LESSON TRANSCRIPT

Basic Bootcamp S1 #3
Useful Phrases for Learning French

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
LESSON CONVERSATION
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
VOCAB LIST
KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES
LESSON FOCUS
OUTRO

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INTRODUCTION
Virginie: Bonjour Bonjour!

Eric: Eric here! Useful Phrases for Learning French. I'm joined in the studio by...

Virginie: Hello, everyone. Virginie here. We hope you enjoyed the previous French push-ups, thank you
for being with us today. What's today's focus, Eric?

Eric: In this lesson, you will learn 5 phrases to boost your French learning.

Eric: This conversation takes place in an French as a second language class.

Virginie: The conversation is between a student of French and his teacher.

Eric: The speakers are speaking in formal French.

Eric: Ok, so let's listen to the conversation.

LESSON CONVERSATION
A: Madame, comment vous dites a fork en français ?

B: Une fourchette.

A: Vous pouvez répéter ? Lentement, s'il vous plaît ?

B: U-ne four-chette.

A: Vous pouvez le noter, s'il vous plaît?

Eric: One more time, a little more slowly.

Virginie: Encore une fois, plus lentement.

A: Madame, comment vous dites a fork en français ?

B: Une fourchette.

A: Vous pouvez répéter ? Lentement, s'il vous plaît ?

B: U-ne four-chette.

A: Vous pouvez le noter, s'il vous plaît?

Eric: How about in English.

A: Madame, comment vous dites a fork en français ?

Eric: Madam, how do you say "a fork" in French?

B: Une fourchette.

Eric: "Une fourchette."

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A: Vous pouvez répéter ? Lentement, s'il vous plaît ?

Eric: Can you repeat? Slowly, please?

B: U-ne four-chette.

Eric: "U-ne four-chette."

A: Vous pouvez le noter, s'il vous plaît?

Eric: Please write it down.

POST CONVERSATION BANTER

Eric: It's always great to have in mind a few important phrases when speaking French.

Virginie: Yes, especially when you are in a country where people speak very fast and eat up their words.

Eric: True, French people tend to not pronounce all the syllables, and at first it can be kind of confusing.

Virginie: Not to say frustrating... So, don't hesitate to cut people off in the middle of their speech to have
them repeat something.

Eric: Euh..maybe not in the middle of their speech.

Virginie: Yeah, but don’t worry, as long as you use magic words…

Eric: What are those?

Virginie: S'il-vous-plait.

Eric: Which means “please.” S'il-vous-plait.

Eric: Especially if you are addressing someone on the street that you don’t know very well.

Virginie: For example you're in the subway and you need to ask someone for direction. In that case you
should definitely start your sentence with "s'il-vous-plait". French people are not used to random
conversations with strangers. It is rather odd when someone comes to you and says "oh yeah, I was
listening to what you're talking about, and I think..." etc,

Eric: French people are usually a bit more formal in their conversation, right?

Virginie: Yeah, you don’t just butt in.

So, if you want to ask someone for some information, just say "s'il-vous-plait?" before you ask your
question. Great. Moving on, let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson.

VOCAB LIST
Virginie: comment [natural native speed]

Eric: how

Virginie: comment [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Virginie: comment [natural native speed]

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Eric: Next

Virginie: une fourchette [natural native speed]

Eric: a fork

Virginie: une fourchette [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Virginie: une fourchette [natural native speed]

Eric: Next

Virginie: s'il vous plaît [natural native speed]

Eric: please (formal)

Virginie: s'il vous plaît [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Virginie: s'il vous plaît [natural native speed]

Eric: Next

Virginie: vous pouvez [natural native speed]

Eric: you can (formal)

Virginie: vous pouvez [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Virginie: vous pouvez [natural native speed]

Eric: Next

Virginie: noter [natural native speed]

Eric: to write down, to note

Virginie: noter [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Virginie: noter [natural native speed]

Eric: Next

Virginie: le (pronoun) [natural native speed]

Eric: it, him

Virginie: le (pronoun) [slowly - broken down by syllable]

Virginie: le (pronoun) [natural native speed]

KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES

Virginie: Ok, let's take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from our conversation.

Eric: Ok, so the first phrase is not really a phrase, it's a word. It''s "Madame", and it's used to call
someone, or address someone, in a polite way.

