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Sections: |
Introduction | Section 1 | Section 2 | Section 3 | Dictionaries |
Section One: |
Section One - Part B La Côte d'Ivoire
Although we call it the Ivory Coast in English, the official name is Côte d'Ivoire. It is one of the French-speaking countries in West Africa. It has a population of 13 million, 16% of which are Christians and 23% are Muslim. The majority practice traditional African religions involving ancestral worship. They believe that after people die, they become spirits who remain in constant contact with the living. Masks have a very important symbolic role in Ivoirian life.
Masculin ou féminin? In Part A, you learned some new vocabulary--these new words are called "adjectives". Do you know what the job of an adjective is? Adjectives describe nouns (people, places, things, ideas). You can use your new vocabulary to talk about yourself or other people. You may have noticed in looking at the pictures that there are two forms for many of the adjectives. The man said, je suis blond; the woman said, je suis blonde. If you did not notice this, please go back and listen. When you are talking about a male person, you will use the masculine form of the adjective. When talking about a woman, use the feminine form. The neutral form that you will find in the dictionary is the masculin form. If an adjective ends in a consonant, you'll add an -e to make it feminine. Sometimes, you may have to double up the consonant, but you'll learn that as we go along. The other thing that happens is that when you add an -e, the consonant which was not pronounced before, now is! Find the pattern below. Look at the spelling changes and listen to the different pronunciations for the two forms of the same adjective.
It is not difficult. It is simply something we have to remember in French. If the adjective already ends in -e, you don't have to worry about anything! It'll be the same for both the masculine and the feminine.
Au travail! Write these exercises in your notebook.
C'est
un homme, c'est une femme....
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