Learn how to ask somebody for his / her profession. Learn different profession names in French, how to ask polite questions and what the possessive adjectives are. You will also see the difference between “tu” and “vous“, or how to politely addressto other people.
1. Dialogue: What do you do for a living ?
Qu’est-ce que vous faites dans la vie ?
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Qu’est-ce que vous faites dans la vie Monsieur ? – Je suis professeur d’histoire. Et vous Madame, que faites-vous dans la vie ? – Je suis médecin. Je travaille dans un hôpital. Qu’est-ce que votre voisin fait dans la vie, Monsieur ? – Mon voisin ? Je crois qu’il est pompier. Que faitvotre fille dans la vie ? – Ma fille est vétérinaire. Et toi, qu’est-ce que tu fais dans la vie? – Je travaille dans un salon de coiffure. Je suis coiffeur.
2. Notes
[su_spoiler title=”Grammar”]
Asking questions: Est-ce que / Qu’est-ce que / Que …
Qu’est-ce que vous faites dans la vie ? = What do you do for a living ? / What is your occupation ? / What do you do ? (Formal and polite expression) que = what (very common word in French). It can have several meanings. [wp-svg-icons icon=”point-right” wrap=”i”] tutoiement: using tu: informal, used only between young people or friends.
Examples:
Qu’est-ce que tu fais ? What are you doing ?
Comment vas tu ? How are you doing ? [wp-svg-icons icon=”point-right” wrap=”i”] vouvoiement: using vous: formal and polite. Used with people you don’t know or to whom you need / want to refer with respect.
Examples
– Que faites-vous dans la vie ?
– Où habitez-vous ? Where do you live ?
[wp-svg-icons icon=”point-right” wrap=”i”] est-ce que : a very common way of asking questions in French.
Qu’est-ce que …. = What do you …. (Que + est = Qu’est (e != e))
no inversion of the subject and verb in questions with est-ce que.
[wp-svg-icons icon=”point-right” wrap=”i”] Examples: Qu’est que tu fais ? Whare are you doing (right now) Qu’est ce que tu fais dans la vie ? What do you do for a living ? Où est-ce que tu travailles ? Where do you work ? Où est-ce que tu habites ? Where do you live ?
Inversion:
[wp-svg-icons icon=”point-right” wrap=”i”] Que faites-vousdans la vie ? = Qu’est-ceque vous faites dans la vie ?
It is a very formal way of asking questions in French.
Conjugation: faire | travailler
Faire ( to do )
Travailler ( to work )
je fais tu fais il fait / elle fait / on fait nous faisons vous faites ils / elles font
je travaille tu travailles il /elle / on travaille nous travaillons vous travaillez ils / elles travaillent
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[su_spoiler title=”Additional Grammar”]
Possessive adjectives (adjectifs possessifs): my, your (polite and friendly forms)
I’m speaking about my neighbour(s):
mon voisin: my neighbour
ma voisine: my (female) neighbour
mes voisins: my neighbours (the “s” in voisins is not pronounced !)
I’m speaking about your neighbour(s):
ton voisin: your neighbour
ta voisine: your (female) neighbour
tes voisins: your neigbours
I’m speaking about your neigbour(s) (polite)
votre voisin: your neighbour
vos voisins: your neighbours
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[su_spoiler title=”Pronunciation”]
/ə/ → je, que
/ɔ̃/ → mon, pompier
! monsieur /ə/
/œ/ → professeur, cœur, bonheur
[/su_spoiler]
Work, Mr. Nixter, Flickr.
Boulvard St. Germain, by Roman Boed, Flickr.
3. Exercises
[content id=”439″]
[xyz-ihs snippet=”What-do-you-do-for-a-living”]
4. Homework
Write in French what kind of work you do and where (in what place) you work. Record your work.
Choose 5 people from your surroundings and write what their professions are and where they work.
Learn how to briefly talk about yourself in French. Learn how say what your name and age are, where you live (city and country), what you do for a living, what you like doing, where you work and what languages you speak. Audio text with interactive exercises to improve your learning.
Read the text below and listen to the audio for pronunciation. Next, do the reading comprehension exercise and answer the questions at the end. For any problems with comprehension, take a look into the Notes section.
1. Text: Talk About Yourself in French
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Bonjour. Je m’appelle Marie. J’ai 27 ans et j’habiteà Nantes, en France. J’ai toujours vécu dans cette ville. Je suis professeur de français et je travaille à l’Université. J’aimeapprendre les langues étrangères. Je parle anglais et espagnol. J’aime également sortir avec des amis et voyager. Je suis déjà allée* en Allemagne, en Pologne, en Espagne, en Angleterre et en Irlande. Et toi, quels pays as-tu visités ?
