learn French with Alexa Alexa s in this series entitled French Essentials I will teach you some basic French vocabulary which may come useful if you travel to France or any French speaking countries or if you meet the man of your life or the woman of your life who just happen to be French you have to start somewhere so let's start by the very beginning let's start by the very beginning with some greetings Alex of course bour is hello and is welcome is one way of saying my name is it literally means I call myself but you just so could say Alexa I am or you could also say Alex my name is Alexa now repeat using your name can you say name can you say that means how are you you would answer by we I'm okay you could so say I'm not okay I'm not bad or you could say like this like that and that's Whata means or you just could simply say sa I'm okay sa sometimes you may hear or to now they both means how are you but literally means how are you going okay it means how are you you use the V form for formal away when you talk to someone you don't know or when you talk to a group of more than one person okay and two to someone who know who you know very well okay so come now listen again AL Mercy Mercy means thank you obviously when I said Fran it means I am French when I said fr I speak French and English why don't you try it yourself now tell me what your name is whether you're okay and what language you speak okay now let's learn some polite phrases learned how to say please and thank you and so on S play or Sil play again depending on who you are talking to means please can you say that play well done now translated word for word it means if it pleases you okay now the vu in Sil is used in a more formal way when you talk to someone you do not know or when you're talking to uh more than one person as I mentioned earlier okay thank you is Mercy mercy and not Mercy like I hear quite often Mercy okay mercy and you're welcome is it's okay it's nothing you have you may have heard of Mery B which means thank you very much or a lot B if you wanted to say excuse me you could either say excuse or excuse okay again depending on whether you're talking uh to a person that you know well or that you want to use the more formal way okay you will notice that excuse seems quite easy to remember since it sounds very similar to excuse me excuse can you hear that or you could also say or literally means forgive me paron you know this word don't you paron pardon okay that means sorry or forgive okay now let's finish by saying our goodbyes you could say literally means to see you again or goodbye or salute which means hi or bye but uh it's more informal so I would be careful when using it if you were to go to bed you would say Bon that means good night b or B for good evening or goodbye as well Bon B Jour have a nice day bour and means day and Jour means day as well B have a nice evening B and another way of saying goodbye would be AB see you soon now uh you have as well which means see you later uh aen will see you today again shortly and not maybe tomorrow okay so at means see you later shortly in the same day okay right now we have covered some useful words why don't you repeat all these words after me okay and again watch this video again to get used to the greetings okay repeat after Mee for Mery play play D EX Excuse excuse B jour okay what I suggest you do is go over these words over and over again watch this video again okay that's it for me Mis Madame Mrs Miss at learn French with Alexa today folks I will teach you how to count up to 20 in German no just kidding in French so here they are are you ready count with me if you can ah set okay shall we just repeat them again okay repeat after me here we go set this now this is very simple isn't it just practice over and over and we'll get very good at them eventually try to count starting from a random number such as then carry on this and so on try to count them backwards this set or when you see a number in your streets anywhere in the world wherever you are just ask yourself what is this number in French okay so count the numbers from 1 to 10 again in French on your own okay are you ready here we go Bravo well done I think you've done well how was that really good superb now let me teach you the numbers from 10 to 20 okay I must admit that they are the hardest number you will encounter uh in French okay but once you know them they will come very useful especially when counting in 70s and '90s so here we go listen carefully this [Music] now that was a little bit more challenging wasn't it you will notice that 17 18 19 are fairly easy to say as they I like say 107 108 10 n so listen set okay well obviously you will have to know your numbers from 1 to 10 in order to be able to do that but I'm sure you'll get there that shouldn't be a big problem okay let's repeat the numbers from one uh sorry 10 to 20 again listen carefully repeat after me [Music] [Music] okay now how about you do that on your own okay do you remember the same way as we did with numbers 1 to 10 here we go well done Bravo okay now let's repeat together all the numbers from 1 to 20 now look at my mouth and the numbers and say ah [Music] Bravo okay how confident are you do you think you can count up to 20 now okay here's a little game you will see some numbers appear on the screen can you tell me what the number is here we go that's very good okay here's another one tricky huh do can you say that do that's 12 here's another one remember what I said 10 s set set here's another one another one Bravo that was easy okay here's another game now you're going to see the numbers appear written okay as it is written down I would like to tell me what number this is here we go n is nine very good Bravo here's another one we read it not okay C is four well done C and and another one s s is five and the last one says H which number says 16 well done very good so why don't you watch this video again remember to practice practice and practice even more okay and eventually you you'll get there okay that's it for me learn French with Alexa today folks I will teach you how to say the alphabet in Russian no that's a joke again I wonder how many times I can do this joke before you get bored with it anyway okay let's get on with iTab on FR you know what it is not as hard as you think and getting it right