LEARN

FRENCH
BY PODCAST
AUDIO PODCASTS
FOR LEARNERS
OF FRENCH Lesson
2
AS A FOREIGN
LANGUAGE

Talking about friends

and family

Plus Publications
Bramley
Douglas Road
Cork
Ireland
(t) 353-(0)21-4847444
(f) 353-(0)21-4847675
(e) editor@learnfrenchbypodcast.com
(i) www.learnfrenchbypodcast.com
 Lesson 02
Level: beginner.
the verbs avoir, passer and lire
saying how you get on with people
speaking about things in general
talking about playing instruments
adjectives ending in if
Dialogue

Hello once again, and welcome back to Learn French by

Podcast. My name is Hugh Nagle and here with me is
Amlie Verdier. Welcome back, Amlie!
Bonjour!

Today were going to talk about friends and family. To get

started, Amlie, lets hear a little about your own friends
and family. Well hear what you have to say 3 times, as
usual.

On y va!
Jai une soeur. Ma soeur sappelle Aurlia et elle
a dix-huit ans. Elle habite avec mes parents dans Remember!
le sud de la France. Elle passe, cette anne, son
baccalaurat. Je mentends bien avec elle. Elle est le baccalaurat
trs littraire, elle aime la musique et la lecture. This is the final exam in French
secondary schools. Students
Now, youre going to tell us a little more later, almost invariably refer to this set of
exams simply as le bac.
but lets deal with the part first. Lets hear that a second
time le brevet
Jai une soeur. [] This exam takes place at the end of
Junior High School.

And a final time

Jai une soeur. []

Lets look at a couple of things. First you said you had The verb Verb!
a sister avoir
Jai une soeur. to have avoir [to have]
Jai.............................I have
Jai, thats the first person, present tense of the verb tu as..........................you have
avoir. I have a brother would be il a.............................he has
Jai un frre. elle a..........................she has
on a...........................one has
nous avons................we have
I have a boyfriend vous avez...................you have
Jai un petit ami. ils ont........................they have
elles ont.....................they have
He has a girlfriend
Il a une petite amie.

une petite amie lets hear the difference again

between those two:
un petit ami. une petite amie

Now, your sister, again, her name is sappeler

Elle sappelle Aurlia. Remember!
Elle sappelle. Now, in our first lesson we met the his name is / her name is
expression Je mappelle. This time, we have Elle il sappelle.................his name is
sappelle Her name is. Of course, his name is elle sappelle..............her name is
Il sappelle

Lets remember all three of these: Je mappelle,

 Plus Publications. All rights reserved.

 Lesson 02
Level: beginner.
the verbs avoir, passer and lire
saying how you get on with people
speaking about things in general
talking about playing instruments
adjectives ending in if
Dialogue

Il sappelle and Elle sappelle

Then you said how old Aurlia was

Oui. Elle a dix-huit ans.

Elle a. Thats the verb avoir, which we must use when avoir when
talking about age, right? Your uncle how old is he? saying how old Watch it!
Mon oncle? Il a cinquante ans. someone is We said avoir is the verb
to have
And your aunt Jai un frre...............I have a brother.
Ma tante? Elle a quarante-neuf ans. Elle a un chien..........She has a dog.
But this verb is also used when
Ok, then. We must remember this: its the verb avoir talking of someones age:
when were talking about someones age. Elle a quarante ans...She is 40.
Paul a quinze ans.....Paul is 15.
Moving on Aurlia, o habite-elle? north, south,
Elle habite dans le sud de la France. east, west
Dans le sud de la France, In the south. Now, in the
north is?
Dans le nord

And the west?

Dans louest

And the east?

Dans lest.

Lets hear those one more time In the south?

