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CHAPTER 1

I spent the weekend in Paris… and it was lovely

“I spent the weekend in Paris… and it was lovely.” Not such a complicated sentence in English, is it? Or is it…?

I have taught many people over the years, ranging from those who know no French at all, through to those who may have studied French for several years at school. Yet whether they have studied the language before or not, almost none of them tend to be able to construct a basic sentence like this when I first meet them.

Admittedly, they might know how to say other far less useful things, like: “I’m 37 years old and have two sisters and a goldfish” – an unusual conversation opener from my perspective – but they can’t say what they did at the weekend.

Well, in just a few minutes’ time, you will be able to do this – even if you’ve never learnt any French before.

Just remember though: don’t skip anything, don’t waste your time trying to memorise anything but do use your book mark to cover up anything blue you find on each page.

Okay now, let’s begin!

“I have” in French is:

J’ai

(pronounced “zhay” ¹ )

And the word for “visited” in French is:

visité

(pronounced “visit-ay”)

With this in mind, how would you say “I have visited”?

J’ai visité (zhay visit-ay)

Did you remember to cover up the blue words while you worked out the answer?

You will almost certainly have heard of the famous cathedral “Notre-Dame” in Paris. So, how do you think you would say “I have visited Notre-Dame”?

J’ai visité Notre-Dame.

(zhay visit-ay not-ruh darm)

The word “Paris” in French is pronounced “pa-ree”.

Bearing this pronunciation in mind, how would you say “I have visited Paris”?

J’ai visité Paris.

(zhay visit-ay pa-ree)

Now, if I were to ask you how you would say simply “I visited Paris” rather than “I have visited Paris” you might not think you knew how to say that yet. However, you will be glad to hear that I disagree with you because, in French, talking about what has happened in the past is far easier than it is in English. This is because “I visited Paris” and “I have visited Paris” are said in exactly the same way in French. I’ll show you what I mean.

Again, how do you say “I have visited Paris”?

J’ai visité Paris.

(zhay visit-ay pa-ree)

I want you to try to say “I visited Paris”, bearing in mind that what you’re going to say is exactly the same as what you just said for “I have visited Paris”. So, “I visited Paris” will be:

J’ai visité Paris.

(zhay visit-ay pa-ree)

As you can see, it is exactly the same. The French do not make a distinction between the two. Effectively, you have got two English past tenses for the price of one. And actually it is even better than that.

You can now already correctly say “I have visited Paris” and “I visited Paris” because they are exactly the same in French. With this in mind, do you think you can make a lucky guess about how you might say “I did visit Paris”? Just take a wild guess!

J’ai visité Paris.

(zhay visit-ay pa-ree)

Once again, it is exactly the same in French. “I have visited Paris”, “I visited Paris” and “I did visit Paris” are all said in precisely the same way. In fact this is one of the many wonderful things about French. You get three English past tenses for the price of one in French. “I have visited Paris”, “I visited Paris” and “I did visit Paris” are all simply:

J’ai visité Paris.

(zhay visit-ay pa-ree)

Let’s try this 3 for the price of 1 Special Offer again now but this time with a different example.

To say “I have spent” in French, you will literally say “I have passed”, which in French is:

J’ai passé

(zhay pass-ay)

“The weekend” in French is:

le week-end

(luh weekend)

So how would you say “I have spent the weekend” (literally “I have passed the weekend”)?

J’ai passé le week-end

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend)

And how would you say simply “I spent the weekend” / “I passed the weekend”?

J’ai passé le week-end

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend)

Just as “I visited Paris” and “I have visited Paris” are no different from one another in French, so “I spent the weekend” and “I have spent the weekend” are also no different from one another.

How do you think you would you say “I did spend the weekend”?

J’ai passé le week-end

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend)

Again, you have three English past tenses for the price of one in French.

“I spent the weekend”, “I have spent the weekend”,

“I did spend the weekend” – it’s all the same in French:

“J’ai passé le week-end”.

“In Paris” in French is:

à Paris

(a pa-ree)

So how would you say “I have spent the weekend in Paris”?

J’ai passé le week-end à Paris.

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree)

And how would you say “I spent the weekend in Paris”?

J’ai passé le week-end à Paris.