will help you with your reading of French and obviously you're listening so attention we are not learning the sounds of French today but the alphabet so here we are repeat after me a b c d o f g HH e g k l m n o p q r s t u v w v x Zed okay how was that okay now let's repeat once again are you ready try to articulate okay and follow the movement of my mouth ah b c d o f g Ash e g k l m n o p q r s t u V WV x z okay how was that remember to practice so listen to the alphabet again and practice with me again okay what do you notice what do you notice when you listen to the French alphabet uhhuh that's right that some letters sound the same in English and possibly in other languages as well okay if English is not your first language now listen to these letters f l m n s and Zed they sound the same don't they as in English Okay and know you say Z in American uh in the US but what about this letters b c d p t v now I've chosen these letters because they nearly sound the same in English where you would say B we would say B where you say C we say C where d d p p t t and v v okay so they sound nearly the same okay but A J Ash e g k o q r u WX don't sound quite the same and I would recommend that you work on the ones which are a little bit tricky such as the one I've just mentioned okay and practice them over and over again so now let's practice the vows on their own okay listen carefully a e o u now is a vowel in French okay this is your y okay we say now e o can you say that a e o now watch my mouth a e o G okay now let's repeat them again and watch my mouth a e o u now why don't you repeat the alphabet One Last Time on your own are you ready okay on Comm now follow the letters on the screen screen U WV Zed Bravo well done that was hard wasn't it no that was a really tough game okay so talking about game let's play a little game together look at the letter on the screen now can you name it this was can you say that that's you now can you name this one d v w v in English we said W in French we said w v okay WV now can you name this one and the last one Ash Bravo Ash sh okay here's another little game can you spell this word mhm p a p a papa that means daddy another one that one is hard isn't it now read every single letters a ar ar okay that's quite a tricky one that means tree okay AR now that was hard wasn't it so sorry about that why don't you play games with uh at home okay with your family with whoever try to spell your name uh words anything that uh that you read uh in in French okay um to get you practice to saying the letters of the alphabet over and over again okay so I would invite you to watch watch this video game it's again it's quite hard but eventually knowing the alphabet will mean that you will be a better reader but also a better listener practice practice but practice again okay that's it for meour learn French with Alexa today folks I will teach you how to say the days of the week in French okay let's start days of the week in French you might know them already or might know some but listen listen to me okay and try to repeat with me ly m mer Jud V okay how was that shall we repeat them one more time okay m [Music] mer now do you recognize any do they sound familiar to you in English or any other language for that matter H now tell me if I said to you m m do you know which day I'm talking about uhhuh it's not Monday mm m means Tuesday okay well done if I said Judi is Thursday how about Friday in French how would you say Friday in French uhhuh Friday is v v now look at the screen and repeat the days of the week on your own can you do that here we go how was that it's harder isn't it it because you don't have the audio to to listen as you read along so it it is slightly harder but again repeat the days of the week over and over again and uh and and next time you'll get them right okay now here's a game and I'm going to say a day and you will have to tell me what day comes next after the day I've just said so if I said Tuesday you're going to say Wednesday and so on so here we go let's do that in French obviously M uhuh mer comes after here's another one comes after V another one L Bravo Mar comes after okay some people say that the days of the week come from the names of the planets and I believe they do so Landy would come from the Moon laon Mii from Mars mer Mercury Judi Jupiter V Venus s sat Sunday okay you've got this in English satday suay Okay Deon is the Sun so why don't you tell me what is your favorite day by saying prere and then the day you prefer prere if your favorite day is M Tuesday prere now I would like to play a game with you okay are you ready are we confident that we know the days of the week now now that help they all end with d okay except for Deon which is Sunday it begins with d okay it means Day by the way here we go look at the list on the screen one day is missing which is it that's Mii well done well spotted so it's land and then Mii okay and Mer and so on look at another list and which day is missing some is missing well done somebody now look at this one uhuh mer is missing Wednesday is missing mer okay now you're doing so well why don't you repeat one last time the days of of the week here we go mer well done remember to practice practice and practice even more that's it for me madame learn French with Alexa today folks I will teach you how to say the months of the year okay let's start the month of the year in French what I'd like you to do now is repeat after me that quite hard okay quite long and watch my mouth Fe ail May September octob November dece okay are you okay now let's repeat them again okay only rep repeat one more time Fe Mar ail May sept October November de Bravo okay now repeat them on your own looking at the screen can you do that without my help now look carefully repe here we go Bravo how was that was that okay superb now do you recognize any when you look at uh the the months comparing to in English or any other language obviously the good thing is that they begin with the same letter as in English okay if you know the English months of the year you will know the beginning of the French one and even better if you know the first two letters in English Okay the months of the year you will know the two letter of the French months of the year because they are the same ones except for ail and UT okay April and