This was so interesting - it made me think about how difficult it must be for the French to grasp all the meanings of “get” when they are learning English! 😃
Bonjour Connie! Je suis d'accord avec toi! J'ai appris l'anglais à l'école mais je ne connaissais pas toutes les façons d'utiliser le verbe " to get ". Merci beaucoup Alex pour tes vidéos car tu parles très bien et pas trop vite, comme ça je comprends tout ce que tu dis! Bises 😀
Even when born into a language that actually has 'get' (få/hämta) and 'got' (fått/hämtat), this heavy use of get/got in informal speech can be a bit confusing, at least for us that mostly see written or formal English.
Yes, we have very few "one-size-fits-all" words. Verbs especially. You need to be specific, so the piece of advice given in this video is perfect: when you're stuck, think of how you could phrase it differently and more precisely in your own language, and use that as a basis for your translation. This is probably more important than getting the right gender for a noun. If you use masculine instead of feminine (and vice versa), we can still figure out what you mean and it's even kind of cute. But if you nail the correct verb, then your sentence becomes so much more understandable.
This is very good 👍. Even for a native French speaker it is always interesting to have all the different use cases of an English word put together and explained clearly. Great job. Just one critique : I have never heard a French person say: "je suis devenu énervé". Grammatically correct, but it's not French. In fact, énervé already implies the sense of change in your state of mind. "Je me suis énervé" is definitely correct, you could also simply say "je suis énervé" if you still feel angry but never " je suis devenu énervé".
I was at school (in Uk) in the 50s and we were not allowed to use the words "get" or "got" in written work. There was an idea that there were substantial differences between spoken and written English and the use of these words were top of the list. Even now I think get and got should only be used informally. Thank you for this helpful video... I have just subscribed.
Hey, same in France with some generic verbs (not as generic as get though). At school in the 90s we weren't allowed to use "faire" (which we use for everything, "faire à manger" instead of "cuisinier" - to cook, "faire sa chambre" instead of "ranger sa chambre" etc..).
I actually understood this organically as I was learning college French, because I also learned to speak German while living in Germany for 5 years. This is a good life lesson for anyone who has zero experience with a foreign language to help them realize that straight translations don’t really work!
Je suis française, j'apprends l'anglais et je trouve que tes vidéos sont formidables aussi bien dans mon cas. Elles sont motivantes, pleines d'énergie et tout y est très utile et très juste pour parler le français que nous parlons couramment. Amis anglophones, je vous recommande vivement ces vidéos !
Through learning French and Hebrew, I’ve realized that “get” is too ambiguous and to be clearer in my English and also to consider what it is I’m actually saying. When I spend time reading or speaking with natives, I pick up on speech patterns. My friend in Israel said to me “Sorry, did not go out to me to speak with you yesterday” and so l understood that Hebrew speakers say “to go out to someone to do something” to mean “someone has the chance/ability to do something”. So now I use more colloquial speech patterns.
Great idea for a video and it made me realise two things: 1. How often we usee get/got in English! ! 2. That I've been making pretty goodgood internal translations fof these types of phrases up to now, apart from 'obtenir'...a verb I never use..but i should!!!
Don’t know why I like your videos so much, french being my native language! Here is a tip. You said « Je prends un café svp » for « Can I get a coffee please? » Altought correct, it may sound a little rude for some people. I would normally use the « conditionnel » verb tense here and go for « Je prendrAIS un café svp » It somehow sounds more polite. At least in Québécois french. Great vid, I will keep watching!
This is excellent, especially "Je vais payer alors," because I wanted to be able to say, "I'll pay," by using the expression, "It's my treat!" I've asked several French colleagues and friends, but there doesn't seem to be a French equivalent to this phrase, but 'Je vais payer alors,' will do very nicely. Thanks!
Ah I'm happy to hear it Jane. It will definitely do the job! Consider, "je t'invite" or "je vous invite" because that's what we say when we want to treat someone. Whereas "Je vais payer alors" is less specific but obviously, when said in the right context it will communicate the same thing
@@FrenchinPlainSight Oh thank you, that's brilliant! I have a French friend I regularly meet for coffee, and we take turns to pay, so this will be perfect!
