Elle s’appelle Jennifer Aniston. Elle est américaine !

Bonsoir ! Je m’appelle Bruno. Je suis Brésilien. J’ai 32 ans. J’étudie les langues et la littérature. Je viens du Brésil. J’habite à Florianopolis. Je parle anglais et espagnol.

As I promised you guys in my last post about my language learning process, I am writing a little bit more about this incredible experience. After some time as a French language learner, I have come to the conclusion that the French language sounds a bit more formal than the English one and its phonetics (or should I say Phonétique) makes the English language phonetics look like an easy one.

Today, I would like to share a thing or two about the classes.

First of all, I would like to introduce you some exercises we had to do in order to practice the language. Let’s introduce ourselves, shall we?

In English, we usually start a conversation by saying “Hello, my name is Bruno.” Let’s see how we could say something quite similar in French.

Bonjour, je m’appelle (your name here).

See? It is not that difficult at all!

There are many options one can use in order to introduce himself/herself in French. Let’s see only two here, okay?

This first one is a FORMAL one.

Vous vous appelez comment ?

The next one may be seen as an INFORMAL question.

Tu t’appelles comment ?

As you may have noticed, I have just written two questions. There are a lot of other ways of asking the very same question – in both formal and informal ways. But since this is not my point here, I will let them for another post, right?

Let’s talk a little bit about our nationalité in French.

As you may have realized, I started this post by saying that Je suis Brésilien. I am sure you folks are able to understand it. Therefore, that’s the way we use to state that we are from a certain country. In my case, “I am from Brazil”. So, “I am Brazilian.”

In French, it is rather simple. We just use Je suis and the nationality. Let’s learn some of them.

MASCULIN :

français

portugais

suédois

maxicain

canadien

espagnol

allemande

FÉMININ :

française

portugaise

suédoise

maxicaine

canadienne

espagnole

allemande

Have you noticed something different from the English language? I will give twenty seconds to have another look.

Ah, that’s right! You got it!

Yes, in French, the nationalities – differently from English – do not have a capital letter!

Therefore, the English word for França is French (with a capital F), but it is not the case of français, in French and so on and so forth.

There is another thing. Have you realized that in the end of the list about, say, female nationalities there is always an extra letter? Yes, the letter ‘e’. this ‘e’ states that the person is not a man, but a woman. In other words, the ‘e’ at the end means feminine.

So, we say that

Clara, c’est italien.

Ivan, c’est russe.

Yoko, c’est japonais.

Bernardo, c’est espagnol.

Olof, c’est suédois.   

Okay, but what about russe? You haven’t talked about this nationality! Well, russe is used for both – male and female. So,

Ivan, c’est russe and Sofia, c’est russe take the word russe.

In order to use the correct form of the verb Être, we have to take a look at the verb. So, let’s se présenter, présenter quelqu’un.

This is a very simple activity and don’t worry, I will give you all the answers!  

  

Completétez avec s’appelle, est, êtes, m’appelle, suis ou t’appelles.

S’appeler (Indicatif présent)

Je ……….. Paul.

Tu ………… comment ?

Il ………… Karl Rainer.

Elle ………… Isabelle.

Nous …………………… Pablo et Alexandra.

Vous ........................... Sofia.

Ils ……………. Alexandre et Barbara.  

ANSWERS:

Je m’appelle Paul.

Tu t’appelle comment?

Il s’appelle Karl Rainer.

Elle s’appelle Isabelle.

Nous nous appelons Pablo et Alexandra.

Vous vous appelez Sofia.

Ils s’appellent Alexandre et Barbara.  

Être (indicatif présent)

Je .......... canadien.

Tu ……….. belge.

Il …….. allemande ?

Elle ……………. français.

Nous …………….. espagnols.

Vous …………… russe ?

Ils …………….. canadiens.

Ells ……………….. espagnoles.

ANSWERS:

Je suis canadien.

Tu es belge.

Il est allemande ?

Elle est français.

Nous sommes espagnols.

Vous êtes russe ?

Ils sont canadiens.

Ells sont espagnoles.

Is it too much?

Well, let’s try to look at the pictures below and say where those people are from, shall we?

Elle s’appelle Jennifer Aniston. Elle est américaine !

Brigitte Bardot est française.

Penélope Cruz est espagnole.

Maria Sharapova est russe.

Gisele Bündchen est Brésilienne.

 I hope you liked it.

Salut ! 

PORTAL DA LÍNGUA INGLESA has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-partly internet websites referred to in this post, and does not guarantee that any context on such websites are, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

In some instances, I have been unable to trace the owners of the pictures used here; therefore, I would appreciate any information that would enable me to do so. Thank you very much.

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