French I, Semester I; Le Jour et la Date

Sections:

Introduction  |   Section 1  |   Section 2  |   Section 3   |   Dictionaries

Section Three:

Part A  |   Part B  |   Part C  |   Part D

Section Three, Part A Subject Pronouns - these words replace a person, place or thing that is the subject of a verb. In Unit 1, you learned to talk about where people live. Let's review that briefly. Do you remember how to say: I live in... J'habite à... You (a close friend) live in... Tu habites à... You (your French teacher) live in.... Vous habitez à... Do you remember all of that? Do you know what the words "I" and "you" are called in English? They're subject pronouns. They can be the subject of a sentence. Can you think of what the other subject pronouns are in English? See if you can think of the subject pronoun to replace these nouns: yourself I Giselle she Paul he Paul and yourself we Giselle et Paul they Giselle and Anne they Let's look at all the subject pronouns in French. The ones in red are the ones you already know. je (I) nous (we) tu (you informal) vous (you plural) vous (you formal) elle (she) elles (they / feminine) il (he) ils (they / masculine) on (one)*   * NOTE: "On" in French conveys the idea of "they" or "everyone" or "people" when no specific subject is used. We see this happen in English in this way: They speak French in France. People need umbrellas when it rains. We are not saying "they" as in the plural of he; rather, we are saying they, without using a specific subject. It is an indefinite subject pronoun. Au Travail! Write this exercise in your notebook. When you've finished, check your answers by clicking on the word to see if you got it right. Which pronoun would you use in the following situations: To talk to your dad tu To talk to your French teacher vous To talk about your little brother il To talk about your French teacher elle/il (depending on whether male/female) To talk about your two best male friends ils To talk about your two best female friends elles To talk about yourself and a friend nous To talk to two friends vous We will continue to work with subject pronouns so if you are having trouble, be sure to let your teacher know.   Practice Activity - Do this to practice replacing subject nouns with pronouns. Speedword   Quelle est la date? What is the date? Now that you know the numbers up to 31, we can work on being able to say the date in French. First, we have to know the months. Click here to watch a presentation on the months of the year. Did you notice that, just like the days of the week, the months are not capitalized in French? Practice Use this practice session to become familiar with the concepts of this lesson module. Watch the presentation on dates. Look at the table below to compare how you say the date in English and French. Look for patterns. Saying the Date English French It's April thirtieth. C'est le trente avril. It's May tenth. C'est le dix mai. It's June sixteenth. C'est le seize juin. It's December twenty-fifth. C'est le vingt-cinq décembre. It's July first. C'est le premier juillet. Did you notice any patterns? Let's figure them out together. I'll ask the question and you come up with the pattern. Then, click on Pattern to see if you got it right. What is different about the first letter of the month in English and in French? The first letter of the month is capitalized in English, but not in French. Where does the month in English go? It goes before the number. Where does it go in French? It goes after the number. What kind of number is used to indicate the date in English? A number that usually ends in -th. That's called an ordinal number. It indicates order: tenth, fifth. First, second and third are also ordinal numbers although their form is a bit different. What kind of number is used to indicate the date in French? Just the plain number. These are called cardinal numbers. What is used in French that is completely absent in English? le. So, literally, we're saying "it is the 16 of June." What is the only exception to the patterns we've identified in French? For the first day of the month, the ordinal number premier is used. It's always in the masculine because jour that it is talking about, is masculine. Knowing these patterns, explain why we write the date as mm/dd/yr in English and as dd/mm/yr in French. Because when we speak, we say March 10th, 2005, for example, while in French, we would say the 10 march 2005. Have you ever noticed that sometimes in American business people indicate the date as "16 June" for example?   Practice With this in mind, try to write the dates for the following. Click each one to see if you are right. January 4 c'est le quatre janvier November 20 c'est le vingt novembre June 10 c'est le dix juin May 26 c'est le vingt-six mai  Writing Assignment Give an accurate or approximate date for the following events in French. Give your answers in complete sentences and use vocabulary that we have learned in this course. Go to Writing 3a to hand in this assignment. 1. Your mom's birthday (or dad's) 2. The first day of school 3. Your birthday 4. The date you are doing this activity 5. The last day of school 6. Your best friend's birthday 7. Your favorite date of the year 8. Bastille Day This assignment is worth 16 points. Flashcards Using flashcards can help you memorize vocabulary. This is the vocabulary from Unit 2. Remember: Practice makes perfect, so do these any many times as you need to to be completely comfortable with the words. Vocabulary Flashcards Va à 3b.

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