Great advice. If you don't know how to translate a sentence, think about how you could phrase it differently in your own language, and go from there. You can also wonder how you would say what you want to express to a child... in which case, you would find the simplest possible way to express something, and that often gives you a clue on the solution.
As an addition to your excellent suggestions in the « change of state » section, to translate things like « she got sad » and « I got angry », in many cases we (French native speakers) tend to include a reference to what caused the change (ça) : ça l'a rendue triste ; « ça m'a énervée » etc...
@@FrenchinPlainSight isn't Yasmine saying something like "that made me sad" and "that made me angry" in the passive voice which would translate to "i got sad" and "I got angry" keeping with your "get" lesson?
@@jimsweeney487 yep she is. It just wasn't the direct, 1 step translation from get. That was my reasoning. But of course, what she's saying could be expressed with get.
Thanks for inviting feedback on the music. Please don't use it. It doesn't help my learning experience at all . I find it to be an irritating distraction. Upon discovering your channel a couple of months ago, I have been devouring your videos with great enthusiasm. However, I found that some of the earlier ones had background music that was so distracting I couldn't watch any more of them. I was so relieved to find that at some point it seem that you realized the music was not a good idea. I do so hope that you will not be bringing it back. It has my mind saying to itself "will someone please turn that music off, I'm trying to learn French here!" Thanks again, Alex. I just love your work, it's fabulous.
Thanks for the feedback! I can watch a video 50 times while editing and so can start to think that music is a good idea for X or Y reason, but it's the audience's opinion that really counts. I felt that the music was done better than those videos from the early days, but it seems that it is still just distracting. Thanks for being so clear and direct, yet polite Scott.
Mon nouveau prof de français préféré! Thanks Alex for explaining things so well and keeping me optimistic that I’ll eventually be able to speak the language. I’m so glad I stumbled across this channel a few weeks ago!
It was so weird to open up RUclips and see this, because just yesterday I was trying to figure out how to say, “Get one for me, too.” Thanks for the video!
Great topic, Alex. I've often blocked trying to express a "got" phrase. This helps a lot. 👍 For me, the underlying music track is fine, it's not at all distracting and tends to fill the audio gaps a bit.
omg thank you.....ive been trying to translating some of those phrases & you made it soo simple....its still hard for me to translate "Y" in french... ive learned more in a week of watching your vids than 3months using mobile apps ...
"J'ai obtenu le poste" est beaucoup plus formel que "j'ai eu le poste", on va utiliser la première phrase plutôt dans un contexte professionnel alors que la seconde s'utilise dans le langage de tous les jours. Petite erreur sur "les bières" : on n'utilise pas vraiment le pluriel dans ce cas, à moins qu'il s'agisse de plusieurs marques dans le même achat. on utilisera plutôt "tu as acheté de la bière ?" ou mieux "tu as pris de la bière ?" (l'achat est sous-entendu, car évident). J'ai du mal avec la phrase "je prends un café, s'il vous plaît", l'utilisation du présent contrevient au fait que, dans le contexte, le café n'est pas encore servi. Je dirais plutôt "je vais prendre un café, s'il vous plaît". Non seulement "je me suis énervé" est effectivement très commun, mais surtout personne n'utilisera l'expression "je suis devenu énervé". Même chose quasiment pour "il est devenu triste", ça fait très bizarre à lire pour un français natif, un français va tourner cette phrase autrement, par exemple en disant "ça l'a rendu triste". "Il est devenu triste" peut toutefois être utilisé lorsqu'il s'agit d'un état qui a évolué avec le temps d'une façon plutôt progressive.
Your videos have been helping me a lot but it was much better with the occasional French traditional music than the constant generic background muzak in the background - just a minor gripe though, thanks so much for your help otherwise!
Heyy Alex, am enjoying your videos - we lived 15 years in France, and are all fluent. However, as a decades-long sub-editor, I abhore the verb "to get" - such a lazy verb. There's always a better way, as French shows!
to get something to work = to make it work = to succeed in doing something : arriver à faire quelque chose to get someone to do something = to (manage to) have someone do something : faire faire quelque chose à quelqu'un
French is more specific, more precise. A similar video could be made about how to avoid "faire" when a more specific verb or a different construction would be used in French. Your videos are analytical and through. Great stuff. Give my regards to the place de la Comédie et les "Trois Graces" fountain.
