Understanding Spoken French: Common Reductions in Everyday Speech

Cool. I find that watching these things on video helps better than just simply reading it. Your videos are also nice unlike some other ones which have hard to read font and colors. I like the colors and simple text on yours (like watching a powerpoint on youtube). Keep it up and please upload more videos. c:

Fantastic — brilliant video! Keep up the good work
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I’m currently obsessed with trying to improve my spoke French/accent, so I had fun watching this and repeating everything. Thanks!

love it! i’ve had the “je ne sais pas” reduction explained to me, but never written out to me – very helpful to see it visually. thank you
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Jennie,

I am loving the stuff you have shared recently. Will you come to Seattle and teach my French class for me ?

Thanks, I found this video very helpful! I always left the hint of an ‘n’ when saying “je ne sais pas”, but didn’t know I could just drop it all together.

I hope you add more videos…
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Very nice, thanks! Funnily enough I was talking to a French guy on Friday and according to him only “Americans” say ché pas, and dropping the ‘ne’ in general is an American habit! Which I don’t think is true btw… I do drop the ‘ne’ constantly, which is perhaps a bad habit, but personally I don’t say ‘ché pas’, I don’t really think my French is good/colloquial enough yet to get that casual, I don’t want to sound like a textbook robot, but equally I think you sound a little bit bizarre if you get too slangy when you don’t speak the language perfectly. Or maybe it’s just because I’m not American
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good work jennie (and D!) Keep the revolution up! People need spoken French!
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Great! I’m passing this along to a friend who teaches French in the UK. He’ll love it!
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Hey Jennie,

I was a language assistant in Marseille in 2007-2008. I just came across your site, and am sending some lesson plan ideas the assistants in Marseille came up with when I was there. I thought it might be helpful and you could incorporate them into the “Lesson Plans” portion of your site. They’re listed below. For myself and the other assistants in Marseille, there was no official curriculum and no support, so we felt really frustrated — this is a great resource for current assistants!

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High School: Get me off this Island
You tell the students that you are going to play a role playing game. They are all on a deserted Island and there is a rescue boat coming but they can only save one of them. Each student has a card saying how old they are, their profession, family status ect. (For example: 10 yr old genius; 75 yr old Catholic Priest; 35 yr old , physicist and Mother of 2) Then as that person they have to get up in front of the class and convince the class why they should be the person saved. At the end there is a vote and one student wins. It can actually be a quite funny lesson. For example, in one class the Priest gave a lecture on how he could save everyone’s souls and that he could put in a good word with the man upstairs and ensure that everyone went to heaven.

Elementary School: Vocabulary Words
I put students in groups of three and gave each group a paper with vocabulary words for feelings (happy, sad, tired, etc) that they kept secret. Each group acted out their word and the other students guessed. I did the same for illnesses.
Elementary School: Introductory Questions
I asked students “Where do you live?” and “Where do you come from?” Students made up their answers, wich they had a fun time doing. Then I made a chart on the blackboard, with cultural icons’ names as the category headings. I had pictures of the icons students matched with the name; students guessed and put the pictures above the appropriate name. Then I made two rows across on the chart: the
first, “Where does he live?” and the second, “Where does he come from?” students filled in the chart. Then I asked, “Who is English?” and “Who is American?”
Elementary School: Classroom Objects and Placement
I brought in a “paper person” named Flat Stanley, that my little cousin had drawn for me. Flat Stanley comes from a children’s book in
the States, and in the book he travels all over the world. After going over appropriate vocabulary, one student placed Flat Stanley in a specific place around the classroom (next to the bookshelf, on the computer, etc), and chose another student, who said, “Flat Stanley is under the chair.”
Elementary School: Clothing and/or Parts of the Body
I would say “He has got brown hair. He has got a black T-shirt. He has got jeans.” describing someone in the class. The students would of course guess. Then they began to describe someone, making the sentences themselves. The student who gave the description would choose a student who would guess.

Good job!

Cool ad. I like. I always wondered about why it seemed as if they were going a bit fast. Keep it up, you’re helping alot of persons and your hard work won’t go unrewarded!

Thanks everyone! I do plan on making many more videos. And Gwan, dropping the ne is definitely NOT just something Americans do. (That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, btw.) I hear j’sais pas more often than ché pas, but I almost never hear anyone say ne for any negative sentence.

@Corie: Thank you for sharing your lesson plans!

Fantastic video. Superb to hear the native voice along with the written expressions. More please!!!

Great video. For the last one we can also say only “pas de chance” ou “pas d’chance”