Si j'ai l'air d'être encore très malade, je pars. If I look like I'm still very ill, I'm leaving. Si j'ai l'air d'être encore très malade, je pars.
This is an intermediate French sentence. And as you'll see by the end of this video, you'll have all the building blocks for this sentence. How can you make intermediate French sentences and sound like an adult even in French?
What common mistakes can you avoid between partir and sortir? And what's the deal with si in French? Let's revisit a few previous lessons together so you can go beyond the basic level of French. I'm Géraldine, c'est parti! Je suis encore à la maison, je suis...
toujours à la maison, these two sentences can be different or mean the same depending on the context. Today we'll see the difference between encore and toujours. Encore, encore with the nasal en, and toujours, toujours with this je sound, the French r, and with the silent s, are two French adverbs.
They can mean the same or not, but they're always spelled in the same way. At first glance, encore and toujours are different. Encore means again, as in je me suis encore perdue. I got lost again. Je me suis encore perdue.
Meanwhile, toujours is used as a translation for always in English. For example, je suis toujours contente de te voir. I'm always happy to see you. Je suis toujours contente.
Except that sometimes, of course, because it's French, they both mean still. As in, Elle n'est pas sortie. Elle est encore chez elle.
And this is exactly the same thing as Another example, if you're about to jump, you might ask yourself, Tu as toujours... envie de faire du saut à l'élastique? Do you still want to do bungee jumping? Tu as toujours envie de faire du saut à l'élastique?
It is exactly the same thing as tu as encore envie de faire du saut à l'élastique? Exactly the same. But for me, it is no. This is really not my thing.
The problem now is that the translations don't just stop there because encore and toujours have more meanings than just that. For example, toujours might mean anyway. As in, je ne sais pas s'il va pleuvoir, mais je vais toujours prendre un parapluie, on ne sait jamais.
I don't know if it's going to rain, but I am going to take my umbrella, you never know. Je ne sais pas s'il va pleuvoir. Mais je vais toujours prendre un parapluie. On ne sait jamais.
Here, for example, using encore wouldn't make any sense at all. Another meaning, pour toujours, very useful, means forever. Pour toujours.
With encore, we have other meanings as well. Like we use it to mean even more and even less. For example, Elle est encore moins motivée que moi. She's even less motivated than me. Elle est encore, I do la liaison, moins motivée que moi.
Another example. Vous êtes encore plus gentille qu'hier. You're even nicer than yesterday.
Vous êtes encore plus gentille qu'hier. Third one. Oh non!
C'est... encore pire. Oh no, it is even worse.
Pretty useful. Oh non, c'est encore pire. In the negative, encore becomes pas encore or pas encore depending on the liaison that you want to make.
It means not again or not yet. For example, tu t'es brossé les dents? Non, pas encore. Did you brush your teeth. Not yet.
Tu t'es brossé les dents? Non, pas encore. Or, le chien a mangé ta brosse à dents. Oh non, pas encore. The dog...
Ate your toothbrush? Oh no, not again! Le chien a mangé ta brosse à dents?
Oh non, pas encore! Avoir l'air, avoir l'air is an everyday French expression that works like a verb and it is much more used than any of its alternatives. Avoir l'air, avoir l'air is the combination of the irregular verb avoir avoir, to have, and l'air, the air. So it literally means to have the air off, but it actually means to seem or to look like in French. If you type it seems okay in Google Translate, for example, you might find a translation with sembler or paraître.
They're synonymous, but they're way too formal. It is not what we would use in everyday spoken French. Avoir l'air is much more common. Now, you can use avoir l'air in three ways.
The first one is with the preposition de and a verb. For example, Il a l'air de vouloir sortir. He looks like he wants to go outside. Il a l'air de vouloir sortir.
The second one is with de and a noun. For example, Elles ont l'air de boulangères douées. They look like competent bakers.