Dans le sud

In the north
Dans le nord

In the west
Dans louest

And, in the east

Dans lest

Now, on the subject of Aurlias exams cette anne, elle passer to sit passer
passe son baccalaurat, nest-ce pas? (an exam)
Cest exact. Elle passe ses examens en juin.
In relation to exams, this verb
means to sit:
The verb passer now that could be confusing. It has Elle passe ses examens en juin.
several meanings but, in relation to exams, it means to [She sits (or is sitting) her exams
sit, not to pass! How would you say My cousin is in June.]
sitting his law exams?
Mon cousin passe ses examens de droit.

And Carole is sitting her Junior High School exams?

Well, in France, we refer to those as Le Brevet, so we
would say
Elle passe son Brevet.

Plus Publications. All rights reserved. 

 Lesson 02
Level: beginner.
the verbs avoir, passer and lire
saying how you get on with people
speaking about things in general
talking about playing instruments
adjectives ending in if

sentendre
Dialogue

Now, you said you get on well with your sister

Oui, je mentends bien avec elle. avec to get verb:
on well with sentendre avec
Lets hear that one more time
This verb means to get on with
Je mentends bien avec elle. [someone]
Je mentends bien avec Philippe.
You could use this expression in relation to your father,
Here are the other parts of the
too, right? You would say verb:
Je mentends bien avec lui.
Je mentends
tu tentends
avec lui with him. Once again? il sentend
Je mentends bien avec lui. elle sentend
on sentend
nous nous entendons
Now in the case of your sisters, or your brothers, or your vous vous entendez
parents, if it were the case that you get on well with them ils sentendent
all, you would say: elles sentendent
Je mentends bien avec eux. This is called a reflexive verb.
Well be studying these more
And one more time? closely later.
Je mentends bien avec eux.

avec eux with them. So, to summarise, we have

avec elle, avec lui and avec eux. with her,
with him, with them.

Now, you spoke about the things your sister likes speaking things in
Oui. Elle aime la musique et la lecture. about things in general
general
Elle aime thats the verb aimer to like. Now we
You need to include a definite
must remember to use the article le, la or les when article (le, la, les) when talking
were talking about things in general. Things we like about things in general.
doing, activities that interest us. We would also have Jaime le sport...........I like sport.
Jaime le thtre, and so on. Lets try a few more. How Elle aime la danse.....She likes
would we say She adores chocolate!? dancing.
Elle adore le chocolat!

le chocolat the article is there again. How about My

brother loves football? verb: aimer
Mon frre adore le foot.
This verb means to like
Pascale loves reading? Jaime........................I like
Pascale adore la lecture. tu aimes....................you like
il aime.......................he likes
elle aime...................she likes
Once again, la lecture, with the article la on aime.....................one likes
accompanying the noun lecture. nous aimons.............we like
vous aimez................you like
ils aiment..................they like
elles aiment..............they like
Note!
There is a large group of verbs in
French which end in er. Youve
already met a few: habiter, passer,
aimer. They all have the bold
endings (above) in common.

 Plus Publications. All rights reserved.

 Lesson 02
Level: beginner.
the verbs avoir, passer and lire
saying how you get on with people
speaking about things in general
talking about playing instruments
adjectives ending in if
Dialogue

Excellent. Now you are going to tell us a little more about

Aurlia
Elle lit beaucoup et elle joue du saxophone et de la
guitare. Elle est aussi sportive: elle fait de lescalade.

Lets hear all that a second time

Elle lit []

And a final time

Elle lit []

Ta soeur, Aurlia, elle lit beaucoup, nest-ce pas? the verb lire lire
Oui, elle lit beaucoup.
This is the verb to read
Et toi? Je lis..........................I read
Moi aussi, je lis beaucoup. tu lis..........................you read
il lit............................he reads
Je lis thats the verb lire to read. In the singular, elle lit........................she reads
on lit..........................one reads
we have a simple sound: Je lis, tu lis, il lit. In nous lisons.................we read
the plural, its different. If we were talking about several vous lisez...................you read
people, wed say ils lisent.....................they read
Ils lisent elles lisent.................they read