2. Notes
[su_spoiler title=”Vocabulary”]
French
English
habiter à
to live, to dwell
travailler
to work
aimer
to like
apprendre
to learn
parler
to speak
les langues étrangères
foreign languages
sortir
to go out
aller
to go
quel (quels / quelle / quelles)
which, what
visiter
to visit, to go to
habiter à Nantes / à Paris / à Rome
travailleràl‘hôpital /àla radio / au centre commercial
J‘aivécu: I have lived / I lived … aimer apprendre / manger / voyager / rencontrer
[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Grammar”]
Le présent et le passé (Le passé composé )
A. Simple Present Tense:
– Le présent : current actions and situations, habits, general truths
Examples:
Je m’appelle Marie.
J’habite à Nantes.
Je parle espagnol.
Je suis professeur.
Conjugation example:
The most common French verb group is the the “-er” group, that all the verb that end on “er”. Examples: parler, habiter, aimer, s’appeler.
All of them conjugate the same way, by adding the appropriate suffixes to the stem (its base) of the verb. -e, -es,-e, -ons, -ez, -ent
habiter : to live in, to dwell
j’habite en France
tu habites à Paris
il / elle / on habite près de chez moi.
nous habitons ensemble
vous habitez loin
ils / elles habitentà côté.
B. Past Tense
– Le passé composé: completed actions in the past.
être / avoir + verb (past participle).
Whether you need to use être or avoir depends on the verb.
Eg. avoir + vivre
Je vis à Nantes. I live in Nantes.
J’ai vécu à Nantes. I lived / have lived in Nantes.
Eg. être + aller
Je vais à Berlin. I go to Berlin.
Je suis allé à Berlin. I have been to Berlin.
Je vais à l’école. I go to school.
Je suis allé à l’école. I went to school / I have been to school.
! I have been to Spain = Je suis allé en Espagne = J’ai visité Espagne.
! Je suis allée = you add the “e” at the end of the “allé” when you “Je” refers to a girl. It exists and is visible only in writing.
Le passé composé conjugation
avoir + vivre
être + aller
J’ai vécu à Madrid
Tu as vécu en Espagne
Il / elle / on a vécu séparement
Nous avons vécu dans une maison
Vous avez vécu à Moscou
Ils / elles ont vécu en couple
Je suis allé à Paris
Tu es allé au travail
Il / elle / on est allé(e) se laver les mains
Nous sommes allés à l’église
Vous êtes allé(s)* vous promener
Ils / elles sont allés en vacances
The “s” in this sentence should appear if “Vous” refers to more than one person. If it is “vous” as in the polite and formal way of addressing someone, the “s” is dropped.
The French R makes you sound French and the only way to master it is through pronunciation practice.
The rrrrr sound is a distinctive sound of the French language. It gives satisfaction to those who can pronounce it effortlessly and nightmares to those who can’t.
I can say so because I have been through it.
Even if your speach is fluent, that is you understand and you speak without efforts, there might still be some slight differences in the way you pronounce certain French sounds.
Normally, anyone knowing that you are a foreigner won’t point those out, but it is indispensable if you want your French to sound, well … French.
And what makes you sound French ? Of course, the French guttural rrrrrrrr…. sound.
Why the French R is Important ?
Your French nasal sounds may be awful, your stress and intonation despicable, but as long as you are able to pronounce the French “r” you can feel French. It’s just so distinctively French that nothing beats it, but that is just my opinion….
With a correct pronunciation, you will avoid some sarcastic remarks too, people are people after all, whatever the nationality I guess …
Why did I create these exercises ?
I’m not French myself, so ever sine I came to France I wanted to learn the French language and sound French too. I just couldn’t stand the spiteful remarks and the way people would look at me if I started to speak with a hard “R”, the way the people from the eastern countries often do…
I thought that if your mouth muscles produce the sounds of your native language that your brain is subconsciously telling it to do, then all you need to do is to convince your brain to do the same but for new sounds.
And how you do that ?
By repeating the specific sounds many times. That is how you develop the muscles in your mouth to produce the sounds and get your brain accustomed to hearing them and producing them.
I don’t think it’s going to become 100% subconscious as with your mother tongue, but it will significantly improve your pronunciation.
That is why it is easier for the people already living in the country where the language is spoken since they hear and produce the specific sounds (or at least something that is close to it) on everyday basis.
However, it is wrong to think that this is the sine qua non condition to an adequate pronunciation. Far from it !
How many people have you met who have been living abroad for ages and still struggle to sound more like a native ? Lots of them.
