Vocabulaire

Les cours (Courses…specific to CapU)

In French, there are two ways to talk about our courses. We can say j’ai un cours de… (communication), un cours d’…(histoire) when we are listing the courses we are taking in one semester. But we can also use the verb étudier (to study) when talking about our major, or what we are studying in general.

For example, j’étudie la communication (I am studying/majoring in communication) versus j’ai un cours de communication (I have a communication course).

IMPORTANT NOTE: when you use the structure un cours de/d’, do NOT use the definite article ‘le/la/l’: J’ai un cours de la communication. Simply state J’ai un cours de communication. (I have a communication.)

We do, however, use the article ‘le‘ in front of a course to state what we are studying (j’étudie le français, I’m studying French) or to speak about the subject matter: Le français est la langue officielle du Canada (French is Canada’s official language). Notice how you do not use an article in English in front of this noun.

Pour décrire un cours (To describe a course…)

L’heure

Other useful terms when saying the time:

Les nombres 1-60

Les nombres 1-60

Les nombres 61-100

Pay close attention to numbers 70, 80 and 90:

• The number 70 is actually “sixty-ten”, (soixante-dix) in French. It then goes “sixty-eleven” (soixante-onze), “sixty-twelve” (soixante-douze), “sixty-thirteen” (soixante-treize), etc.
• The number 80 is quatre-vingts which means “four-twenties” (because four twenties equal eighty, right?). It is also the only number that pluralizes the word vingt (quatre-vingts). It then goes “four-twenty-one” (quatre-vingt-un), “four-twenty-two” (quatre-vingt-deux), “four-twenty-three” (quatre-vingt-trois), all the way to “four-twenty-nineteen” (quatre-vingt-dix-neuf).
• The number 90 is quatre-vingt-dix, literally “four twenty ten” (4 x 20 +10; or 80+ 10; you do the math).
• Once you get past 100, it’s easy; you just start all over again except you have the word “cent” in front of everything: cent un, cent deux, cent trois,… , cent vingt-trois,… , cent quatre-vingt-dix, etc.