Salut Alex! C'est celui qui se permet ;) Super vidéo. Par contre, si je peux me permettre:), "je suis devenu énervé" ne se dit pas en français. Et la deuxième petite remarque c'est qu'on dit "mon père est arrivé à l'heure". Car, comme tu dois le savoir, il y a l'expression " il y est arrivé" qui peut se traduire en anglais par "he made it".
Hi Alex I am enjoying your French in plain sight videos and jealous that you live in the south of France. Can you send me the link to your book, How to be a confident French speaker
super bien fait, très bien pensé, et complet, bravo ! juste une chose : « je suis devenu énervé », je n’ai jamais entendu ça ? peut-être qu’ils le disent au québec, où ils traduisent souvent littéralement des expressions anglaises ?
I realise that language is continually evolving but I still bridle at the use of the word “get” in phrases such as “can I get a coffee please” I shouldn’t worry really because I spend 95% of my time in France and 80% speaking French but I still can’t get it out of my system !
Interesting, Mark! Indeed, it's always evolving. Ah, I'm sure we all have these bugbears. I hate it when English speakers say less instead of fewer. As long as we respect each other and don't get too carried away over small things, that's the main thing :)
I have been looking everywhere where for this ☝️. I used to think what is the french equivalent of 'get'. I never got anywhere. I thank you for this video
Tu peux considérer "du coup" comme synonym de "donc" (so, therefore...), mais aussi des mots sans sens concret. Des mots employé pour donner la personne qui parle, plus de temps pour choisir les mots suivants (filler words). Cependant, cette utilisation frappe/déplaît à certains Français parce que son sens initial a évolué au cours des années de manière qu'ils ne sont pas d'accord. Moi, je l'utilise, tout simplement, parce que je l'entends tout. le. temps. De plus, souvent les Français disent "donc du coup" tout accroché !
@@FrenchinPlainSight j’apprécie également ton e-mail newsletter qui contient 5 de plus exemples !!! Merci 🙏 Any chance of you creating a podcast channel and uploading these same videos?
Je suis content d'apprendre ça. Avec plaisir. *5 exemples de plus. Could you clarify what you mean by your question? What videos would I upload and what would the "podcast" channel be?
My french teacher has always said that the verb "get" doesn't exist. So when I'm thinking of a sentence to say in french with get or got I have to replace it with a real verb 😂
Bonjour, je ne suis pas tout à fait d'accord avec ton professeur de français. Le verbe "to get" existe. Par exemple, on dit souvent en français " veux tu prendre le café avec moi?" Au sens " boire"
Exactly as Celina says. Of course it exists. It depends what you want to communicate. Behind the word. Hard concept to explain but we just use words to communicate messages and feelings. Are there any words or expressions that you've picked up in French through just imitating natives but you'd find hard to translate to English? For example (of thousands probably): I could say "c'est pas vrai!" which literally translates to "that's not true!" but the French use it to convey surprise. We wouldn't say that. We'd express the feeling or the message in another way like "no way!".
@@FrenchinPlainSight Merci beaucoup Alex pour ton explication. C'est exactement ce que je voulais dire ! Et je voulais dire à tous nos amis anglophones que je les admire car le français est une langue assez difficile à apprendre ! 😉
It was not my first explanation. I was showing how IF necessary, our English brains can make a link to the French verb, which can help us to feel comfortable saying it. One meaning of Récupérer is to recover. It may just be my brain that finds it useful:)
Tes prononciations sont bonnes, mais à certains endroits, les "N" doivent être prononcés avec moins d'emphase sur le "N", comme si on prononce "filet mignon" it's a prononciation between "on" and "oh"
Ah oui? C'est vrai que il y a "le but", ce qui est la chose que les gardiens dans le football protègent. Là on ne prononce pas le t je crois, mais pour "le but" qui est le synonyme de "l'objectif", et l'objectif d'un footballeur ce qui est de "marquer un but", je crois qu'on prononce le "t". 🤷♂️
'J'ai pas compris', ok to say (ish) but not to write. Je n'ai pas compris. I do like your explanantions and methods though and will be recommending your channel to a few people I know.
@@FrenchinPlainSight When I had to excuse myself to pick up my kids, I told a french colleague that "Je dois enlever mes enfants" and he chuckled and said, "You don't mean that you have to kidnap your children, right?"
