French Class - Day 1 - Lessons... Alot

HBforever

Bonjour, mes amies! Ca va?

Hello, my friends! How are you today? My name is Mademoiselle Forever, which when talking to me, if you want to tag me, please type this as "Mademoiselle @HBforever." Now, welcome to French class! Here we will be learning how to speak and write in French!

This discussion will have a LOT of different lessons in it, so please take notes as you go along!

Bonne chance!

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Lesson 1: French Speaking Countries and the French Alphabet

Our very first lesson will be a fairly simple one. To be honest, this is actually two lessons, but the first part is so short that I combined them.

Lesson 1 - Part 1 - French Speaking Countries

French is a very widely spoken language, and is spoken in almost every continent. Let's go over some French speaking places:

Luxembourg

Belgium

Switzerland

Canada

A few islands in the Carribbean

Madagascar

Algeria

The Democratic Republic of the Congo

Laos

Cambodia

Vietnam

And of course.... France!

Lesson 1 - Part 2 - The Alphabet

The French language uses the same 26 letters as we do, however they are pronounced differently. Ecoutez et repetez apres moi (Listen and repeat after me... well... repeat as you read..) First will we be the letter and then in parentheses will be the pronunciation.

A (ah)

B (bay)

C (say)

D (day)

E (euh)

F (eff)

G ((z)jhay)

H (ash)

I (ee)

J ((z)ghee)

K (kah)

L (el)

M (em)

N (en)

O (oh)

P (pay)

Q (cue)

R (air)

S (ess)

T (tay)

U (eww)

V (vay)

W (doo-blah-vay)

X (eeks)

Y (ee-grec)

Z (zed)

Now you know the French alphabet! If you need help pronouncing, google it, as I can't provide a pronunciation for you. 

Keep practicing! Au revoir!

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Lesson 2 - Accents

Accents are very helpful in the French language. They help us to know how to pronounce a word! Today we will be looking at the accents used in French! Let's go!

1. Accent Aigu (Ax-ohn aye-gyuu) - é

Pronounce the "e" like "a" in date. Accent aigu goes up over the letter.

Exemples:

- télévision

- zéro

- écoutez

Accent Grave (Ax-ohn grahv) - è

Pronounce the "e" like the "e" in jet. Accent grave goes down over the letter. Even though it's a bit morbid, think about it like you are digging a grave.

Exemples:

- très

- zèbra

When accent grave is used over the letters "u" or "a," it doesn't change the pronunciation. However, it does change the meaning of the word.

- Où vs ou

- à vs a

Accent Circonflex (Ax-ohn sir-cohn-flex) - ê

This accent can appear over any vowel. It doesn't change the pronunciation, but it can sometimes indicate that a letter has been omitted.

- hôtel

- âge

- flûte

- île

- forêt

Cédille (say-dee) - ç

The tail under the "c" tells you to pronounce this letter like an "s."

- français

- ça va

Tréma - ë

This accent looks like two little dots above a vowel. Sometimes we have two vowels side by side. If the tréma appears over the second vowel, it tells us to pronounce each vowel separately.

- Haïti

- Noël

Now you know your French accents! Keep practicing!

MagentaDream

I love this!! Do you speak fluent French?

HBforever

@purrfect No, not yet. I'm working on my french class, and I'm posting these as I learn... well, except the first discussion with is the first 25 or so lessons.

HBforever

Lesson 3 - Spelling

Sometimes you will hear a word or in this case a name that you will not know how to spell! Never fear! I have the answer!

Let's suppose my name is.... Kyla, per se (which it isn't but I wish it was.. it's a cute name) you might be like "Hmm, Kyla... how is that written?" But you'll need to say it in French, which is...

"Comment ça s'écrit?" (Coh-moh sah she-kree) Which means "How is that written?"

If you are the one to reply with an answer, you would say, "ça s'écrit….. K-Y-L-A (In the scenario)"

Here are some common French boy names and some French girl names. Practice spelling them out loud using the French alphabet, asking and responding to yourself.

Boy names:

Robert (Roh-bear)

Jacques ((z)jhak)

Mamadou (mama-do)

Stéphane (stef-ahn)

Girl Names: 

Anne-Laure (Ann-lohr)

Bertilde (Bear-teald)

Marie (Muh-ree)

Yasmine (yas-mean)

Good luck with your français names. Keep practicing!

HBforever

Lesson 3.5 - Spelling with Accents and Pronunciation Tips

When telling somebody how to spell something, you may come across an accent. There is a certain way to spell with these.