Elles ont l'air de boulangères douées. And finally, simply with an adjective. For example, tu as l'air triste, ça va?
You look sad, are you okay? Tu as l'air triste, ça va? As you can see, avoir l'air follows the conjugation of avoir, to have.
But l'air never changes, and you can adapt the expression to any subject. For example, an affirmative sentence would be something like Tu as l'air d'un clown. You look like a clown. Tu as l'air d'un clown.
Where we have de plus a noun, and the noun is un clown. With an adjective, it could be Il a l'air bon ce gâteau. This cake looks good.
Il a l'air bon ce gâteau. And at last, with nous, we can try with a verb. For example, nous avons l'air d'avoir besoin de vos conseils.
Do we look like we need your advice? Nous avons l'air d'avoir besoin de vos conseils. And here you can notice that avoir l'air agrees with nous, with the verb avoir, but l'air doesn't change.
Finally, let's try to put these examples in the negative form. Simply add ne and pas around avoir. So you have n'avoir pas l'air. For example, vous n'avez pas l'air heureux.
You don't look happy. Vous n'avez pas l'air heureux. And remember our previous lessons?
Yes, in everyday spoken French, we remove the ne in the negation. So we would say, vous n'avez pas l'air heureux. You don't look happy. Vous n'avez pas l'air heureux. Now, if there is another verb after avoir l'air, you can add ne pas before this second verb.
For example, elles ont l'air de ne pas aimer ton gâteau. They look like they don't like your cake. Elles ont l'air de ne pas aimer ton gâteau. Je sors du travail à 18h.
Je pars du travail, j'arrive bientôt. Sortir and partir. Partir are two irregular French verbs very close in meanings, but we do not use them in the same way.
What do they mean? How can you use them to speak French more fluently and join a French conversation? Basically, sortir, sortir means to get out or to go out from somewhere.
Why partir? Partir means to leave indefinitely. But these are very broad translations and they don't match perfectly.
We mainly use sortir when getting out of a specific place like a room or a building. You might use some more specific verbs in English, but in French it is sortir. For example, En sortant de la boulangerie, j'ai trébuché.
When I walked out of the bakery, I stumbled. En sortant. De la boulangerie, j'ai trébuché. And when we use sortir, it is to mean something that is... limited in time.
For example, je sors faire les courses. I'm going out to buy groceries. Je sors faire les courses.
Or, je sors cinq minutes, je dois passer un coup de fil. I am going out of the room for five minutes because I need to make a phone call. Je sors cinq minutes, je dois passer un coup de fil. Here in English, you could say I am leaving the room to make the phone call.
But in French, in this example of leaving a room, we are much more going to use sortir instead of partir. It is much more natural. That's because partir is much more indefinite.
You're going somewhere further and for a long time. For instance, désolé, je dois partir. I'm sorry, I have to go or I have to leave. Désolé, je dois partir. And this is a very polite way to take your leave in French.
Or, je pars de chez moi le mois prochain. I am leaving my place or I am moving away next month. Je pars de chez moi le mois prochain. And you can see the difference with je sors de chez moi le mois prochain. which would instead mean I'm only going out next month.
Je sors de chez moi le mois prochain. But with partir and sortir, sometimes there is some overlap. With, for example, je sors du travail à 18h. I am getting out of work at 6. And je pars du travail à 18h.
I am leaving work at 6. Both mean kind of the same. With sortir, you stress out that you're going out, while with partir, you stress out that you're leaving for somewhere else. But that's a very subtle difference, and both versions work in everyday French. Now, you might notice that the first-person conjugations for sortir and partir are je sors and je pars.
Yes, they're both irregular verbs. But their present conjugation is pretty easy so let's review it first. Sortir. Repeat after me. Je sors.
Tu sors. Il, elle, on sort. Nous sortons.
Vous sortez. Il ou elle sort. Now partir. Je pars.
Tu pars. Il, elle, on... Par.
