Friday, October 12, 2007

The Four Seasons

Spring----printemps (prahn tan)
Summer----ete (ay tay)
Fall----automne (otohn)
Winter----hiver (eevehr)

Relations

Father-----Le pere (luh pehr)
Mother----La mere (lah mehr)
Children----Les enfants (leh zahn fahn)
Son----Le fils (luh fees)
Daughter----La fille (lah feeay)
Sister----La souer (lah suhr)
Husband----Le mari (luh mah ree)
Wife----La femme (lah fahm)

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Days and Nights

Day is jour (Pronounced as jhoor)
Mid day is midi (pronounced as meedee)
Night is nuit (pronounced as nwee)
Nidnight is minuit (pronounced as mee nwee)

Need

Now let me tell the reason why the avoir conjugations should be memorized really well. You are in a French speaking country and you are lost and you need something….

“Need” is an important verb according to me, and unfortunately it’s not that easy in French.

Need is avoir + besoin + de in French ( pronounced as avwar buhzwan duh)

Thus if u need something you can say

Je ai besoin duh xxxx ( Pronounced as zhay buhzwan duh xxxxx) ..I need xxx

Avoir

This word is pronounced as avwar and its English meaning is “to have”. This is one of the most complex words I have come across while picking up my extremely limited French vocabulary. This verb takes the following forms with the various pronouns

Je ai ( Pronounced as zhay) ---- I have
Il/ Elle a ( pronounced as eel/ehl ah) ---- He/she has
Nous avons (pronounced as noo zavohn) ---- We have
Vous avez (pronounced as voo zahvay) ---- You have
Elle ont (pronounced as ehl zohn) ---- They have

Well, the best way to move to the next step is just to get this memorized.

Music, books and films

Your favorite hobbies are related to music, books and films? For most of the French, these are

Music is musique ( pronounced as mew seek)
Book is livre (I cannot pronounce it correctly but it should sound something like leevr)
Film is Le Film ( pronounced as luh feelm)

Songs and Singing

How can it happen that, we are talking about French and we have not yet talked about songs and singing? So here they are

Song is chanson ( Pronounced as shon son)

Singing is chanter ( pronounced as shontay)

Chanter (I guess) is a normal verb with no special connotations.

So now if you know how to sing, can you express it in French?