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree)

And “I did spend the weekend in Paris”?

J’ai passé le week-end à Paris.

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree)

Time to steal some words!

Word Robbery Number 1

Let’s forget our weekend in Paris for just one moment now and start stealing some words. Around half the words in modern English have come into our language via French. Once you can identify them, you will have a large, instant, usable vocabulary in French. After all, why bother learning French vocabulary when you can simply steal it?

The first group of words we are going to steal are words that end in “ic” and “ical” in English.

Words like “romantic”, “exotic”, “illogical”, “typical” and so on.

There are around 750 of these in English and they are the same in French, except that in French they end in “ique” (pronounced “eek”), becoming “romantique”, “exotique”, “illogique”, “typique” and so on.

Let’s now see how we can work these into our weekend in Paris and expand our range of expressions in French!

Words stolen so far 750

Bearing in mind what we’ve just learnt in the Word Robbery above, let’s try changing the “ic” on the end of the English word “romantic” into “ique”.

Doing this, what will “romantic” be in French?

romantique

(roe-mon-teek)

And so what will “fantastic” be in French?

fantastique

(fon-tass-teek)

Let’s now try doing the same with “ical”. Change the “ical” on the end of “typical” into “ique”.

Doing this, what will “typical” be in French?

typique

(tip-eek)

And what will “political” be?

politique

(po-lee-teek)

Let’s now try using these “ique” words to expand our range of expressions and to make some more complex sentences in French.

“It was” in French is:

C’était

(set-ay)

So, how would you say “it was political”?

C’était politique.

(set-ay po-lee-teek)

And how would you say “it was typical”?

C’était typique.

(set-ay tip-eek)

How about “it was romantic”?

C’était romantique.

(set-ay roe-mon-teek)

Finally, how would you say “it was fantastic”?

C’était fantastique.

(set-ay fon-tass-teek)

Now, do you remember how to say “I have visited” in French?

J’ai visité

(zhay visit-ay)

And what about “I visited”?

J’ai visité

(zhay visit-ay)

And “I did visit”?

J’ai visité

(zhay visit-ay)

Do you remember how to say “I have spent”, “I did spend”, “I spent” (literally “I have passed”)?

J’ai passé

(zhay pass-ay)

And how would you say “I spent the weekend”?

J’ai passé le week-end

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend)

And how do you say “in Paris” in French?

à Paris

(a pa-ree)

So how would you say “I spent the weekend in Paris”?

J’ai passé le week-end à Paris.

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree)

And once more, what was “fantastic” in French?

fantastique

(fon-tass-teek)

And do you remember how to say “it was”?

c’était

(set-ay)

So, how would you say “it was fantastic”?

C’était fantastique.

(set-ay fon-tass-teek)

The word for “and” in French is:

et

(ay)

So, how would you say “…and it was fantastic”?

…et c’était fantastique

(ay set-ay fon-tass-teek)

Putting what you’ve learnt together, say “I spent the weekend in Paris and it was fantastic.” Take your time to work this out, bit by bit, there’s no rush.

J’ai passé le week-end à Paris… et c’était fantastique.

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree… ay set-ay fon-tass-teek)

Of course, perhaps you would prefer to describe your weekend in a different way. Perhaps it was more “lovely” than it was “fantastic”, so let’s try that. The French might express the idea that such a weekend was “lovely” by saying that it had been “very agreeable”.

“Very agreeable” in French is:

très agréable

(trez ag-ray-arb-luh)

So, how would you say “it was very agreeable” / “it was lovely” in French?

C’était très agréable.

(set-ay trez ag-ray-arb-luh)

Finally, how would you say “I spent the weekend in Paris… and it was lovely”?

J’ai passé le week-end à Paris… et c’était très agréable.

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree… ay set-ay trez ag-ray-arb-luh)

You can now construct the sentence with which we started the chapter – and, as you will soon discover, this is just the very beginning of your journey into French!

Building Blocks

You just learnt how to say (amongst other things) “I spent the weekend in Paris… and it was lovely”.

Now that you can do this, you are going to move on to expanding what you can say through the use of additional “building blocks”.

The new building blocks you are going to learn will allow you to begin instantly expanding your range of expressions in the French language.