When spelling aloud, you say the letter that will have the accent, and then the accent name.

Exemple:

- Hervé - H-E-R-V-E-(accent aigu)

- Françoise - F-R-A-N-C-(accent cedille)-O-I-S-E

PRONUNCIATION:

In French, we have these things called... Nasal Vowels! Which means the sound mainly comes from your nose. 

In French, these occur with the following letter pairs:

AN/M

EN/M

IN/M

ON/M

UN/M

The "/m" means the vowel can either be with an "n" or "m."

Like I said, the sound comes mostly from your nose. Again, Google it for a tutorial, but a tip to see if you are doing it, is put your fingers up to the bridge of your nose and if you feel a little buzzing when you say the nasal vowels, you are doing it correctly.

The French language also use a special "r" sound (an online tutorial would help with this.). I can't help you too much with this, as I am not very good at it myself, but try practicing saying "cray" to practice this "r" sound. 

The French word for "hello," "Bonjour" incorporates both of these skills..

bON-jouR

Next thing, is most of the time, in French, the "H" is mostly, if not always, silent.

So don't pronounce the "H" sound.

Exemples:

- hôtel

- huile (weel) - oil

- hiver (ee-vear)

 Consonants at the end of words are usually silent. 

Exemples:

- 

- 

- 

- 

We use liasions and enchaînement to link words together to make them sound more beautiful. For example:

- "Mon ami" (mohn ahmi) would sound like "Mo nami" or (moh nahmi)

- "Nous allons" would sound like (new zallohn)

Voila! You have learned a lot this lesson! Keep practicing and you'll be getting good in no time! Ciao!

HBforever

Lesson 4: History Lesson!

,

Okay, I didn't take very many notes for this lesson, because it isn't as important, but it's nice.

Basically... Julius Caesar invaded Gaul (Pre-France) in 58 B.C. The French Language is a mix of Gaul+Latin+German.

French Influence on English:

In 1066 "William the Conqueror" invaded England, which he the made French England's official language.

French words used in English are called, "cognates." 

HBforever

Lesson: 5 - What is a Cognate?

"Cognates" are words that are shared in different languages. They are spelled similarly and have similar meaning.'

Look at these cognates:

French:

blanc (white)

chien (dog)

enfant (child)

faim (hunger)

English:

Blank

Canine

Infant

Famine

Approximately 30% of the English langage has been incorporated from French..

For example:

à la carte

Bon voyage

boulevard

camouflage

faux pas

fiancé(e)

gourmet

hors-d'oeuvre

matinee

nonchalant

cuisine

début

élite

en route

Rendez-vous

rouge

R.S.V.P (répondez s'il vous plait)

sabotage

têtê à têtê

Voila! Great job! Keep practicing!

HBforever

Lesson 6 - Basic and Informal Greetings

Bonjour mes amies! I'm glad to be with y'all again! It's time to learn some basic and informal greetings. Let's begin!

Bonjour! = Hello/Good Morning 

Salut! = Hi!/Bye! (Sah-lew)

Comment t'appelles tu? = What do you call yourself? (Coh-mohn ta-pell choo)

Je m'appelle…= My name is... (Zjhe ma-pell)

Et toi? = And you? (Eh twah)

ça va? = How are you? (sah vah)

Très bien = Very well (treh byah(n))

ça va = It's going

Bien = Well

Pas mal = Not bad (pah mahl)

Plus ou moins = Plus or minus (More or less) (ploohs oh mwah)

Mal = Bad (Mahl)

Très mal = very bad (treh mahl)

à bientôt = See you soon! (Ah bien-toe)

à demain = See you tomorrow! (Ah de-mahn)

à plus tard = See you later! (ah plooh tard)

à tout à l'heure = See you later! (ah tout ah loor)

Au revoir = Good bye (ah reh-vwah)

Bonsoir = Good evening (bohn-swahr)

Ciao = Bye! (Chow)

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Informal Greetings:

Some of these are ones we have learned already, but we are going to review them!

(The ones we've learned already, I won't type the accents because it is not easy to do)

Ca va?

Ja m'appelle…

Comment t'appelles tu?

When you ask a question in French, the inflection of your voice goes up, indicating a question is being asked. 

There are many ways to answer the question, "Ca va?"

Ca va. (No ending inflection.) = It's going.

Ca va bien = it's going well

Ca va tres bien! = It's going very well!

