Learn how to use French questions with inversion
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| 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. |
| 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! |
| Greg:The park is so pretty! |
| Jacques Et il fait si beau aujourd’hui! Mmm… ta confiture est délicieuse, Mireille. Tu es une excellente cuisinière! |
| Greg: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? |
| Greg:Thanks. It’s my grandma’s recipe. And what do you think about my bread? |
| Jacques Délicieux! Il est bien meilleur que le pain du marché. |
| Greg:Delicious! It’s much better than the bread from the market. |
| Mireille Tu es trop gentil. Jacques, j’ai quelques questions pour toi. |
| Greg:You’re too kind. Jacques, I have a few questions for you. |
| Jacques D’accord… |
| Greg:Okay… |
| Mireille Première question - où habites-tu? |
| Greg:First question - where do you live? |
| Jacques J’habite dans une petite maison près du centre-ville. |
| Greg:I live in a small house close to downtown. |
| Mireille Deuxième question… |
| Greg: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. |
| Vocabulary and Phrases |
| 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] |
| Vocabulary 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! |
| Grammar Point |
| 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?!?’ |
| 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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