Now, Aurlia is musical, right? jouer de +

Oui. Elle joue du saxophone et de la guitare. instrument
Du saxophone? De la guitare? Now, what about these
words in front of those instruments? Well, you know that
nouns are either masculine or feminine in French. When
were talking about playing instruments, if the instrument
were talking about is masculine, we say du. If its
feminine, we say de la. Amlie, how should we say Paul
plays the piano?
Paul joue du piano.

du piano because piano is masculine. Pascale plays

the flute?
Pascale joue de la flte.

de la flte because flte is feminine. Jeanne plays

the clarinet?
Jeanne joue de la clarinette.

de la clarinette because clarinette is, again,

feminine. Now we should mention instruments which
begin with a vowel or a mute h. How about Eric plays
the harmonica?
Eric joue de lharmonica.

de lharmonica. Once again, we see that this h is

effectively redundant. It is not pronounced.

Plus Publications. All rights reserved. 

 Lesson 02
Level: beginner.
the verbs avoir, passer and lire
saying how you get on with people
speaking about things in general
talking about playing instruments
adjectives ending in if

adjectives
Dialogue

Not only is your sister musical, but shes also a sports

enthusiast. ending in if adjectives
Oui. Elle est sportive. Elle fait de lescalade.
Adjectives which end in if in
the masculine form normally
sportif keen on sport. We find a number of adjectives change to ive in the
which end in if in French. In the feminine, they change feminine:
to ive. So, we get sportif, and masculin .................fminin
sportive actif ..........................active
sportif.......................sportive
nocif .........................nocive
Then theres actif, and
active

Nocif, which means harmful or noxious, would

become
nocive

nocive, that is, if we were talking about a feminine

item a chemical, or something which was unhealthy or
whatever.

Now, you said Aurlia lives with your parents chez chez
Oui, elle vit chez mes parents.
chez means someones place
chez. Thats a very important word. It means (to) Je vais chez Paul.
someones place or, to a particular place, without Elle va chez le docteur.
mentioning the exact location. How would we say My
mother is going to the doctor?
Ma mre va chez le docteur.
verb!
chez le docteur to the doctors (place), if you like.
aller [to go]
Are you coming to my place? Je vais .......................I go
Est-ce que tu viens chez moi? tu vas........................you go
il va...........................he goes
elle va .......................she goes
And one more time? on va ........................one goes
Est-ce que tu viens chez moi? nous allons ...............we go
vous allez..................you (formal/pl.) go
ils vont......................they go
chez moi to my place. Im going to Pauls elles vont ..................they go
place
Je vais chez Paul.

chez Paul.

Weve covered a lot today. Dont forget that you

can find all of this information in the accompanying
PDF Guide, available from our website at
learnfrenchbypodcast.com. In our next lesson, Amlie,
were going to talk about
le monde du travail

That is, the world of work. Until next time

A la prochaine!

 Plus Publications. All rights reserved.

 Lesson 02
Level: beginner.
the verbs avoir, passer and lire
saying how you get on with people
speaking about things in general
talking about playing instruments
adjectives ending in if
Dialogue

If you understood our lesson, then you should be ready for the following Vocab extra!
anne (f)................year
Now its your turn

beaucoup...............a lot, many

1. They have a sister. [Suppose that you are talking about Philippe and Marc.] bien sr!.................certainly!
Cest........................thats
2. Karl has a girlfriend.
ce, cette..................this
3. Diane has a boyfriend. droit (m).................law
escalade (f)............(rock) climbing
4. We live in the north of France. examen (m)...........exam
faire........................to do
5. He sits his exams in June.
frre (m).................brother
6. He gets on well with them. jouer.......................to play
lecture (f)...............reading
7. We like chocolat. littraire.................literary
moi.........................me
8. They like sport. [Suppose that youre talking about your brothers.]
mon, ma, mes........my
9. I play the piano. monde (m).............world
o...........................where
10. He reads. soeur (f).................sister
travail (m)..............work
11. Im going to Maries (place).
venir.......................to come

click!

See the answers at http://www.learnfrenchbypodcast.com/FTEW_pages/answers.htm

Plus Publications. All rights reserved.