So far, some of the building blocks you have already learnt include:

You already know how to use these building blocks to construct a sentence. Once again, how would you say “I have spent the weekend in Paris”?

As you can see, you already know how to build the four building blocks above into a sentence. Take a look now at the six new building blocks below. Just have a glance over them and then I’ll show you how you’re going to add these into the mix of what you’ve learnt so far.

Okay, first things first: please don’t try to memorise them. No, no, no! Instead, I simply want you to play with your building blocks. After all, that’s what building blocks are for, isn’t it?

The way you’re going to play with them is like this: below, they have been put in four piles and all I want you to do is to make sentences with them. You’ll do this by using one building block from the first pile, one from the second, one from the third and one from the fourth.

You will find that you can say a lot of different things using them in this way and it’s up to you what sentences you make. The only thing I want you to make sure you do is to use every building block at least once. Also, please don’t bother writing down the sentences you make. Instead, say them out loud. Or, if you’re not in a place where you can do this, say them in your head. Now, off you go – make as many sentences as you can!

Remember, of course, that “J’ai passé” means “I have spent”, “I spent” and “I did spend”. And this means, of course, that “vous avez passé” means “you have spent”, “you spent” and “you did spend”. And therefore “nous avons passé” means not only “we have spent” but also “we spent” and “we did spend”. Don’t forget, you get three English past tenses for the price of one in French and this applies whether you’re saying “I…”, “you…”, “we…” or whatever.

The Checklist

You have now reached the final part of the first chapter. Once you have finished this short section you will not only have completed your first chapter but you will also understand how this book works. All the other chapters follow the same pattern, with your French becoming ever more sophisticated as you complete each chapter.

The section you are now on will be the final part of each chapter and is what I call “The Checklist”. It involves nothing more than a read-through of a selection of the words or expressions you have so far encountered.

You will actually see The Checklist twice. The first time you will see that the French words are written in black (on the left-hand side) and that the English words are written in blue (on the right-hand side) – and you know what blue means… cover up!

So, what I want you to do here is to cover up the English words (which are written in blue on the right-hand side) while you read through the list of French words on the left. Read through them all, from the top of the list to the bottom, and see if you can recall what they mean in English (uncover one blue word at a time to check if you’ve remembered the meaning correctly). If you can go through the entire list, giving the correct English meaning for each of the French words / expressions without making more than three mistakes in total, then you’re done. If not, then go through the list again. Keep doing this, either working from the top of the list to the bottom or from the bottom to the top (it doesn’t matter which) until you can do it without making more than three mistakes.

Got it? Then let’s go!

le week-end (luh weekend)	the weekend
romantique (roe-mon-teek)	romantic
fantastique (fon-tass-teek)	fantastic
typique (tip-eek)	typical
politique (po-lee-teek)	political
J’ai (zhay)	I have
visité (visit-ay)	visited
J’ai visité (zhay visit-ay)	I have visited / I visited / I did visit
Paris (pa-ree)	Paris
Notre-Dame (not-re darm)	Notre-Dame
J’ai visité Notre-Dame. (zhay visit-ay not-re darm)	I have visited Notre-Dame / I visited Notre-Dame / I did visit Notre-Dame.
passé (pass-ay)	spent
J’ai passé (zhay pass-ay)	I have spent / I spent / I did spend
Vous avez (voo za-vay)	You have
Vous avez passé (voo za-vay pass-ay)	You have spent / You spent / You did spend
Nous avons (noo za-von)	We have
Nous avons passé (noo za-von pass-ay)	We have spent / We spent / We did spend
septembre (sep-tom-bruh)	September
Noël (no-ell)	Christmas
à Paris (a pa-ree)	in Paris
en France (on fronce)	in France
en Suisse (on swees)	in Switzerland
Nous avons passé Noël en Suisse. (noo za-von pass-ay no-ell on swees)	We spent Christmas in Switzerland.
Vous avez passé septembre en France. (voo za-vay pass-ay sep-tom-bruh on fronce)	You spent September in France.
et (ay)	and
c’était (set-ay)	it was
C’était fantastique. (set-ay fon-tass-teek)	It was fantastic.
très agréable (trez ag-ray-arb-luh)	lovely / very agreeable
C’était très agréable. (set-ay trez ag-ray-arb-luh)	It was lovely / It was very agreeable.
J’ai passé le week-end à Paris… et c’était très agréable. (zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree ay set-ay trez ag-ray-arb-luh)	I spent the weekend in Paris… and it was lovely.