@@cyruschang1904 récupérer also means collect which is a understandable and reasonalbe way to try to translate and yet "aller chercher" ( to go look for ) isn't ,assuming we do know where our children are! :D Direct translation doesn't always work and finding other ways to say something will help us out: collect, take, bring etc
What do you think of the use of the music in this list-style video? With my editor, we tried something new. I value your feedback!
I didn’t even notice the music until I read this comment!
Bonjour! C'est une excellente idée! Je t'encourage!
Quelle idée Celina? :)
Thanks for the feedback Connie. It looks like people either don't notice or don't like it. I'll probably be getting rid of it.
I liked it, you can implement it in your videos, thanks
This was so interesting - it made me think about how difficult it must be for the French to grasp all the meanings of “get” when they are learning English! 😃
Bonjour Connie! Je suis d'accord avec toi! J'ai appris l'anglais à l'école mais je ne connaissais pas toutes les façons d'utiliser le verbe " to get ". Merci beaucoup Alex pour tes vidéos car tu parles très bien et pas trop vite, comme ça je comprends tout ce que tu dis! Bises 😀
@@celinakyle2157 Bonjour Celina ! Chaque langue a ses difficultés ! Mais j'aime le défi d'apprendre toutes les nuances de votre belle langue. 😊
@@ConnieCC58 Merci beaucoup Connie, ça me touche énormément 😊
They could 'get by' (se débrouiller?)without it in all of these contexts but would sound slighly formal which is ok.
Even when born into a language that actually has 'get' (få/hämta) and 'got' (fått/hämtat), this heavy use of get/got in informal speech can be a bit confusing, at least for us that mostly see written or formal English.
This is always a big dilemma when I speak French and you,re the first teacher to actually address this problem 😳. Blessings 🙌
Yes, we have very few "one-size-fits-all" words. Verbs especially. You need to be specific, so the piece of advice given in this video is perfect: when you're stuck, think of how you could phrase it differently and more precisely in your own language, and use that as a basis for your translation. This is probably more important than getting the right gender for a noun. If you use masculine instead of feminine (and vice versa), we can still figure out what you mean and it's even kind of cute. But if you nail the correct verb, then your sentence becomes so much more understandable.
First class content! This is why non native speakers can be such amazing teachers!!
This is very good 👍. Even for a native French speaker it is always interesting to have all the different use cases of an English word put together and explained clearly. Great job. Just one critique : I have never heard a French person say: "je suis devenu énervé". Grammatically correct, but it's not French. In fact, énervé already implies the sense of change in your state of mind. "Je me suis énervé" is definitely correct, you could also simply say "je suis énervé" if you still feel angry but never " je suis devenu énervé".
Soooo useful, merci! At work, people reply, ‘Bien reçu’ to let you know they got your email.
This is super helpful. Merci! I like this approach too, for English speakers. We have so many common expressions that don't literally translate.
You're very welcome! Keep an eye out for more :)
French is my 2nd language, English is my 3rd. Watching these videos certainly helps me with both. Thanks :)!
Thank you for your videos. Very helpful and well explained. I always take something away from every installment.
I was at school (in Uk) in the 50s and we were not allowed to use the words "get" or "got" in written work. There was an idea that there were substantial differences between spoken and written English and the use of these words were top of the list. Even now I think get and got should only be used informally. Thank you for this helpful video... I have just subscribed.
Bienvenue!
Hey, same in France with some generic verbs (not as generic as get though). At school in the 90s we weren't allowed to use "faire" (which we use for everything, "faire à manger" instead of "cuisinier" - to cook, "faire sa chambre" instead of "ranger sa chambre" etc..).
Very good it’s much easier when an English speaker teaches French cos they know where the difficult is.
Wow, I didn't realise how versatile the usage was for 'got'! Thank you for your help 😊
You are so welcome!
I actually understood this organically as I was learning college French, because I also learned to speak German while living in Germany for 5 years. This is a good life lesson for anyone who has zero experience with a foreign language to help them realize that straight translations don’t really work!
agreed
This is the first video I've seen of yours and it's great! Subscribed.
Je suis française, j'apprends l'anglais et je trouve que tes vidéos sont formidables aussi bien dans mon cas. Elles sont motivantes, pleines d'énergie et tout y est très utile et très juste pour parler le français que nous parlons couramment.
