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Lesson 1: Introduce Yourself

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 … .

Comment t’appelles-tu ?
– Je m’appelle José.
Es-tu espagnol ?
– Oui, je suis espagnol. Je viens de Barcelone.
Quel âge as-tu ?
– J’ai 21 ans. Et toi ?
Moi, je m’appelle Julien, j’ai 25 ans et je suis français.
Je viens de Bordeaux.

 

2. Notes

Comments on French grammar, vocabulary, phonetics.

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
Je m'appelle Jean. | Tu t'appelles Tom. | Elle s'appelle Anna. | Il s'appelle Julien.

être = to be
Je suis espagnol. | Tu es français. | Elle / Il est de Paris. ( She / He is from Paris)

avoir = to have
J’ai suis 21 ans. (Je + ai = J'ai). | Tu as une voiture. | Il / Elle a un passeport français.

venir = to come.
 venir de = to come from venir à = to come to
Je viens de Londres (London). Tu viens de Chine. Elle vient d'Allemagne (Germany)
D'où viens-tu ? Where do you come from ? (où: where)

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. Es-tu espagnol ? (Are you Spanish ?)*
2. Il est américain. Est-il américain ? '(Are you American ?)
3. Il s'appelle Marc. Comment s'appelle–t–il ? (  s'appelle-il e-i)
2. Est-ce que
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 que tu 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 ? ↗

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

Additional Vocabulary

Nationalities ( Les nationalités )

The names of nationalities in French are written in small 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

Phonetics

 

Je /ə/ , / J’ai  /ɛ/  

 

 

Tu /y/ , d’où  /u/  

 

 

3. Exercise: Translate into French

Click to show the explanation of the exercise

Type in the French translation of the sentence in English. If you are stuck or need a suggestion, look closely into the dialogue above. Some detail might have escaped your attention.

  The punctuation marks have already been added there for you. Don't add the punctuation mark ( " . ", " ? ", " ! ") at the end of the sentence as it won't validate your answer ! Sometimes you may be asked to add a comma ( " , ") inside a sentence.
  For the French characters, if you don't know how to type them on your keyboard, please use the virtual keyboard provided below the exercise. The French characters are necessary for the sentences to be correctly completed. Otherwise, your sentence won't be validated.
  Please, remember: this kind of exercise, that is reading the lesson first and then trying to retrieve it from your memory and / or helping yourself by looking back into the lesson is EXTRAORDINARILY efficient. You will be surprised how fast you will learn and how quickly you will actually build your own sentences.

1. What's your name ?
?
2. My name's José.
José.
3. Are you Spanish ?
?
4. Yes, I'm Spanish.
Oui, .
5. I come from Barcelone.
.
6. How old are you ?
?
7. I'm 21 years old. And you ?
. Et toi ?
8. My name is Julien.
Julien.
9. I'm 25 (years old).
ans.
10. I'm French.
.
11. I come from Bordeaux.
.

4. Homework

  1. Read the dialogue aloud 3 times. Do it slowly, be careful with your pronunciation. You need to feel your facial and tongue muscles work. This will do miracles to your pronunciation and will make your speech more automatic and fluent.
  2. 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. Record your answers, upload to SoundCloud and drop you answer in the comment section !

     

    1. Comment t'appelles-tu ?
    2. Quel âge as-tu ?
    3. D'où viens-tu ?
    4. Quelle est ta nationalité ?

5 Replies to “Lesson 1: Introduce Yourself”

  1. Pingback: Lesson 3: Nice to Meet You ! - Simple-French

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