Nous partons. Vous partez. Il ou elle part.
For example, nous sortons le gâteau du four. We are taking the cake out of the oven. Nous sortons le gâteau du four.
Yes, because contrary to partir, you can say sortir quelque chose. To get something out of something else. As in...
Tu penses à sortir le chien? Can you think of walking the dog? Tu penses à sortir le chien?
Another idiomatic use of sortir is in sortir avec des amis. Sortir avec des amis, to go out with friends. For example, on sort ce soir? Are we going out tonight?
On sort ce soir? Finally, we can use sortir to mean released, as in Le film sort l'année prochaine. The movie will be released next year. Le film sort l'année prochaine.
Or mon livre sort bientôt. Mon livre sort bientôt. My book will be out soon, will be published soon. Mon livre sort bientôt. Meanwhile, partir also gets some idiomatic uses.
You already know one. C'est parti, c'est parti. And you can't use sortir instead. Same with partir en vacances, to go on a holiday. For instance, Elles partent souvent en vacances en été.
They often go on holiday in the summer. And finally, partir is the verb we use for a bus or a train leaving. As in, le train part dans cinq minutes. The train leaves the station in five minutes.
Le train part dans cinq minutes. Last week, my son was crawling everywhere in the living room and he managed to sit under the bed. the couch which was pretty funny so I took a picture obviously and I sent it to my mom on whatsapp and she answered Comment il a fait pour s'asseoir dessus le canapé?
Well, my mom is Mexican, she's been living in France for almost 39 years and she never took any kind of formal French lessons so she still struggles with U and OU and with SUR and SOU, DESSUS, DESSOU exactly like you probably do. So today, maman, I will show you how to use those and how to say them so you can speak French with less mistakes and more confidence. And if you're not my mom, this will be useful as well. Let's start with SUR and SOU. We use SUR and SOU with a complement right after it.
It can be a noun or a pronoun. For example, La girafe est sur le livre. La girafe... Sur means on, on something. Here, the giraffe is touching the book.
You can also say, It works as well. Here, sous with a silent s means under, under something. There's always a complement after sur and sous. They cannot be used on their own.
Wait, wait, wait, wait. I can't hear you from here. Well, Jolene, it's very, very difficult for a non-French... the sound doesn't even exist in English or in Mexican Spanish.
OK, so all the words that kind of mean under have a sound. The sound is like the in blue. OK, blue.
And you hear it in everything that's under. That's all under. And all the words that mean on top have a sound.
I know the doesn't exist in English. So you have to make the OU and Make your mouth go further. U. OU, U. OU, U. Yes, I know I look ridiculous, but it's to help you. So the U sound is more forward in your mouth.
U, U. Try it with me. U, U. And you find this with all the words that are on top, as I said. For example, SUR, DESSU, AU DESSU, PAR DESSU.
All these have a U sound. So where were we? We were talking about LA GIRAFLE SUR LE LIVRE, as now. La girafe est sur le livre.
So what if you don't want to repeat le livre every time over and over? Do you always need a noun? Well, this is what we're going to see with a pair of words now.
Où est le livre? Tu es dessus? Dessus means on top of it, on it or on the top side.
There is nothing after it. It stands on its own. That's why we cannot say dessus le canapé, it doesn't work. We would say sur le canapé, on the top of the couch, on the couch, sur le canapé, or just dessus. For example, j'ai trouvé la télécommande, j'étais assise dessus.
J'ai trouvé la télécommande, j'étais assise dessus. I found the remote control, I was sitting on it. Dessous, however, means under it.
It's exactly the same as dessus, except it means under. For example, la poupée est sur le livre. The doll is on the book. But la girafe est dessous.
The giraffe is underneath. And there is nothing after it. And once again, dessus is on top, so it's pronounced and dessous is below, so it is a sound, remember?
Dessus, dessous. So what now if the giraffe is not on the book? But a little bit above it, what do we say?