Amis anglophones, je vous recommande vivement ces vidéos !
Merci beaucoup Cathy. Bonne continuation :). Pro tip: If you are learning English, I encourage you to write comments in English.
@@FrenchinPlainSight Yes for sure. I promise I'll do it from now! 😉
Through learning French and Hebrew, I’ve realized that “get” is too ambiguous and to be clearer in my English and also to consider what it is I’m actually saying.
When I spend time reading or speaking with natives, I pick up on speech patterns. My friend in Israel said to me “Sorry, did not go out to me to speak with you yesterday” and so l understood that Hebrew speakers say “to go out to someone to do something” to mean “someone has the chance/ability to do something”. So now I use more colloquial speech patterns.
I love noticing the patterns of foreign speakers of English. Like you say, it gives such a cool insight into their other languages!
Great idea for a video and it made me realise two things:
1. How often we usee get/got in English! !
2. That I've been making pretty goodgood internal translations fof these types of phrases up to now, apart from 'obtenir'...a verb I never use..but i should!!!
Ah you're doing great then!
Rewatching a year later and still find it useful. 😊
Don’t know why I like your videos so much, french being my native language! Here is a tip. You said « Je prends un café svp » for « Can I get a coffee please? » Altought correct, it may sound a little rude for some people. I would normally use the « conditionnel » verb tense here and go for « Je prendrAIS un café svp » It somehow sounds more polite. At least in Québécois french. Great vid, I will keep watching!
True! A lot depends on context. I have been in many situations where the ordering was casual enough that everyone says "moi, je prends..."
This is excellent, especially "Je vais payer alors," because I wanted to be able to say, "I'll pay," by using the expression, "It's my treat!" I've asked several French colleagues and friends, but there doesn't seem to be a French equivalent to this phrase, but 'Je vais payer alors,' will do very nicely. Thanks!
Ah I'm happy to hear it Jane.
It will definitely do the job!
Consider, "je t'invite" or "je vous invite" because that's what we say when we want to treat someone.
Whereas "Je vais payer alors" is less specific but obviously, when said in the right context it will communicate the same thing
@@FrenchinPlainSight Oh thank you, that's brilliant! I have a French friend I regularly meet for coffee, and we take turns to pay, so this will be perfect!
Reminds me of how 'get' in ASL isn't used for things like 'get sick' and instead you do a sign like 'hit' by sickness
Great advice. If you don't know how to translate a sentence, think about how you could phrase it differently in your own language, and go from there. You can also wonder how you would say what you want to express to a child... in which case, you would find the simplest possible way to express something, and that often gives you a clue on the solution.
Bravo et merci pour vos leçons en français.
J’apprends beaucoup de choses sur ta chaîne.
C’est superbe. 👏👏👍👍
"Get": Such a versatile word in English -and such a challenge for non-English speakers.
As an addition to your excellent suggestions in the « change of state » section, to translate things like « she got sad » and « I got angry », in many cases we (French native speakers) tend to include a reference to what caused the change (ça) : ça l'a rendue triste ; « ça m'a énervée » etc...
Definitely! Thanks for the addition Yasmine. The only reason I didn't include these is because they aren't translations of "get".
@@FrenchinPlainSight but they are though in many cases ;)
@@yasminemohammedi9749 oh cool ! Im happy to hear some examples :)
@@FrenchinPlainSight isn't Yasmine saying something like "that made me sad" and "that made me angry" in the passive voice which would translate to "i got sad" and "I got angry" keeping with your "get" lesson?
@@jimsweeney487 yep she is. It just wasn't the direct, 1 step translation from get. That was my reasoning. But of course, what she's saying could be expressed with get.
Really helpful. I needed this recently
So helpful! I love your videos where you explain those French expressions which are a little bit complicated for a native English speaker. Thank you 🙏
So glad to hear that Naomi!
Thanks for inviting feedback on the music. Please don't use it. It doesn't help my learning experience at all . I find it to be an irritating distraction. Upon discovering your channel a couple of months ago, I have been devouring your videos with great enthusiasm. However, I found that some of the earlier ones had background music that was so distracting I couldn't watch any more of them. I was so relieved to find that at some point it seem that you realized the music was not a good idea. I do so hope that you will not be bringing it back. It has my mind saying to itself "will someone please turn that music off, I'm trying to learn French here!" Thanks again, Alex. I just love your work, it's fabulous.