August are the only two months in French where it does not being in the same way okay the two letters are not matching the two letters in English now listen to this September octob November dece there you go you've already learned four of the 12 months of the year okay why because they sound the same sept in English sept okay all you have to do is invert the r and e at the end okay September October November December easy okay okay now what about Mars ail may they sound familiar don't they Mars is March a is April May is May okay so that sounds quite similar so you shouldn't have any problem with that where you would find the most problem with I think the months are okay okay though um is quite easy to pronounce okay is August so the the months I've just said where which is January Fe which is Fe very well done that's June okay it begins J the same beginning yeah is July okay these are quite tough okay tell me when is your birthday if you were born yeah when is my birthday on May in May well done that's easy okay let's repeat the months of the year one more time are you ready Fe ail May sept octob now why don't you tell me what your favorite month [Music] is that's August prere and so on okay what I'd like to do now is play some games with you now here's the first game I'll give you one month of the year you tell me what it is in English here we go that's right April Bravo here's another one that's July well done here's another one that's easy September here's another one that's August now let's do this game now you will have the months in English you tell me what they are in French that's a little harder okay here we go January isier very good jier here's another one may is May another one April is ail Bravo here's another one Mars okay this is quite hard isn't it okay a third game now you're going to have the list of the months of the year well I'll leave you a little while to read this one what is the month missing look at it carefully what is the month missing got it no I wait a bit more no you've got it right the month's missing is J July did you get that Bravo you're good here's another list what is missing you got this one quite hard to pronounce f okay remember to practice practice and practice again watch this video again okay that's it for me Madame learn French with Alexa today folks we are going to learn about the weather and the season so I titled this lesson indeed the word means weather but it also means time okay let's start so what is the weather like well you have different ways of saying the weather obviously like any other languages but I will teach you a few okay it is sunny you could also say it's sunny it is sunny now means there is or there are and in French means son there are son or there are some sun or there is some sun okay that's the literal translation so IL means it is sunny as well as now here's another one what do you think that means uhuh that means it is hot very good sh means hot okay can you say sh well done Bravo Now notice that literally uh means he it does it does so would be it does hot will be it does beautiful it does uh Sunny okay obviously I know it means nothing in English but I am just making you aware that IL does not mean it is okay it means it does in French but we just happen to use IL when we talk about the weather yeah uh it does or makes hot okay now fair is used in two ways it it is used to describe it does and it makes as well okay so let's carry on with the weather now this one is can you say that now is it's raining I just happen to have my umbrella or par here can you say that okay it is raining Bravo Now guess what is the weather like now now like show it does hot we say it do cold okay it is cold now can you say FR well done okay now another one which literally means there is or there are some clouds okay there are some clouds elah the now it is cloudy you could also say it is cloudy okay now to finish is foggy now that word is quite hard to say can you say yeah with a sound that's a tough one this one okay not that you would often say you know to someone though in England you might never know okay now what I would like to do now with you is play a little game tell me what is the weather like if I put this on uhhuh you got a few options that's what it means now here's another game what is the weather like now uh another one what is the weather like now Bo and probably hot as well so e okay and last but not least what is the weather like now bra well done you're doing well now let's have a look at the seasons okay we just inen the weather they we we're just going to have a look at the Four Seasons like okay now listen carefully do you recognize which is which Li Li did you part a season you know oton probably is the easiest okay though in US you say fall or the fall okay now Lon is uton okay that's easy but let's have a look at the others now repeat after me PR means spring PR spring spring okay you nearly have the beginning of Spring in prto uh except that it doesn't begin with an S but PR will have the beginning okay can you say that well done we say the spring and it's masculine another season or just is the word and this means summer but we say the summer so we say let it has an L with an apostrophe because it begins with a vowel L the next season is lon which Ison okay oton and again I say Theon we say lon l apostrophe with a because it's a vowel and the last season is winter we say I can you say that I now remember do not pronounce the h in E okay we pronounce the i e and the winter would be Li Li okay now why don't you look through your window and tell me what the weather is like and which season it is okay you see say sept in England it is September sept and it's still the summer now look what is the weather like now I suggest for you to watch this over and over again this video so you get used to the season and uh the weather now let's play a game together now look at the screen and tell me what is the season you've got four choices and you know which they are what season is that this is the summer ly can you say that ly Bravo here's another one we that's cold say it's the winter another one this one Ison now here's this one okay now practice practice practice all of these sentences okay which may come useful if you want to speak to a French person in the village you know talking about the weather okay