Mai! C'est si joli!
Mai est un mois très agréable. On l'appelle "le joli mois de mai": le printemps est une réalité! Les beaux jours sont arrivés! May is a very pleasant month. We call it "pretty month of May": Spring is a reality, the nice days have arrived!
Aujourd'hui, nous parlons du temps!
Today we talk about the weather!
Today we talk about the weather!
To listen to the DYI audio, click below!
Vocabulary:
Le temps: as you know, "temps" means "time"... Well, it also means "weather".
- Note the phonetics: "Tem
The masculine adjective "beau" means good-looking or beautiful. It's also used to talk about good weather.
le beau temps ("boh-tãh") good / nice weather
mauvais ("moh-veh") bad
le mauvais temps bad weather
chaud (m.) / chaude (f.) warm / hot
froid (m.) / froide (f.) cold
- note that in the masculine, you don't hear the final letter, "d". You hear the "d" in the feminine, however, because the final vowel, "e", makes the "d" appear.
froid = frwah / froide = frwahD
chaud = shoh / chaude = shohD
Attention! To talk about outside temperature (It's hot, cold...) : don't use "c'est" but: "il fait".
- Il fait is a conjugation of the verb "faire" ("to make" / "to do").
The first meaning of "Il fait" is: "he does" or "it does"!. -Basically, when you want to say that it's nice out, you literally say "it does beautiful".
- Il fait beau it's nice out
- Il fait chaud it's warm / hot out
- Il fait froid it's cold out
- Il fait quel temps? What's the weather like?
In this case, "il" doesn't mean "he" but "it".
Other sentences with impersonal "il" :
- Il pleut it's raining
- Il y a means there is
Il y a du soleil it's sunny (lit: there is sun)
Il y a du vent it's windy (lit: there is wind)
Il y a des nuages it's cloudy
The infinitive of "Il pleut" is the verb pleuvoir (to rain)
la pluie is the noun: the rain
le soleil the sun
briller to shine
le soleil brille the sun is shining
le vent the wind
le ciel the sky
les nuages the clouds
bleu (m.) / bleue (f.) blue
gris (m.) / grise (f.) grey
un jour a day / one day
Aujourd'hui today
A special focus on 3 words with a challenging pronunciation:
- le vent (/vã/) (mispronounced, it can sound like "le vin" -wine)
- la pluie (lah-plwee) the rain
- il pleut (eel-pluh) it's raining
One more thing. We have just learned to describe the weather. But for talking about oneself, say that you feel warm or cold, you use the verb "avoir", "to have".
>>> In French we ARE not cold or hot, we HAVE cold or heat. (This is very important because you don't want to end up telling someone that you are a cold or hot person!!! )
Conjugation of avoir:
J'ai, tu as, il/elle/on a
nous avons, vous avez, ils/elles ont
- J'ai froid I am cold (lit: I have cold)
- J'ai chaud I am hot (lit: I have heat)
Exercice!
1- place the missing word in each sentence2- find the meaning of each sentence
... or start by listening! Click on the player:
1- Aujourd'hui, le soleil brille, il fait beau et j' chaud.
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2- Les jours de beau , je fais un pique-nique dans un parc.
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3- Aujourd'hui, le ciel est gris, il y a des nuages, il y a du : j'ai froid!
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4- Ici, un jour il fait chaud, un jour il fait !
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5- Il fait quel temps aujourd'hui? Il ne pas, le soleil brille!
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Crédit: J'ai trouvé l'illustration dans un blog magnifique: Japonisme. Allez le visiter!
Leçon, audio et exercices ©Sandrine de Paris