Thanks for the feedback! I can watch a video 50 times while editing and so can start to think that music is a good idea for X or Y reason, but it's the audience's opinion that really counts. I felt that the music was done better than those videos from the early days, but it seems that it is still just distracting. Thanks for being so clear and direct, yet polite Scott.
So well said. Thank you. I agree
Mon nouveau prof de français préféré! Thanks Alex for explaining things so well and keeping me optimistic that I’ll eventually be able to speak the language. I’m so glad I stumbled across this channel a few weeks ago!
Moi aussi, je suis heureux que tu sois tombée sur ma chaîne Rebecca :)
It was so weird to open up RUclips and see this, because just yesterday I was trying to figure out how to say, “Get one for me, too.” Thanks for the video!
And how would you say that one Sue? :D
@@FrenchinPlainSight It’s a tricky one, and I’m still not super confident about it, but I think I’d say, “Trouve m’en une, aussi.”
@@sueingr it would be « prends moi en aussi »
@@poppyclark9789 Oh, okay! Thanks!
@@sueingr you’re welcome :)) french is so hard at the start but once you start to understand the logic it gets easier :)))
Merci d’avoir m’aidé avec les conseils utiles pour mon interro de français qui est très difficile pour moi parce que je ne suis pas fort en français.
Wow this is amazing. You are the first person to address this French topic. Thank you so much! Subscribed!
Happy to take that honour Jamal!
Great topic, Alex. I've often blocked trying to express a "got" phrase. This helps a lot. 👍 For me, the underlying music track is fine, it's not at all distracting and tends to fill the audio gaps a bit.
Double the great news then. Thanks Kurt!
omg thank you.....ive been trying to translating some of those phrases & you made it soo simple....its still hard for me to translate "Y" in french... ive learned more in a week of watching your vids than 3months using mobile apps ...
Glad I could help!
I speak English but I’m a native Spanish speaker and I find it easier to grasp French verbs as we too have many verbs instead of got
Yes. "Get" has been a bloque for me for a long time.
Not anymore!
How come your accent is so good?👍
Thanks! Partly natural talent, partly work. :)
Very helpful. Merci.
Great video, very informative! One more way to say get, is to "get on with someone." In french, that's "s'entendre avec quelqu'un"
Now if you replace someone with it, or if you add it between get and on, it totally changes the meaning 🤣😂
to get on with it
to get it on with someone
Great addition! I provided it as a bonus to my newsletter subscribers last week :)
Merci Alex! Super utile !
"J'ai obtenu le poste" est beaucoup plus formel que "j'ai eu le poste", on va utiliser la première phrase plutôt dans un contexte professionnel alors que la seconde s'utilise dans le langage de tous les jours.
Petite erreur sur "les bières" : on n'utilise pas vraiment le pluriel dans ce cas, à moins qu'il s'agisse de plusieurs marques dans le même achat. on utilisera plutôt "tu as acheté de la bière ?" ou mieux "tu as pris de la bière ?" (l'achat est sous-entendu, car évident).
J'ai du mal avec la phrase "je prends un café, s'il vous plaît", l'utilisation du présent contrevient au fait que, dans le contexte, le café n'est pas encore servi. Je dirais plutôt "je vais prendre un café, s'il vous plaît".
Non seulement "je me suis énervé" est effectivement très commun, mais surtout personne n'utilisera l'expression "je suis devenu énervé". Même chose quasiment pour "il est devenu triste", ça fait très bizarre à lire pour un français natif, un français va tourner cette phrase autrement, par exemple en disant "ça l'a rendu triste". "Il est devenu triste" peut toutefois être utilisé lorsqu'il s'agit d'un état qui a évolué avec le temps d'une façon plutôt progressive.
Brilliant as usual Alex. Really helpful :)
Happy to hear it Steve
Good survey.
ha, I was teaching my english students, who are french, this this morning!
Les pauvres ! Hard for them?
Encore tu as fait une leçon à revoir plusieurs fois. Tellement utile, Alex!