Comme ci comme ça = So so (Cohm see cohm sah)

Plus ou moins = Plus or minus

Ca va mal = It's going badly

Ca va tres mal! = It's going very badly! (Hopefully you never have need to use this!)

Très bien! Good luck!

HBforever

More lessons coming tomorrow! Tomorrow we will be discussing the following: Formal greetings, introductory greetings, numbers 1-100, phone numbers, email (not using any of our personal info), things in your backpack, things in the classroom, and classroom items, plural.

A demain!

HBforever

Bonjour everyone! We will be learning a LOT more today, so get your thinking caps on! After I finish posting all the lessons for this discussion, there will be a test. I encourage you use the lessons as your notes, or better yet use your notes in real life for the test! Obviously it doesn't matter how you do, but it DOES help me know if I'm doing the lessons justice enough for y'all to learn. Ciao!

Caffe

Bonjour, ma cherie! :D 

Comment allez-vous?

HBforever

Bonjour, mon amie! 

Ca va tres bien! Et toi?

HBforever

Lesson 7 - Formal Greetings

As you all may know already, in France, we have a thing called "formal speaking." When you are speaking to someone older than you such as your boss, mother or father, teacher, and so on (even the president!) you would use the word "vous" (voo) instead of the word "tu."

(Pardon this has taken so long. I'm busy with Algebra and looking for stuff for my movie.)

Exemples:

What is your name?

Formal: Comment vous appelez vous? (Coh-moh voo zappel-ay voo)

Informal: Comment t'appelles tu?

How are you?

Formal: Comment allez-vous? (Coh-moh(nt) allay voo)

Informal: Ca va?

HBforever

Lesson 8 - Introductory Greetings

Bonjour! How are you? ……  Okay. What do you call yourself? ……. Nice! It's nice to meet you!

Hello class! Today we will be learning about some introductory greetings. This is how you would greet someone you have never met before. This also means you speak formally.

Let's get into it!

When meeting someone new, in French we say, "Enchanté (ahn-shan-tay)" meaning, "Enchanted" or "Nice to meet you," as we shake their hand. In a French handshake you extend your hand and only shake one up and once down, instead of multiple times.

When introducing yourself formally, you would say, "Je m'appelle (Monsieur (moh(n)-syer), Madame (mad-am), or Mademoiselle (mad-eh-moh-zell))," depending on which title is appropriate.

Monsieur - Mr.

Madame - a married woman

Mademoiselle - a young, unmarried woman

If you do not understand something that was said, you might use the phrase,

Pardon? (pair-doh(n)) - Pardon me?/Excuse me?

If you are greeting someone you know well, such as your mother or best friend, you would exchange things that are called 'La bise (lah beez).' La bise is a series of kisses on the cheek. Practice doing this by holding your hands up in front of you, touch you cheek to either side of your hands, and kiss the air. Make sure when exchanging 'La bise' you DO NOT PRESS YOUR LIPS INTO THE PERSON'S FACE!

Depending on the part of France you are from, you may do La bise 2, 3, or even 4 times!

That's all for this lesson! Keep practicing! Au revoir!

HBforever

Lesson 9 - Numbers 1-20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100

Finally! The moment you all have been waiting for! Numbers! We will work on the multiples of 20-90 in the next lesson, so watch out!

Ready, Set, Go!

0 - Zéro (zay-roh)

1 - Un (ahn)

2 - Deux (duh)

3 - Trois (twah)

4 - Quatre (kat-ruh)

5 - Cinq (sank)

6 - Six (cease)

7 - Sept (set)

8 - Huit (wheat)

9 - Neuf (nuff)

10 - Dix (deese)

Moving on from here is fairly simple..

11 - Onze (onz)

12 - Douze (dooz)

13 - Treize (trez)

14 - Quatorze (kah-tohrz)

15 - Quinze (cans)

16 - Seize (sez)

17 - Dix-sept (deese set)

18 - Dix-huit (deese wheat)

19 - Dix-neuf (deese-nuff)

20 - Vingt (vahn)

From here we will just do tens up to 100..

30 - Trente (trawnt)

40 - Quarante (kuh-rawnt)

50 - Cinquante (sank-awnt)

60 - Soixante (swah-sawnt)

70 - Soixante-dix (swah-sawnt-deese)

80 - Quatre-vingts (ka-truh-vahn)

90 - Quatre-vingt-dix (Ka-truh-vahn-deese)

100 - Cent (sawnt)

Congratulations! Goodluck! Keep practicing!