I know it's a lot to memorize, so don't forget that you can always hit pause and take notes or watch the entire video again later. This idea of on top but not really touching, we use au-dessus and au-dessous. And you have more variation of those words as well, mom.
So I know you heard about them, but you use them randomly hoping it works. The main one is au-dessus. Au-dessus, this is above, like dessus but there's no real contact or it's really really high. You have this gesture of au-dessus, au-dessus. For example, voici une girafe.
Here is a giraffe. Le lapin est au-dessus. Le lapin est au-dessus. The rabbit is above it.
And here, le lapin est dessus. Le lapin est dessus. The rabbit is on it. It really is touching the giraffe because it's on top of it, sitting on top of it. Contrary to dessus, we can add a complement here by the way.
We use au-dessus de plus a complement. It's on top of or above something. For example, la poupée.
La poupée est au-dessus du livre. The doll is above the book. The opposite is au-dessous or au-dessous de. Or more commonly, en-dessous de, underneath.
But it's a little bit redundant and we can make this simpler. You can replace them with simpler words. For example, au-dessous and en-dessous, you can replace them with dessous.
That's much easier to use. Au-dessous de. en dessous de, you can replace them with sous. As in, la girafe est en dessous.
You can say, la girafe est dessous. Instead, way simpler, the giraffe is underneath. Or, la girafe est en dessous du livre. La girafe est en dessous du livre. You can replace this with, la girafe est sous le livre.
The giraffe is under the book. And this is much simpler. Very often, these words are much more complicated and you should not use them. Just use simpler words instead. Ok, so now what if it moves actually, where you have an action, something is not just still.
For an action, you can use par-dessus, over. And for something going under, par-dessous, par-dessous is underneath. And you can use this with or without a complement. For example, le lapin est passé par-dessus le livre. Le lapin est passé.
par-dessus le livre. The rabbit went over the book. Le lapin est passé par-dessous. Le lapin est passé par-dessous.
The rabbit went underneath. And here you don't have a complement and it works. To memorize them, you have to practice.
So for example, when you're sitting on your couch in your house, you can look at the objects around you and think about these sentences and better say them out loud. And mom, next time you see your grandson, which I hope is very soon, you can say Tu veux lire une histoire avec moi sur le canapé? Tu veux lire une histoire avec moi sur le canapé? And this is perfect! Très amusant, trop drôle, j'aime beaucoup.
Très, trop, aime beaucoup are used a lot in spoken French. You might have learned about them at school, maybe decades ago, and you don't remember the details anymore. On top of that, they mean... almost the same. So how do you use them without making any mistakes?
This is what we're going to see today. Très is an adverb that means very. Très.
For example, nous mangeons de très bons éclairs. Nous mangeons de très bons éclairs. We're eating very good éclairs. Or elle est très jolie. Elle est très jolie.
She's very pretty. In order to use très, there are three main rules. The first one is that you can use TRÈS before an adjective, and it comes immediately before it.
For example, Ce tableau est très beau. This painting is beautiful. And here you can notice that TRÈS is right before beau, which is the adjective.
Or in Le métro est très pratique. TRÈS is right before pratique, which is an adjective. You can also use TRÈS before an adverb. As in, ça va très bien. Ça va très bien.
Everything's great. I'm doing great. Here, très is right before bien, which is an adverb.
Or, Caroline lit très rapidement. Caroline lit très rapidement. Très is before rapidement, which is the adverb here.
And at last, you can use très with a feeling or a need that comes with avoir. As in, j'ai très faim. J'ai très faim. I'm very hungry.
Très is before faim. which is a need. And we also have Elle a très soif. Elle a très soif. She is very thirsty.
Très is before soif, which is a feeling or a need. But you cannot say Je t'aime très or Il y a très personne. So how do you use very with verbs and nouns? Well, you can use beaucoup because beaucoup means a lot. But you don't say the P at the end of beaucoup.