Finished working through that checklist and made fewer than three mistakes? Yes? Wonderful!

As that’s the case, what I now want you to do is repeat exactly the same process with the checklist below, except that this time you’ll be reading through the English and trying to recall the French. You’ll be doing it the other way round. Just relax and work your way up and down the list until you can give the correct French translation for each of the English words / expressions again without making more than three mistakes in total. It’s not a competition – and I’m not asking you to memorise them. Just look at the English words (on the left-hand side) while you cover up the blue French words on the right-hand side and see if you can remember how to say them in French. You’ll be surprised by how many you get right, even on the first try.

Okay, off you go!

the weekend	le week-end (luh weekend)
romantic	romantique (roe-mon-teek)
fantastic	fantastique (fon-tass-teek)
typical	typique (tip-eek)
political	politique (po-lee-teek)
I have	J’ai (zhay)
visited	visité (visit-ay)
I have visited / I visited / I did visit	J’ai visité (zhay visit-ay)
Paris	Paris (pa-ree)
Notre-Dame	Notre-Dame (not-re darm)
I have visited Notre-Dame / I visited Notre-Dame / I did visit Notre-Dame.	J’ai visité Notre-Dame. (zhay visit-ay not-re darm)
spent	passé (pass-ay)
I have spent / I spent / I did spend	J’ai passé (zhay pass-ay)
You have	Vous avez (voo za-vay)
You have spent / You spent / You did spend	Vous avez passé (voo za-vay pass-ay)
We have	Nous avons (noo za-von)
We have spent / We spent / We did spend	Nous avons passé (noo za-von pass-ay)
September	septembre (sep-tom-bruh)
Christmas	Noël (no-ell)
in Paris	à Paris (a pa-ree)
in France	en France (on fronce)
in Switzerland	en Suisse (on swees)
We spent Christmas in Switzerland.	Nous avons passé Noël en Suisse. (noo za-von pass-ay no-ell on swees)
You spent September in France.	Vous avez passé septembre en France. (voo za-vay pass-ay sep-tom-bruh on fronce)
and	et (ay)
it was	c’était (set-ay)
It was fantastic.	C’était fantastique. (set-ay fon-tass-teek)
lovely / very agreeable	très agréable (trez ag-ray-arb-luh)
It was lovely. / It was very agreeable.	C’était très agréable. (set-ay trez ag-ray-arb-luh)
I spent the weekend in Paris… and it was lovely.	J’ai passé le week-end à Paris… et c’était très agréable. (zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree ay set-ay trez ag-ray-arb-luh)

Well, that’s it, you’re done with Chapter 1! Don’t forget, you mustn’t try to hold onto or remember anything you’ve learnt here. Anything you learn in earlier chapters will be brought up again and reinforced in later chapters. You don’t need to do extra work or make any effort to memorise anything. The book has been organised to do that for you. Off you go now and have a rest. You’ve earned it!

Between Chapters Tip!

Between chapters, I’m going to be giving you various tips on language learning. These will range from useful tips about the French language itself to advice on how to fit learning a language into your daily routine. Ready for the first one? Here it is!

Tip Number One – study (at least a little) every day.

Learning a language is like building a fire – if you don’t tend to it, it will go out. So, once you have decided to learn a foreign language, you really should study it every day.

It doesn’t have to be for a long time though. Just five or ten minutes each day will be enough, so long as you keep it up. Doing these five or ten minutes will stop you forgetting what you’ve already learnt and, over time, will let you put more meat on the bones of what you’re learning.

As for what counts towards those five or ten minutes – well, that’s up to you. Whilst you’re working with this book, I would recommend that your five or ten minutes should be spent here learning with me. Once you’re done here, however, your daily study could be spent reading a French newspaper, watching a French film, or chatting with a French-speaking acquaintance. You could even attend a class if you want to learn in a more formal setting. The important thing is to make sure that you do a little every day.