Conversational French Lesson 1

French Lesson 1
Language Lessons Paco: Educational and Entertaining. :)

SETTING:
Soon, you will meet someone who will want to talk to you. It could very well be the concierge (now known as le gardien or la gardienne, if it's a woman) of your building (immeuble). Let's call him Monsieur Bertrand.

CONVERSATION:
A) Bonjour, Monsieur.

B) Bonjour.Vous êtes Madame Smith, n'est-ce pas? On vous attendait.

A) Pardon? Oui, je travaille à l'ambassade.

B) Oui, bien sûr. Je suis le gardien, M. Bertrand.

A) Ah! Je comprends.

A CLOSER LOOK:
Bonjour Good morning
Monsieur Sir, Mr.
Madame Mrs.
Vous You
Êtes Are
N’est-ce pas? Isn’t it?
On One
Attendait From the verb attendre: to expect, wait
Pardon Pardon me
Oui Yes
Je I
Traivaille From the verb traivailler: to work
À At
l’ambassade The embassy
Suis Am
Le The
Gardien Concierge, doorkeeper, porter
Comprends From the verb comprendre: to see, understand
Bien sûr Of course

VOCABULARY NOTES:
bonjour: literally, good morning; but it is used as hello until the evening.
Vous êtes Monsieur…?: You are Mr…?
Or you can say: Etes-vous M…?

Questions can be formed either by using the usual subject-verb-object word order and rising intonation as in the first example, or by inverting subject and verb, as in the second example.

n'est-ce pas?: isn't it? used at the end of a sentence, when one expects agreement with the preceding statement.

travaille: present, singular for of the

verb travailler: to work.

Bien sûr: of course.

On vous attendait: we were expecting you.

*The audio and the information for this video came from the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) which is in the public domain.