It's silent. Beaucoup. And the most common case to use beaucoup is right after a verb. As in, je t'aime beaucoup. Je t'aime beaucoup.
Beaucoup is right after the verb aimer. Or, on marche beaucoup à Paris. On marche beaucoup à Paris. We walk a lot in Paris. Beaucoup is right after the verb marcher.
However, in English, a lot sometimes means often. For example, we come here a lot. And in this case, we're going to use souvent or très souvent if we come here very often.
As in, nous allons très souvent à Lyon. Nous allons très souvent à Lyon. We go to Lyon very often.
If you like this video, by the way, I post one new lesson on commune française every Tuesday. There are two extra rules about beaucoup, by the way. When you have two verbs in a row, for example, j'aime manger, j'aime manger, I like to eat, aimer manger, beaucoup comes right after the verb that you want to boost. For example, j'aime beaucoup manger is I really like to eat.
J'aime beaucoup manger. But j'aime manger beaucoup, j'aime manger beaucoup, beaucoup is after manger, is I like to eat a lot. I like to eat a lot of food. The second rule with beaucoup is that with le participe passé, beaucoup comes between the auxiliary and the past participle. As in, j'ai beaucoup mangé.
J'ai beaucoup mangé. Beaucoup is in the middle. I ate a lot. Or, elles ont beaucoup dansé. Elles ont beaucoup dansé.
Elles ont dansé with beaucoup in the middle. And not, elles ont dansé beaucoup. No. So we saw that beaucoup comes after a verb.
But you can also use beaucoup de, like a lot of, like you use in English. As in, tu as mis beaucoup de sauce sur ta salade. You put a lot of sauce on your salad. This is exactly the same as in English. Or, beaucoup d'enfants aiment les bonbons.
Lots of children love sweets. Exactly the same as in English here. If it's a lot to remember, don't forget that you can hit pause to take notes, or you can watch it now and re-watch it later with a pen and paper. And at last, trop with a silent p means too, too much or too many. It can be used with an adverb or an adjective with the same rules as très, or after a verb or with a noun with the same rules as beaucoup.
For example, Vous êtes trop jeune pour ce film. You're too young for this movie. Here we're using trop with jeune, which is an adjective. Or, ce TGV va trop lentement.
Ce TGV va trop lentement. This TGV is going too slowly. And here we're using trop with lentement, which is an adverb.
We can also say, tu manges trop. Tu manges trop. And here we're using trop after a verb, which is manger here.
Tu manges trop. Even trop de with a noun is used in the same way as beaucoup de. As in, ready? Ma tante a trop de chats, mais ils sont trop mignons. Ma tante a trop de chats, mais ils sont trop mignons.
My aunt has too many cats, but they're too cute. And here, what do you notice? You can see that trop mignon is the colloquial French for très. Because yeah, trop in colloquial French means Très, as in a lot. They're so cute.
These cats are so, so, so cute. And you can use this in a normal sentence. Another example. Je suis trop contente que tu sois là. Je suis trop contente que tu sois là.
I am so happy you're here. And here you can perfectly understand the meaning of so happy. Trop contente. And it's true.
I'm very happy that you're here. I remember very well when I was teaching at the Red Cross that teaching the lesson about trop, the use of colloquial French was a big hit because students love learning about these kinds of things. And I'm sure you do too because it's so useful for understanding and speaking everyday French.
And finally, one last use of trop and beaucoup, which is you can pair them in beaucoup trop, way too much. For example, Ce livre est beaucoup trop long. Ce livre est beaucoup trop long. This book is way too long. Or il y a beaucoup trop de touristes au Louvre.
Il y a beaucoup trop de touristes au Louvre. There are way too many tourists in the Louvre. Si is a very small word in French that you can use in many, many ways. It's even a way to answer a question. Today we're going to see how to use it with lots of examples.
