LESSON NOTES

Lower Beginner S1 #1
Love at First Sight in France

CONTENTS

Dialogue - French
Main
English
Vocabulary
Sample sentences
Vocabulary phrase usage
Grammar
Cultural insight

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DIALOGUE - FRENCH
MAIN

1. Jacques : Marcel, la fille devant est vraiment belle.

2. Marcel : Ah oui, elle est très belle.

3. Jacques : Elle est seule aussi.

4. Marcel : Oui, comme toi.

5. Jacques : Elle est belle, elle est seule et moi, je suis... je suis... amoureux !

6. Marcel : Tu es amoureux ?! Déjà ?!

ENGLISH

1. Jacques : Marcel, the girl in front is really pretty.

2. Marcel : Oh yes, she's very pretty.

3. Jacques : She's alone too.

4. Marcel : Yes, like you.

5. Jacques : She's pretty, she's single, and I'm...I'm...in love!

6. Marcel : You're in love? Already?

VOCABULARY

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French English Class Gender

vraiment really adverb

seul alone, sole, single, adjective masculine

lonely, only

être to be verb

fille girl, daughter noun feminine

devant in front, ahead adverb

très very adverb

beau (masc.) / beautiful, adjective masculine /

belle (fem.) handsome, pretty feminine

aussi too, also adverb

comme as, like conjunction

toi you stressed pronoun (pronom tonique) corresponding

to the 2nd person singular (Tu)

et and conjunction

déjà already adverb

SAMPLE SENTENCES

Il a vraiment dit ça? Nous sommes vraiment désolé(e)s mais nous ne

pouvons pas sortir ce soir.
"He really said that?"
“We are really sorry, but we cannot go out
tonight.”

J'aime vraiment ce film! Je suis vraiment seul.

"I really like this movie!" "I am really lonely."

Tu es seul. Être ou ne pas être.

"You are alone." "To be or not to be."

Il est gentil J'ai deux filles.

"He is nice." "I have two daughters. "

Sa fille aide à l'organisation de la réunion, donc Comme toi, la fille est seule.
vous devriez mettre une chaise supplémentaire.
"Like you, the girl is alone."
"His daughter is assisting with the reunion's
organization, so you should set an extra seat."

Jacques est devant moi. Très bien.

"Jacques is in front of me." "Very good."

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 Elle est vraiment belle. Je suis beau.

"She is really pretty." "I’m handsome."

Nous avons aussi des muffins. Je suis aussi allé(e) chez le dentiste la semaine
dernière.
"We also have muffins."
"I also went to the dentist last week."

Elle apprend aussi le français. Je suis comme toi: j'aime le chocolat.

"She also learns French." "I'm like you; I like chocolate."

Comme tu vois, ce n'est rien. Tu fais quoi, toi ?

"As you see, it's nothing." "What do you do?"

Toi, tu viens avec moi. Elle est belle et elle est seule.

"You, you are coming with me." "She is pretty and she is single."

Toi et moi. Elle danse et elle chante.

"You and I." "She dances and she sings."

Nous avons déjà mangé. déjà manger

We have already eaten. already eat

Il est déjà amoureux! Il a déjà pris une décision.

"He is already in love!" "He already made a decision."

VOCABULARY PHRASE USAGE

Seul

Seul (an adjective) has a lot of different meanings in French. Jacques est seul can mean that Jacques is
"alone," "single," or "lonely. The meaning is usually clear from the context.

Seul is a typical French adjective: to make the feminine form, simply add -e at the end of the word.
However, we do not pronounce this -e; basically, we distinguish the masculine and feminine forms in
writing only.

For Example:

1. Il est seul.
"He is single."
2. Elle est seule.
"She is single."

Beau

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Beau (an adjective) means "good-looking" or "handsome." Jacques est beau means "Jacques is
handsome." It has an irregular feminine form, belle, which we translate as "pretty" or "beautiful," so
"Mireille is beautiful" becomes Mireille est belle. English borrowed these words as the nouns "beau" and
"belle"; they can be nouns in French too, but they are almost always adjectives.

Vraiment

Vraiment (an adverb) means "really" or "truly." We construct English adverbs by adding "-ly" to
adjectives; in French, we add -ment. Vraiment is built from vrai, "true," and -ment. You can turn other
adjectives into adverbs; for instance, if you take seul, you can make seulement, meaning "only." Don't
forget: adverbs go after the verb in French, not before!

For Example:

1. Elle est vraiment belle!

"She is really pretty!"

GRAMMAR
The Focus of This Lesson Is the Verb "to Be," Être.
Tu es amoureux?
"You're in love?"

In French, the verb "to be" is être. It's probably the most common French verb, so it's important to learn
it right from the beginning; unfortunately, it's also the most irregular. We will look at the present tense
conjugation of the verb. Make sure you also learn all of the personal pronouns.

French "English"

je suis "I am"

tu es "you are" (informal singular)

il est/elle est "he is"/"she is"

nous sommes "we are"

vous êtes "you are" (polite or plural)

ils sont/elles sont "they are" (ils is masculine; elles is feminine)

Pronunciation: Although the verb has a different form for every person, tu es and il est sound the same.
Note also how we pronounce the silent s of vous as a [-z] in front of êtes. You may know this
phenomenon as liaison, when a silent consonant is pronounced before a vowel.

Usage: We use être in pretty much the same way we use "to be" in English. One notable exception is that
people don't introduce themselves by saying je suis and their name. They use the expression je
m'appelle, which we will introduce in the next lesson. Following are some examples of how you can use
être.

For Example:

1. Jacques est devant moi.

"Jacques is in front of me."

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 2. Vous êtes belle.
"You are beautiful." (formal singular, feminine)
3. Ils sont seuls.
"They are alone."

Pronunciation: Subject pronouns, like je, tu, and il, are stuck to the verb, and there should be no pause
between the two. You should pronounce il est as if it were a single two-syllable word: i-lè.

The adjective that follows the verb "to be" agrees in number and gender with the subject. That's why we
have vous êtes belle, where belle is feminine singular because vous refers to a woman. We say ils sont
seuls where seuls is masculine plural like the subject.

Toi, Moi

In the lesson, Marcel says comme toi, "like you," and Jacques says moi, je suis amoureux, "I'm in love."
We call moi and toi strong pronouns. They have the same meaning as je and tu, except that we use them
away from the verb, such as with a preposition (devant toi, "in front of you"). Also, to put emphasis on
the subject, English will stress the pronoun ("I am alone"); to achieve this in French, we add a strong
pronoun: moi, je suis seul. That's why you might sometimes hear French speakers say "Me, I'm...".

For Example:

1. Moi, je suis seul.

"I'm alone."
2. Toi, tu es belle.
"You are pretty."
3. Elle est devant moi.
"She is in front of me."

CULTURAL INSIGHT
Cognates

There is no doubt that learning a second language is a difficult endeavor, but English speakers learning
French have one major advantage: cognates. These are words that are similar in both languages, either
because one language borrowed it from the other or because they both borrowed it from the same
source. At the beginning of the previous millennium, a large number of French words entered the
English language. Although the words have evolved separately for over 1,000 years, many words are still
easily recognizable. In this lesson, we had seul ("sole"), amoureux ("amorous"), and more recent
borrowings like beau, belle and déjà as in déjà-vu ("already seen" or "seen before"). While you need to
pay attention to the French pronunciation of these words, you should definitely use these cognates to
your advantage!

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