It's me again, and today I wanted to share some French with you. I'm trying to incorporate as much French culture and language as I can. Why would you be interested in a bi-lingual blog if you don't know any French?
For the first lesson I would like to go over greetings. So as you've seen in order to say "hello" or "good morning" you say "Bonjour". This is a very formal and more traditional way to say hello. If you wanted to be less formal, maybe say "hey", you would say "salut". Make sure when you say "salut" that you aren't pronouncing the "T". Here's a pointer in French, generally you don't pronounce the last consonant of each word. This is just a trick though, it is definitely now the law.
After saying hello, or good morning you're going to want to ask them how they're doing. To go along with the formal "bonjour" I might say "How are you doing today?" This is translated to "Comment t'allez-vous?" meaning "How are you going?. There are two other basic ways to say that in a less formal matter. For example I could say "Comment ça va" The little tail on the "C"is called a cedilla, the makes the "C" sounds like an "S". "Comment ça va" literally means "how's it going"? And finally, the most simple way to ask this question is simply "ça va"? This means "it's going"?. Generally you'd answer bacl with "Oui, ça va", or "yes, it's going".
Now you can start any simple conversation with a French speaking person. In French It's very important to understand the hierarchy of formal vs. non-formal speech. For example, you might say "sault" (informal) to your good friend or your younger sibling, but you wouldn't say this to your parents or teacher. If you are unsure about the age or their power over you, I would stick with the formal "Bonjour". Formal and informal speech is very common in French, so make sure you remember who receives what form, or they may get offended easily.
Thank you so much for letting me share a little bit of French with you. Just to warn you, I'm only a student so I wouldn't trust every single thing I saw. If you are interested in French find someone who's fluent or go ahead and take a class. Hopefully my blog will inspire you to want to learn French. And maybe you'll see why I love it so much. And the last part of today (as you've seen before) is to say "thank you". It is "merci". Please leave comments if you have any questions or opinions (good or bad). I'd love to hear from you guys.
Thank you!/ Merci!
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