout le monde. This is Mailys. In this lesson, you will learn about questions with inversion and question words.
Greg: Jacques and Mireille are having a picnic date in a park. They are using informal French as you know.
Mailys: This is part one, so be sure to join us for the second part of their date!
Greg: And let’s listen to the conversation.
DIALOGUE
Mireille: Le parc est si joli !
Jacques: Et il fait si beau aujourd'hui! Mmm... ta confiture est délicieuse, Mireille. Tu es une excellente cuisinière !
Mireille: Merci. C'est la recette de ma mère. Et que penses-tu de mon pain ?
Jacques: Délicieux ! Il est bien meilleur que le pain du marché.
Mireille: Tu es trop gentil. Jacques, j'ai quelques questions pour toi.
Jacques: D'accord...
Mireille: Première question - où habites-tu ?
Jacques: J'habite dans une petite maison près du centre-ville.
Mireille: Deuxième question...
Greg: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly.
Mireille: Le parc est si joli !
Jacques: Et il fait si beau aujourd'hui! Mmm... ta confiture est délicieuse, Mireille. Tu es une excellente cuisinière !
Mireille: Merci. C'est la recette de ma mère. Et que penses-tu de mon pain ?
Jacques: Délicieux ! Il est bien meilleur que le pain du marché.
Mireille: Tu es trop gentil. Jacques, j'ai quelques questions pour toi.
Jacques: D'accord...
Mireille: Première question - où habites-tu ?
Jacques: J'habite dans une petite maison près du centre-ville.
Mireille: Deuxième question...
Greg: Now let’s hear it with the English translation.
Mireille: Le parc est si joli !
Mireille: The park is so pretty!
Jacques: Et il fait si beau aujourd'hui! Mmm... ta confiture est délicieuse, Mireille. Tu es une excellente cuisinière !
Jacques: And the weather is so nice today! Mmm... your jam is delicious, Mireille. You're a great cook!
Mireille: Merci. C'est la recette de ma mère. Et que penses-tu de mon pain ?
Mireille: Thanks. It's my mother's recipe. And what do you think about my bread?
Jacques: Délicieux ! Il est bien meilleur que le pain du marché.
Jacques: Delicious! It's much better than the bread from the market.
Mireille: Tu es trop gentil. Jacques, j'ai quelques questions pour toi.
Mireille: You're too kind. Jacques, I have a few questions for you.
Jacques: D'accord...
Jacques: Okay...
Mireille: Première question - où habites-tu ?
Mireille: First question—where do you live?
Jacques: J'habite dans une petite maison près du centre-ville.
Jacques: I live in a small house close to downtown.
Mireille: Deuxième question...
Mireille: Second question...
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Mailys: Okay listeners, in this lesson, we would like to share with you a recipe for French-style crêpes. It’s simple and delicious.
Greg: Here are the 5 ingredients. 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of milk, 1 pinch of salt, 2 eggs and 2 tablespoons of melted butter. You can also add 2 tablespoons of sugar.
Mailys: Mix the dry ingredients and slowly add the milk while mixing well.
Greg: Add the eggs, one at a time, and whisk after each one.
Mailys: Lastly, add the melted butter and mix well. Let the batter rest at least 20 to 30 minutes before cooking the crêpes.
Greg: Brown them in a non-stick pan by using a mixture of butter and oil.
Mailys: Only flip the crêpes once when cooking.
Greg: Mmm, sounds delicious! Listeners, check out the lesson notes for the bilingual version of the recipe and let us know how it went! Now, let’s go to the vocab.
VOCAB LIST
Greg: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson.
The first word we shall see is:
Mailys: cuisinier [natural native speed]
Greg: cook, chef
Mailys: cuisinier [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mailys: cuisinier [natural native speed]
Next:
Mailys: meilleur (que) [natural native speed]
Greg: better (than)
Mailys: meilleur (que) [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mailys: meilleur (que) [natural native speed]
Next:
Mailys: quelques [natural native speed]
Greg: some, a few
Mailys: quelques [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mailys: quelques [natural native speed]
Next:
Mailys: question [natural native speed]
Greg: question
Mailys: question [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mailys: question [natural native speed]
Next:
Mailys: mon/ma [natural native speed]
Greg: my
Mailys: mon/ma [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mailys: mon/ma [natural native speed]
Next:
Mailys: premier [natural native speed]
Greg: first
Mailys: premier [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mailys: premier [natural native speed]
Next:
Mailys: où [natural native speed]
Greg: where
Mailys: où [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mailys: où [natural native speed]
Next:
Mailys: petit [natural native speed]
Greg: little, small
Mailys: petit [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mailys: petit [natural native speed]
Next:
Mailys: maison [natural native speed]
Greg: house
Mailys: maison [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mailys: maison [natural native speed]
Next:
Mailys: centre-ville [natural native speed]
Greg: downtown
Mailys: centre-ville [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mailys: centre-ville [natural native speed]
VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE
Greg: Let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases in this lesson. Let’s start with ‘quelques’.
Mailys: ‘Quelques’ means “a few” or “some”. It’s used with nouns you can count...
Mailys: J’ai quelques amis
Greg: I have a few friends.
Mailys: Il cherche quelques bouteilles
Greg: He is looking for some bottles.
Greg: ‘Meilleur’ means “better”. It’s an adjective and must agree with the gender and number of the noun.
Mailys: Cette confiture est meilleure.
Greg: This jam is better.
Greg: To say “better than”, we add the word ‘que.’ Although it looks the same as the question word ‘que’, and the conjunction ‘que’, it’s a different word.
Mailys: Je suis meilleur que toi.
Greg: I’m better than you.
Mailys: La confiture de ma mère est meilleure que ta confiture.
Greg: My mother’s jam is better than your jam.
Greg: To say that something is the best, we simply add ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in front of ‘meilleur’.
Mailys: Tu fais la meilleure confiture! “You make the best jam!”
Mailys: C’est le meilleur café de la ville.
Greg: It’s the city’s best café.
Greg: And ‘mon/ma/mes’ mean “my”.
Mailys: ‘mon’ is masculine, ‘ma’ is feminine and ‘mes’ is plural.
Mailys: Mon parapluie
Greg: my umbrella
Mailys: Ma bouteille
Greg: my bottle
Mailys: Mes recettes
Greg: my recipes
Greg: As you can see, the possessive is often a good way to know the gender of a noun.
Greg: Let’s now look at ‘petit’ meaning “small” and ‘premier’ meaning “first”. Normally, French adjectives go after the noun, but a very small subset of about a dozen nouns go before the noun. This is also true of all ordinal numbers like first, second, third, etc. Listen to these examples...
Mailys: Ils ont un petit garçon et deux petites filles.
Greg: They have a little boy and two little girls.
Mailys: C’est mon premier café espresso.
Greg: It’s my first espresso coffee. All right, and with that, let’s move onto the grammar!