Unfortunately, there are people who have been living for decades in a foreign country and they can’t even speak the language of their new home country. But that’s a different story, since there are many factors that must be taken into account: human factor, family relations, psychology of the individual, social contact, etc.
And this is not because they are less gifted or less smart. They just don’t know how to learn and didn’t take time to work on it.
That’s why I like to think of second language acquisition as very similar to physical workout, especially nowadays when the world is going fast and you need to (and want to) learn fast.
And this is particularly true in the case of pronunciation, since your muscles are involved in the process. It’s just you won’t come across people doing these exercises at your local gym [wp-svg-icons icon=”smiley” wrap=”i”].
How to produce the French “R” sound ?
Uvula (french-linguistics.co.uk)
It is a sound that is produced in your throat.
What you should do is to gurgle as if you were cleaning your throat, or trying to scratch your itching pallet with the compressed air coming from your lungs.
The French “R” sound is what the specialist call a uvular fricative.
You need to have the feeling that the back of your pallet is working slightly and your tongue should stay motionless.
It is very close to the sound of snoring on exhalation(when you breath out). You can try this out.
It is very easy to inhale the air and make the palet vibrate. It is slightly more difficult to do the same on exhalation, but this is where you will find your French “R”.
Of course, this is only an approximation ! Your gurgled “R” will sound a bit artificial and forced at the beginning.
To pronounce the French “R” correctly, you will have to practice it a bit to make it smooth.
You should notworry too much about pronouncing it correctly, as in the real speech you don’t pay that much attention to one particular sound.
That is also the secret of mastering this particular sound. Many learners of French commit the mistake, quite naturally, to push it a bit too far.
They overdo it and it makes them sound weird. This kind of behaviour is quite normal.
That’s why some of the learners give the whole thing up and either pronounce the “r” as the would in their native language (à l’américaine (the English style) ou à la russe (the Spanish style) , or they keep overdoing it. The solution lies, as usual, in between.
The types of “R”
You also need to know that the French “R” does not always sound the same way. Sometimes it is more or less audible. It may depend on such things like:
the speaker,
the speed of speech,
the place of the sound in relation to other syllables in the sentence,
stress that the speaker puts on that particular sound or others
or other things that I am not clever enough to enumerate …
But you don’t need to analyse all that in your speech, it is just good to know. With a bit of practice you will come to the same conclusion.
You might hear some of the French People make a trilling “R” with their uvula (like the one you can hear in the songs of Charles Aznavour or George Brassens).
This is not the reference however and most ofthe French people don’t speak like that.
How to practice the French “R” ?
In order to have an impeccable French “R” pronunciation, you must speak French and listen to a lot of French all the time ! Yeah, right….
That would take ages and would cost you a lot of frustration along the way !
In order to improve a particular aspect of something, you need to make a conscious and concentrated effort over a given period of timeto accelerate its improvement.
In our case, you need to focus on that particular aspect of the French pronunciation (that is the French R sound), exhaust your muscles (yes, your mouth and throat have muscles too !), by repeating the sound in exercises, exaggerating it even, and then smooth it out in speech.
Exercise 1
Do you remember that gurgling and snoring I told you about ? You take it and you repeat it continuously with all of the French vowel sounds (a, e, i, o, u). You start slowly.
With some practice you can make it faster so you can produce that uvular fricative “r” sound effortlessly.
ra ra ra
re re re
ré ré ré
ri ri ri
ro ro ro
ru ru ru
Exercise 2
With nasal vowels as with an, in, un, on.
In this exercise not only will you practice your French R sound but you will also practice the other distinctive French sounds, that is the nasal vowels like an[ã], in[ɛ̃], and on[õ].
an [ã] : grand, franc, ranger
in [ɛ̃] : brin, fringues, ringard
on [õ] : rond, front, gronder
Try to do that exercise whenever you have time (in a car, in the elevator, in your shower, etc). Once a day for a minute for one week would be perfect.
Exercise 3
The other trick is to practice with words. The ones below will really muscle your vocal apparatus. Some of them can be really hard.
They will not only make you work your French “R”, but also some other important sounds associated with o, e, é, er, an, u.
rajouter, râler, racorder
regarder, recevoir, redire
répéter, réussir, récupérer
rire, ricaner, riche
robert, robinet, romantique
rural, rustique, russe
Buy the ebook: “Master the French R Sound”
Do you want to take your French pronunciation to a higher, native like level ? Here is how !
Conclusion
The best advice I can give you as a conclusion is to work hard your exercises everyday for a week exaggerating the sounds while practicing them and not to worry too much about it in the actual speech.
In fact, forget it is there and that it doesn’t sound very “RRR” like the real French “r”.