In French, yes translates into oui. That's very basic, I'm sure you already know that. If someone asks you Tu as faim?
You can answer oui. Are you hungry? Yes.
Tu as faim? Oui. You don't even need to add anything else to oui because that's the direct answer to are you hungry. However, if someone asks you Tu n'as pas faim?
Aren't you hungry? which is a nightmare for me to pronounce, Tu n'as pas faim? If you answer yes, what's the meaning of this answer?
Yes, I am not hungry. Or yes, I am hungry. In French, you can actually answer in a way that's very clear.
In French, we actually have a word for that, which is SI. If someone says Tu n'as pas faim ? and you answer SI, the answer means Yes, I actually am hungry. OK?
I am hungry. So it's a way to say yes to a negative question. For example, Tu n'es pas allé à l'école aujourd'hui ?
SI. You didn't go to school today. Yes, I actually went to school today.
Tu n'es pas allé à l'école aujourd'hui ? Si. Here, if you're advanced, you'll see that I didn't do la liaison just to make everything clearer, but you can actually make it. Another example, Vous ne saviez pas qu'on était mardi ?
Si. Vous ne saviez pas qu'on était mardi ? Si.
You didn't know it was Tuesday today ? Yes, I knew it was Tuesday today. So you can see here with a very small Word, we can answer a negative question in a very clear way. There is no yes or no, we have SI instead. However, in most sentences, SI means IF, in exactly the same way as in English.
If I do something, I'll do something else. So, these sentences always have two parts. So...
The first case is SI plus LE PRESENT. And then, the second part of the sentence, you have a verb at LE PRESENT. So let's look at an example. Si je gagne, j'achète une voiture.
If I win, I buy a car. It's exactly the same structure as in English in this way. Also, we can use it with un conditionnel.
So, si plus l'imparfait. And then, the second part of the sentence, you have le conditionnel. So, si j'étais riche, j'achèterais une nouvelle voiture.
Si j'étais riche, j'achèterais une nouvelle voiture. If I were rich, I would buy a new car. So again, it's just a little bit more complicated, but this is a good way for you, if you're intermediate or advanced, to make More adult sentences because sometimes you don't have the conjugation and you just stay there and you want to actually express yourself in an adult, grown-up way.
Le conditionnel is a whole tense, okay? I'm not going to cover this today, so I highly recommend you check out your conjugation book, your grammar book, in order to get more details about that. But I just wanted to show you the structure to show you how close it is to English.
Again, if you want to express yourself better, we have expressions with SI. For example, même si is even if. For example, je viendrai même si je suis malade.
I will come even if I'm sick. Here, if you're advanced, you can see that I say je viendrai and it does not have an S. at the end because this is a future. Okay? If you wanted to put a conditional, you would have to put the second verb differently.
Okay? I'm not going to dive into that, but just see here that I put a future. Si seulement is another expression. It means if only.
Si seulement translates into if only. For example, Si seulement je pouvais voler. If only I could fly.
Si seulement je pouvais voler. Another one is comme si. It translates into as if. As if. Comme si.
Comme si c'était une surprise. Comme si c'était une surprise. As if it were a surprise. Which means I'm not surprised by that.
Comme si c'était une surprise. As if it were a surprise. And at last, si is a beautiful way to say so or so much.
For example, je suis si heureux de te voir. I'm so happy to see you. Je suis si heureux de te voir.
It's very beautiful French. Je suis si heureux de te voir. If you're not sure about the use of si here, you can replace it with tellement.
Tellement. So much, literally. For example, je suis tellement heureux de te voir.
Here you can see that I just replaced SI with TELLEMENT and it's exactly the same. Je suis tellement heureux de te voir. So today we saw a few of the building blocks for intermediate French.
You don't have to remember all of them today but write down a few that surprised you. You will find the full lessons that I've used in the playlist right here. Just click on your screen to learn more.
A tout de suite, I will see you in the next video.