watch this video again now that's it for me [Music] okaye for Fore and cut learn French with Alex today folks we are going to learn about the definite article in French okay tell me definite articles is a grammatical term but what does it mean for example I would like you to give me a definite article in English uhhuh well you definitely have one in English and it comes before for a noun usually but can come before an adjective too or a superlative okay let me help you the definite article is the as in the moon the Train the cat Etc so let's have a look at it well we have one way of saying this in English the French people have four I know they had to be different they so to summarize you are four times more likely to get your definite article wrong in French sorry just wanted to make you face the true reality of learning French so what are they well we have L and la and Le and L with an apostrophe and they all mean the so you're going to ask me when do we know which one to use well I would answer the article Le l e s would be the easiest to use as it is used when the word following is a plural for example the tables in English would be t in French okay can you say that LE okay in English it's very clear we say the tables and we can hear the S at the end of table okay so but in French you don't so in order to do that you've got to write Le L yes in front of it in order for me to understand it's a plural okay and you put an S at the end though you don't pronounce it as you do in English so here we go some example like I said the chairs the cars and so on okay then you have L with an apostrophe this one is easy too as it is used when a word begins with a vowel or an H okay for example you would have and this means the tree okay can you see it begins with the a a vowel okay so we have to put an L with an apostrophe you can't say technically because it doesn't sound good okay another example Lal Lal well this word begins with an H okay so we say Lal we use the L with an apostrophe but by the way it doesn't mean that they are not either feminine or masculine like will we see later on these words have genders too okay but I'm going to cover that in a minute so Le and l apostrophe are used regardless of whether the gender of the word is feminine or masculine but let me cover that in a minute so let's talk now about the feminine and the masculine definite articles we use l for the when the word has a masculine gender and la for the when the word has a feminine gender okay I bet you're going to uh now ask me but what if I don't know which gender the word is H for this I would answer then guess and put whichever you feel sound right l or here's a secret if you get it wrong we will still understand what you mean obviously it would sound wrong to us but in any way it is quite cute here's a small trick to get it right most of the time and I would say 75% of the time a French word which ends with an uh as in a e uh sound is likely to be a feminine word so you would put La in front of it so let me give you a few examples of and La words starting with a la Tom see the sound at the end Tom okay that's the table we know that okay and so on so if you hear words that ends with an e or see it on paper the chance is that it's going to be a la word but as I said only 75% of the time now let's focus on L cema that's the cinema L sack that's the bag B that's the boat that's the pen that's mine see they do not end in the sound did you hear that and so on so they are l so I put l in front of them just be aware that this is an hard and fast rule by the way but it often works now let's play a game what definite AR would you put in front of banan banan ban so if you follow the rule as in sound is feminine definitely banan is a feminine word so la banana what about Port Port as in the door La very good it's feminine what about this one Balon how have a look at it yeah well this one is Le okay as it has an S so we use le as it is plural did you see that okay by the way it doesn't mean that Balon has no gender it has it's Bon when used in a singular uh form another one t what do you think mhm Tau and that means the painting or the board white board Blackboard another one orator do you put or apostrophe well look at the word hard one this one well it is lordin as it begins with a vowel okay now here's another one how about Li is a in fact okay not though I've just told you that the words ending with a e La this one is an exception so it is an exception and there is a few others like that the glass tone Etc okay but you can find these out by yourself okay which ones are exceptions by the way you also have words which should be masculine because they don't end in an e but are in fact feminine such as lais okay see that it ends with okay so it doesn't have an e so surely it should be masculine well it isn't it's La this one is a feminine word La television of course when it relates to people such as girl and boy and man and women we say la Fe the girls as in feminine as in masculine and L with an apostrophe though the word is masculine they follow their own gender it makes sense okay we are not as Twisted as you think we are okay so as for animals they can have both genders okay we would say Le sha for a cat Okay the cat sorry for a lady cat okay with an E we add an e at the end now countries have genders too did you know so England is feminine okay but we say because it begins with a vowel but we know that Ang is a feminine country okay now La France again feminine La Bel okay that's feminine but you would say ja as in ja Japan is a masculine country it ends with an N Portugal again ends with an l so we said and not La Portugal okay so bear that in mind that even countries are feminine or masculine so to summarize well la le and L with an apostrophe all mean the L when using a masculine gender where the word usually ends in the letter other than and L when the word usually ends with a word ending with an uh though we saw that it is not always the case there are a lot of exceptions Lee when the word is plural regardless of their gender but do remember that the word still has a gender and l apostrophe when using a vowel or an H okay now why don't you look at some vocabulary and see your guess whether they are LA or or L with an apostrophe okay okay that's it for me now so I'm going to say goodbye [Music]