"tu as encore fait" ou "tu viens encore de faire" , on ne met pas le mot encore en début de phrase ;)
@@fabricejaouen378 merci!
Excellent Alex, tres tres merci pour ca
Avec grand plaisir
Thanks!
You bet!
Your videos have been helping me a lot but it was much better with the occasional French traditional music than the constant generic background muzak in the background - just a minor gripe though, thanks so much for your help otherwise!
Thanks for the feedback! I'm getting rid of the muzak.
Heyy Alex, am enjoying your videos - we lived 15 years in France, and are all fluent. However, as a decades-long sub-editor, I abhore the verb "to get" - such a lazy verb. There's always a better way, as French shows!
Super man - U r always from d shoes of English speakers who wants to learn French … gud effort -
Thanks! 😃
J'pige pas.
Nice and very useful idea for a video, Alex! Thanks.
Glad you "got" the point Stephen. :)
Excellent!!
Cette vidéo était fantastique et tellement instructive.
Can you do something on the variants of "about.." eg "au sujet de", "à propos de" amd when to use them? Thanks, Mark.
to get something to work = to make it work = to succeed in doing something : arriver à faire quelque chose
to get someone to do something = to (manage to) have someone do something : faire faire quelque chose à quelqu'un
vraiment, tu es excellent Alex ! 👍
French is more specific, more precise. A similar video could be made about how to avoid "faire" when a more specific verb or a different construction would be used in French. Your videos are analytical and through. Great stuff. Give my regards to the place de la Comédie et les "Trois Graces" fountain.
Salut Alex! C'est celui qui se permet ;)
Super vidéo. Par contre, si je peux me permettre:), "je suis devenu énervé" ne se dit pas en français. Et la deuxième petite remarque c'est qu'on dit "mon père est arrivé à l'heure". Car, comme tu dois le savoir, il y a l'expression " il y est arrivé" qui peut se traduire en anglais par "he made it".
Hi Alex I am enjoying your French in plain sight videos and jealous that you live in the south of France. Can you send me the link to your book, How to be a confident French speaker
Hi. Maybe you can make it happen for you one day :D. frenchinplainsight.com/speaking-guide-2023
Wow ! J'ai appris tellement de choses. Merci Alex !
Excellent :)
My head is spinning….. but in a good way! Merci!
Sorry! Haha
super bien fait, très bien pensé, et complet, bravo !
juste une chose : « je suis devenu énervé », je n’ai jamais entendu ça ?
peut-être qu’ils le disent au québec, où ils traduisent souvent littéralement des expressions anglaises ?
I realise that language is continually evolving but I still bridle at the use of the word “get” in phrases such as “can I get a coffee please”
I shouldn’t worry really because I spend 95% of my time in France and 80% speaking French but I still can’t get it out of my system !
Interesting, Mark! Indeed, it's always evolving.
Ah, I'm sure we all have these bugbears. I hate it when English speakers say less instead of fewer. As long as we respect each other and don't get too carried away over small things, that's the main thing :)
great video
Merci
I have been looking everywhere where for this ☝️. I used to think what is the french equivalent of 'get'. I never got anywhere. I thank you for this video
You're very welcome!
👍👍👍
Today I learned that native English speakers just said "Chuck it. We don't need verbs. We have got".
And you know what... sure... you do you.
Merci pour votre vidéo... Qu'est ce que c'est "du coup"?
Tu peux considérer "du coup" comme synonym de "donc" (so, therefore...), mais aussi des mots sans sens concret. Des mots employé pour donner la personne qui parle, plus de temps pour choisir les mots suivants (filler words). Cependant, cette utilisation frappe/déplaît à certains Français parce que son sens initial a évolué au cours des années de manière qu'ils ne sont pas d'accord. Moi, je l'utilise, tout simplement, parce que je l'entends tout. le. temps.
De plus, souvent les Français disent "donc du coup" tout accroché !
I like the _Languedoc_ flag!
Formidable !!!!
Génial !
@@FrenchinPlainSight j’apprécie également ton e-mail newsletter qui contient 5 de plus exemples !!! Merci 🙏
Any chance of you creating a podcast channel and uploading these same videos?
Je suis content d'apprendre ça. Avec plaisir. *5 exemples de plus.
Could you clarify what you mean by your question? What videos would I upload and what would the "podcast" channel be?