If you concentrate too much on pronouncing the French “R” correctly, not only will it sound strange but it will also wear you out, make your speech less fluent and natural and you will feel quickly exhausted.
That’s right, speaking a foreign language is kind of a strain for your brain (though beneficial and giving lots of satisfaction) so you’d better take it easy concentrate of the fun part.
Should you have any suggestions concerning how to pronounce and improve the French “R”, share it with me in the comments !
Learn how to introduce yourself in French, tell your name, your age and where you are from. You will also see how to ask simple questions in French, basic French conjugation, the verb to be (être), to have (avoir), to be called (s'appeler) and you will discover names of different nationalities in French. You will also have your first lesson on French phonetics: how to correctly pronounce je, j'ai, tu and d'où.
1. Dialogue : Je m’appelle … .
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Comment t’appelles-tu ? – Je m’appelle José. Es-tu espagnol ? – Oui, je suis espagnol. Je viens de Barcelone. Quel âge as-tu ? – J’ai21 ans. Et toi ? Moi, je m’appelle Julien, j’ai 25 ans et je suis français. Je viens deBordeaux.
2. Notes
Comments on French grammar, vocabulary, phonetics.
[su_spoiler title=”Grammar: Basic Conjugation”]
A. Basic words of French:
être, avoir, venir, s'appeler (more about the conjugation of the 2 most important verbs in this article)
Congratulations! You have just discovered three very basic albeit important and frequent French verbs and one reflexive verb: a very common type of verb in Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, among others). s’appeler = to be called
[wp-svg-icons icon=”point-right” wrap=”i”] Je m'appelle Jean. | Tu t'appelles Tom. | Elle s'appelle Anna. | Il s'appelle Julien.
être = to be
[wp-svg-icons icon=”point-right” wrap=”i”] Je suis espagnol. | Tu es français. | Elle / Il est de Paris. ( She / He is from Paris)
avoir = to have
[wp-svg-icons icon=”point-right” wrap=”i”] J’aisuis 21 ans. (Je + ai = J'ai). | Tu as une voiture. | Il / Elle a un passeport français.
venir = to come.
[wp-svg-icons icon=”warning” wrap=”i”] venir de = to come fromvenir à = to come to
[wp-svg-icons icon=”point-right” wrap=”i”] Je viens de Londres (London). Tu viens de Chine. Elle vient d'Allemagne (Germany)
[wp-svg-icons icon=”point-right” wrap=”i”] D'où viens-tu ? Where do you come from ? (où: where)
[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Grammar: Asking Questions”]
Asking Questions in French
1. Inversion
Very formal and very polite way of asking questions.
It consists in inverting the subject and the verb.
1. Je suis espagnol. [wp-svg-icons icon=”point-right” wrap=”i”] Es-tu espagnol ? (Are you Spanish ?)*
2. Il est américain. [wp-svg-icons icon=”point-right” wrap=”i”] Est-il américain ? '(Are you American ?)
A very popular way of asking questions in French. Used in everyday speech as well as in formal situations.
It consists in adding est-ce que before any affirmative statement.
Tu es français.Est-ce quetu es français ?
Vous avez rendez-vous. Est-ce que vous avez rendez-vous ?
3. Intonation
The easiest one and the most popular in spoken French is raising intonation.
Tu es anglais ? ↗
Tu parles français ? ↗
Tu viens de Bordeaux ? ↗
[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Dialogue Vocabulary”]
French
English
s’appeler
to be called / to have as a name …
être
to be
avoir
to have
venir
to come
venir de
to come from
[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Additional Vocabulary”]
Nationalities ( Les nationalités )
The names of nationalities in French are written insmall letters, unlike in the English language !
French
English
français
French
anglais
English
sénégalais
Senegalese
marocain
Moroccan
allemand
German
russe
Russian
américain
American
espagnol
Spanish
suédois
Swedish
[/su_spoiler]
[su_spoiler title=”Phonetics”]
Je /ə/ , / J’ai /ɛ/
Tu /y/ , d’où /u/
[/su_spoiler]
3. Exercise: Translate into French
[su_spoiler title=”Click to show the explanation of the exercise”]
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[xyz-ihs snippet=”simple-introduce-yourself”]
4. Homework
Read the dialogue aloud 3 times. Do it slowly, be careful with your pronunciation. You need to feel your facial and tonguemuscles work. This will do miracles to your pronunciation and will make your speech more automatic and fluent.
Basing yourself on the dialogue from this lesson, answer the following questions (your name, age, origin). Look up in a dictionary the words you don't know. Recordyour answers, upload to SoundCloud and drop you answer in the comment section !
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