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Virginie: It's the equivalent of Madam in English.

Eric: Ok. The second phrase is very important for anyone who’s learning French - “how do you say
something in French?”

Virginie: Yes, which is "comment vous dites fork en français?"

Eric: Of course you can substitute any word that you wanna know, comment vous dites ____ en français.

Virginie: For instance, comment vous dites street en français?

Eric: The answer to that is…

Virginie: La rue.

Eric: “The street.”

Eric: Please don’t forget. When we are saying the word vous this is all formal speech meaning that we
are addressing someone who is you know, a higher rank or in a formal context.

Virginie: Yes. Remember from our previous lesson that if you talk to a friend, you wouldn’t say vous you
would say tu

Eric: So you could say, for example, comment tu dis fork en français?

Virginie: comment tu dis

Eric: That would be used to address someone who is you know of the same age as you or someone you
know well. Let’s move on to our third phrase: Vous pouvez repeter?

Virginie: Right. “Can you repeat?”

Eric: Again, a very important phrase for someone learning a new language and that’s not only people
who are learning French but even French native speakers who ask you to repeat, right,Virginie?

Virginie: Right, yeah. My grandma keeps telling me, just calm down, slow down. I don’t understand what
you are talking about, yes.

Eric: I am really lucky then to be able to speak to you in English.

Virginie: Yeah. I won’t speak fast in English at all. Don’t worry about that.

Eric: And then the fourth phrase is going to be: Lentement, s'il vous plaît, “slowly please.”

Virginie: Yes. Lentement, s'il vous plaît.

Eric: Again we notice the magic words at the end of that, s'il vous plaît.

Virginie: Yeah. Lentement is an adverb which means slowly and it will be very helpful with fast speakers.

Eric: And again, these are all things you’ll need when you encounter Virginie in the streets of France.

Virginie: Okay. Let’s go to our last phrase which is: Vous pouvez le noter, s'il vous plaît? “Can you write it
down please?”

Eric: So this phrase is going to ask how to write something down. The verb noter also means to notice or
to note. It has several meanings in this one word.
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Virginie: Yes. You know, English for example has a lot more words than French. In French, you will have
one word with three or four or five different meanings.

Eric: It’s very convenient. So, I want to mention one other important part of this sentence. When we say,
vous pouvez LE noter, we are putting the pronoun before the verb. This is always going to be the case in
French.

Virginie: Yes absolutely.

Eric: This doesn’t happen in English. In English, we would say, can you write it but in French, we are
saying something more close to “can you it write”

Virginie: Yes.

Eric: Vous pouvez LE noter

Virginie: I would just like to mention a little thing here. Make sure that whenever you ask a question in
French, your intonation goes up at the end of the sentence.

Eric: Right. This will allow people to know that you are asking a question and not making a statement.

Virginie: That will sound like Vous pouvez le noter, s'il vous plaît?

Eric: Otherwise if you are just saying a statement, you would say Vous pouvez le noter, which you know,
the intonation is totally stable throughout.

Virginie: Right.

Eric: So now, let’s move on to the grammar point for this lesson.

LESSON FOCUS
Virginie: Okay. You notice that in our conversation, all the questions and phrases were used with the
word vous, the formal vous. Now, we are going to see how you would ask your friend to repeat what
you’d just said.

Eric: And again, when you are talking to somebody who is of the same age or background as yourself,
you are going to say tu.

Virginie: So, can you repeat will be: Tu peux repeter?

Eric: Again, using the informal pronoun tu.

Virginie: And then if you need your friend to write down a word, you will ask him: Tu peux le noter, s'il te
plaît?

Eric: So we just want to keep in mind also that we are using the same infinitives here. Whether it’s vous
pouvez or tu peux, we are using the infinitive pouvoir.

Virginie: Yes the verb pouvoir, “can.”

Eric: That is spelled pouvoir, pouvoir. Finally, to wrap up this grammar point, when you are saying please
to somebody who is your friend, you are going to say s'il te plaît, and not s’il vous plaît.

Virginie: So remember s’il vous plaît for people you don’t know or formal situations, and s'il te plaîtwith
your friends or family.

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OUTRO
Eric: Ok, great! That just about does it for today. Merci! Au revoir!

Virginie: Thank you! Bye!

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