@@FrenchinPlainSight two other French profs upload their RUclips content as a podcast? Français authentique et français avec fluidité
@@anitawaters4745 do you mean an audio-only podcast? Rather than another RUclips channel?
always enjoy your videos, with great explanations..but drop the music, adds nothing, somewhat annoying in the background..
Noted! In fact it was my main question I wanted an answer to. Thanks a lot.
My french teacher has always said that the verb "get" doesn't exist. So when I'm thinking of a sentence to say in french with get or got I have to replace it with a real verb 😂
Bonjour, je ne suis pas tout à fait d'accord avec ton professeur de français. Le verbe "to get" existe. Par exemple, on dit souvent en français " veux tu prendre le café avec moi?" Au sens " boire"
Exactly as Celina says. Of course it exists. It depends what you want to communicate. Behind the word.
Hard concept to explain but we just use words to communicate messages and feelings. Are there any words or expressions that you've picked up in French through just imitating natives but you'd find hard to translate to English? For example (of thousands probably): I could say "c'est pas vrai!" which literally translates to "that's not true!" but the French use it to convey surprise. We wouldn't say that. We'd express the feeling or the message in another way like "no way!".
@@FrenchinPlainSight Merci beaucoup Alex pour ton explication. C'est exactement ce que je voulais dire ! Et je voulais dire à tous nos amis anglophones que je les admire car le français est une langue assez difficile à apprendre ! 😉
Do you use courriel for email in France
Sometimes. Most people say and use mail ou email. Then I'd say courriel is the next most common, followed by the occasional mél !
Could i use travail instead of poste?
Ça dépend de la phrase. Context is everything. Try it and I'll tell you.
@@FrenchinPlainSight merci beaucoup
Why do the numbers in the video total to 7 … but then at the end you say 16?
7 contexts. 16 ways to say got.
québécois translation: j’ai obtenu le job
Did you recover the beers?
Strange example and you didn’t
translate ??
It was not my first explanation. I was showing how IF necessary, our English brains can make a link to the French verb, which can help us to feel comfortable saying it. One meaning of Récupérer is to recover.
It may just be my brain that finds it useful:)
Most of these phrases are improper grammar so naturally it’s hard to translate them
Tes prononciations sont bonnes, mais à certains endroits, les "N" doivent être prononcés avec moins d'emphase sur le "N", comme si on prononce "filet mignon" it's a prononciation between "on" and "oh"
Like you start with the "on" pronounciation, then quickly switch back to "oh"
le mot le plus dificile à prononcer c'est "but". Personne ne peut l'expliquer
Ah oui? C'est vrai que il y a "le but", ce qui est la chose que les gardiens dans le football protègent. Là on ne prononce pas le t je crois, mais pour "le but" qui est le synonyme de "l'objectif", et l'objectif d'un footballeur ce qui est de "marquer un but", je crois qu'on prononce le "t". 🤷♂️
'J'ai pas compris', ok to say (ish) but not to write. Je n'ai pas compris. I do like your explanantions and methods though and will be recommending your channel to a few people I know.
Thanks for the recommendation!
Yea I cover spoken French on this channel hence the omission of the ne.
It's not one simple thing though is it? Getting 'get' can get tricky when one gets into it.
Absolutely.
So handsome guy
I find it strange when I say I recuperate my children.
to get kids from school or daycare means to pick them up (aller chercher les enfants), not to recover them (récupérer)
Haha. Yea récupérer has a couple of different translations :P.
@@FrenchinPlainSight When I had to excuse myself to pick up my kids, I told a french colleague that "Je dois enlever mes enfants" and he chuckled and said, "You don't mean that you have to kidnap your children, right?"
@@jimsweeney487 haha. Oops.
@@cyruschang1904 récupérer also means collect which is a understandable and reasonalbe way to try to translate and yet "aller chercher" ( to go look for ) isn't ,assuming we do know where our children are! :D Direct translation doesn't always work and finding other ways to say something will help us out: collect, take, bring etc
A force de vouloir tout abréger pour aller plus vite, vous appauvrissez votre langue....... Héla c'est devenu pareil en France...
Was taught never to use 'got'! The Yanks use 'get' more than the English!
I clicked because of the hot guy 😍
Thanks!
Merci !