Lesson focus

Greg: The focus of this lesson is questions with inversion.
Mailys: In lesson 2, we first learned how to ask questions using intonation only. Then, in lesson 8, we learned how to ask yes-no questions using ‘est-ce que.’ In this lesson, we’ll learn how to ask questions using inversion and various question words.
Greg: Inversion means that the subject and the verb are reversed. A simple inversion creates a yes-no question and means the same as with ‘est-ce que’.
Mailys: ‘Tu aimes’ becomes ‘Aimes-tu?’ And ‘Vous travaillez’ becomes ‘Travaillez-vous’?
Greg: A quick note - inversion with ‘je’ is extremely rare; use ‘est-ce que’ instead.
Mailys: In the dialogue, Mireille asks Jacques ‘Que penses-tu de mon pain?’ which means “What do you think about my bread?”
Greg: To ask a question using a question word, such as ‘où,’ - “where”, or ‘que’ - “what”, you first introduce the question word and follow up with either ‘est-ce que’ or inversion. So to say “Where do you work?” you can say
Mailys: Où est-ce que vous travaillez?
Greg: That’s the question word ‘où’, then ‘est-ce que’, the subject and verb –
Mailys: Où est-ce que vous travaillez?
Greg: Or you can use inversion
Mailys: Où travaillez-vous?
Greg: So the question word, ‘où,’ then the verb ‘travaillez’ and the subject ‘vous’
Mailys: Où travaillez-vous?
Greg: Let’s also look at how to ask a question with ‘que’, or qu’ before a vowel. So how would you say “What do they think?”
Mailys: with ‘est-ce que’, you say ‘Qu’est-ce qu’ils pensent?’ And with inversion, you say ‘Que pensent-il?’
Mailys: When inversion is done with ‘il’ or ‘elle’, the letter ‘t’ is inserted. ‘Il mange’ becomes ‘mange-t-il’? and ‘elle parle’ becomes ‘parle-t-elle’?
Greg: However, if an irregular verb already has a consonant, then we don’t need to add one.
Mailys: ‘Elle fait’, “she does”, is ‘fait-elle’ and there is already a ‘t’.
Greg: One final note on ‘que’. ‘Que’ is the weak form of ‘quoi’ and it’s used when it's followed by another word. When it’s used alone or with a preposition, we use ‘quoi?’
Mailys: to say “What? You’re late?” you say ‘Quoi? Tu es en retard?’
Greg: or “You like what?!”
Mailys: Would be ‘Tu aimes quoi?!?’

Outro

Greg: Ok, that’s going to do it for this lesson! Join us for lesson 11 to find out if Jacques and Mireille’s park date ends well!
Mailys: I hope Jacques doesn’t mess it up!
Greg: I’m sure he’ll be ok.
Mailys: D’accord. À bientôt!
Greg: See you soon!

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