(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