French: Ouverture

Key point 6: Learning by listening

Listening ‘passively’

We have provided you with a recorded version of some of the written texts that appear in this unit. You can use these as simple listening exercises. The benefit of this is that it accustoms your ear to French sounds – without too much stress.

The same can be done with the radio. If you are about to go on a car journey, do the ironing or the washing-up, use this ‘low-grade’ time to listen to French radio*. Don't worry if you don't understand everything: the point of the exercise is just to get used to the rhythm and sounds of French. In the process, you will also gradually become more familiar with some of the words and expressions that recur constantly in everyday speech.

Listening ‘actively’

There are various things you can do with the recorded texts that will help you develop your pronunciation, your spelling and your comprehension of spoken French. For example:

• as you listen, follow the text and highlight the words or phrases you find difficult to pronounce;
• listen and read the text out loud along with the recording, making sure you follow the rhythm of the sentences;
• listen to part of the recording and transcribe it, then compare your version with the original text in the book.

* France Inter can be found on 163 kHz longwave, Europe 1 on 182 kHz longwave.

If you can, make short recordings from French radio too. Then choose a short extract to work on – thirty to sixty seconds is enough to start with – and try some of the following ideas:

• jot down the main ideas covered;
• write a summary in French or in English;
• transcribe the extract;
• come back to the same extract a few weeks later to see whether your comprehension has improved.

Grammar Point 5 Remembering the gender of names of countries

When you are trying to work out the gender of a country in French, it helps to remember that most countries are feminine and end in ‘-e’: for example la France, la Belgique, la Turquie, l'Algérie, l'Australie.

The names of countries that are masculine are:

• the five exceptions to the above rule: le Cambodge, le Mexique, le Mozambique, le Zaïre and le Zimbabwe;
• those which do not end in ‘-e’: le Costa Rica, le Sénégal, le Pakistan, etc.;
• those which contain a masculine noun, such as état (‘state’) or pays: les États-Unis, le pays de Galles (Wales), les Pays-Bas (the Netherlands), etc.

Grammar Point 6 Using ‘à’ and ‘en’ with place names

Towns

Use à to translate ‘in’ or ‘to’ (remembering that à combines with the definite article le, which is part of some city names, to form au).

Jean-Michel habite à Édimbourg mais il a aussi une maison à La Ciotat et une autre au Havre.

Monique vit à Londres. Normalement elle retourne à Marseille chaque été. Mais cette année elle va au Caire.

Countries and continents

To translate ‘in’ or ‘to’:

• use en with a feminine name:

  Ils vivent en Irlande depuis longtemps. Généralement ils vont en Écosse pour les vacances, mais cette année ils vont en Afrique.

• use en with names that are masculine singular and begin with a vowel:

  Je suis allé(e) en Afghanistan, en Iran et en Uruguay.

• •use au (the contraction of à + le) with names that are masculine singular and begin with a consonant:

  Philippe et sa femme partent demain au Costa Rica.

  Ils ont habité au Canada, au Japon et au Danemark.

• •use aux (the contraction of à + les) if the name is plural:

  Ils habitent aux États-Unis mais retournent souvent aux Antilles pour voir leurs parents.

Grammar Point 7 Making liaisons

If the word that follows en begins with a vowel sound, the ‘-n’ of en is pronounced and runs into the next word, as in en Irlande [ãnirlãd] . A sound linking two words in this way is called a ‘liaison’.

A similar thing happens with the pronunciation of aux États-Unis [ozetazyni] or aux USA, where the final ‘-x’ and ‘-s’ are pronounced [z] before the vowels ‘é’ [e] and ‘u’ [y].

Key point 7: improving your pronunciation

Listen to the CD extracts you have worked on so far and read out their transcriptions. Make a note of those words and phrases that you find more difficult to pronounce. If you wish you could record these and listen to yourself. You could work for example on the pronunciation of some of the phrases from Extract 2:

c'est impossible! (with the liaison, and stressing the first not the second syllable of impossible)

c'est la meilleure époque

j'aime mieux

Grammar Point 8 Asking questions

As you work through the audio and video recordings, you'll hear questions asked in a variety of ways. They are described below.

1 Verb + subject (formal French)

Êtes-vous contents de partir en Nouvelle-Zélande?

2 Est-ce que + subject + verb

Est-ce que vous êtes contents de partir en vacances?

3 Subject + verb, with rising intonation at the end of the sentence (informal French)

Where you need to use a question word, the equivalent structures are as follows.

4 Question word + verb + subject (formal French)

Quand prenez-vous vos vacances?

Pourquoi pars-tu à l'étranger?

Combien de jours de congé pouvez-vous prendre?

Comment dit-on ‘See you soon’ en français?

À quelle heure prend-il le train?

Où passe-t-il ses vacances?

Note that the ‘t’ in passe-t-il here has no particular meaning and is only needed when the verb ends with a vowel and the pronoun starts with a vowel too. This eases pronunciation and is a general rule for questions.

The same word order is used with the interrogative pronoun que and with qui when it is the object of the verb.

Qui emmenez-vous à Caen?

Que faites-vous cette année?

5 Question word + est-ce que + subject + verb (informal French) Note that est-ce que is optional here.

Comment (est-ce que) vous dites ça en français?

À quelle heure (est-ce que) ça commence?

Qui (est-ce que) tu emmènes avec toi?

However, the use of est-ce que is compulsory after the interrogative pronoun que.

Qu'est-ce que vous faites ce soir?

6 Subject + verb + question word (informal French)

Ça commence à quelle heure?

Cette année, vous partez où ?

Julien, tu fais quoi ce soir?

Finalement, vous emmenez qui ?

Vous pouvez prendre combien de jours de congé par an?

Examples of how these questions sound are available below

Key point 8: Practising asking questions

Here are some ways in which you can increase your opportunities to practise asking questions.

• Listen to the audio or the video and note down the answers people give to the questions they are asked. Then, some time later, try to work out what the questions were. You can check against the transcripts.
• When listening to French radio, listen out for examples of questions and jot them down in your Notebook.
• Whenever you are speaking French yourself, look out for opportunities to use all forms of questions. Make sure that you use the register (formal/informal) required in the situation.