HBforever

Lesson 10 -  Tens and Ones 20-99

Now we are going to learn how to take the umbers 1-10, and put them with our multiples of 10 to express tens and ones.

So to say 22, we put together 20 and 2: "vingt-deux" separate words w/ hyphen.

If the word includes 1, put "and" in.

Example: 21 - Vingt et un - 20 and 1 ("et" is pronounced (ay))

Let's practice.

34 - Trente-quatre

56 - Cinquente-six

41 - Quarante-et-un

22 - Vingt-deux

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Numbers 60-79

The numbers 60-79 work similar to 20-59.

Example:

61 - Soixante-et-un

65 - Soixante-cinq

69 - Soixante-neuf

When we get to 70, things change a bit. Instead of saying "seventy and one," we say "sixty and eleven."

Example: 

71 - Soixante-et-onze

75 - Soixante-quinze

79 - Soixante -dix-neuf

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Numbers 80-99

When we get to 80, remember 80 is 4 and 20 multiplied.

Example:

81 - Quatre-vingts-un

WAIT! Notice there is no AND between the 10 and the 1. This is because when we come to 80, we leave the 'and' off. Let's keep going.

81 - Quatre-vingts-un

85 - Quatre-vingts-cinq

89 - Quatre-vingts-neuf

Now, when we come to 90, we follow the same pattern we used for 70, where we keep counting up from 10-19/

Example:

91 - Quatre-vingts-onze

95 - Quatre-vingts-quinze

99 - Quatre-vingts-dix-neuf

Now, to review, between the numbers 60-79, we take 60 and tack on 1-19. To say the numbers 80-99, you start with the number 80 and tack on 1-19.

Good job! Keep practicing!

HBforever

Lesson 11 - Phone Numbers and Emails

In France, you may need to ask for somebody's phone number... but how do you say that? You would say:

Quel est ton numéro de téléphone? (kell-ay tohn numero de ta-lay-phone) - What is your phone number?

In France, phone numbers are written as pair with either decimal points in between, or spaces.

For example:

800-555-1234 would be written either as

80.05.55.12.34 OR 80 05 55 12 34. They are said in pairs as well, so that would be said as...

"Quatre-vingts... Zero, Cinq... Cinquante-cinq... Douze… Trente-quatre."

Respond with: Mon numero de telephone est...

Email:

If you need to ask what somebody's email is, you would say,

"Quelle est ton adresse e-mail? (Kell ay tohn ad-ress email)" Or simply change "email" to "mél."

^ What is your e-mail address?

In France, we can say e-mail, or simply "mél."

Do you know these symbols? What are they called in French?

@ - arobase (air-oh-baz)

. - point (pohn(t))

Side Note: Respond to email question with, "Mon adresse e-mail est..."

Good job! Keep practicing!

HBforever

Disclaimer: As far as I know, the example phone numbers posted on the previous post is NOT my phone number. I am not deliberately giving someone's information out. Merci!

HBforever

Lesson 12 - Things in Your Backpack

Even though here you won't be using a backpack, this might be useful at some point. I don't know. Here we go!

Un sac à dos - Backpack (ahn sac-a-doh)

Un crayon - Pencil (Crayoh)

Un gomme - Eraser (gohm)

Un stylo - pen (stee-loh)

Un feuille de Papier - Paper (foee-de-papee-ay)

Un livre - book (leave-ruh)

Une règle - Ruler (reg-luh)

Un cahier - Notebook (cahy-ay)

Un marqueur - Fat Marker (Like Crayola makers) [mark-air]

Un feutre - Thin tipped marker (fat-ruh)

Un ciseau - Scissors (cees-oh)

Les devoirs - Homework (deh-vwah)

Keep practicing so you can impress your family! Ciao!

HBforever

Lesson 13 - Things in a Classroom

Now we are moving to things in a classroom! I might make a class room in-game so I can have some of you come name off the things in the room somehow. :D

Let's go!

Une salle de classe - Classroom (sall-de-class)

Un ordinateur - Computer (or-deen-ah-teur)

Une télévision - Television (tay-lay-vis-see-ohn) or simply télé

Un poster - Poster (post-air)

Une carte - Map (cairt)

Un tableau - Chalkboard (tab-low)

Une table - Table (tab-luh)

Un pupitre - Desk (poo-peet-ruh)

Une chaise - Chair (chez)

La bibliothèque - Bookshelf (biblio-teck)

NOTE: Un is pronounced (ahn) and Une is (ewn).

Congratulations! Good job! Keep doing well!