It’s time to start building more phrases and sentences. We will begin by using and combining together verbs that we have already looked at, particularly those from the ‘Big 6’ as they are crucial to getting our daily communication under way.
The first two we will begin with are ALLER (Go) and FAIRE (Do). We will start with a very common phrase ‘I am going to do it’. ‘I will do it’ is probably even more common but using the future tense this way belongs to a different set of grammatical rules that we will come to later.
The first point to make is that when we conjugate our verbs it could be translated as either I go, You go, He/She goes etc. or as, I am going, You are going, He/She is going etc. The same applies to Faire (Do), je fais, tu fais, il fait etc. can be translated as either I do, You do, He does or, it can be translated as I am doing, You are doing, He is doing etc. If you have studied French before do not confuse this with the present progressif. KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid and just stick to the programme.
Back to ALLER, FAIRE and 'I am going to do it'. We will break it down into three parts. (1) I am going (2) to do (3) it. The first part, ‘I am going’ is easy. We have already conjugated our verb ALLER in Chapter 3. ‘I go’ or ‘I am going’ is Je vais.
When we use a second verb in a simple phrase we don’t need to conjugate it again. To say ‘To do’ we just use the verb FAIRE in its simple or infinitive form. Je vais faire, I am going to do. We could leave it at that and the frog you’re speaking to would understand that you are going to do something. Or, we can round off our sentence with perfect grammar and impress all and sundry with, 'I am going to do it'.
This is where ‘articles’ come into the picture. Articles can be used in two ways. Firstly, they are normally used as the French version of THE (le);
the building le batiment
the shop le magasin
the truck le camion
LE is THE for masculine objects and LA is THE for feminine objects.
The other way to use articles is to replace what we are talking about to avoid repeating the same words in the same way that we use the word ‘it’ in English. I am going to do ‘it’. ‘It’ obviously refers to whatever you were just talking about. In brief, French uses le in the same way that we use it. We’re not quite there yet however. Je vais faire le is not correct. Aside from the fact that isn’t correct it sounds awkward and stunted. The frogs place their version of ‘it’ in between the two verbs, vais + faire, which gives us ‘Je vais le faire’ zhe vay le fair.
Try pronouncing it out loud. It flows. The words roll from to another. This rolling effect between the words will become even more evident as we practice more phrases and continue to work on our liaisons.
We can also use the above for all our other pronouns as well;
Tu vas le faire You are going to do it
Il va le faire He is going to do it
On va le faire We are going to do it.
Intonation
We can say to somebody ‘You are going to do it’ as if we are giving an order or, ‘You are going to do it?’ as a question, simply by the intonation of our voices. We can use that same intonation in French to either make a statement or ask a question.
Dire – Say/Tell
Tu vas me dire pourquoi? (using intonation) tchoo var m’ deer pour-kwu You are going to tell me why?
Pourquoi – Why
Our second verb ‘DIRE’ is left in the infinitive form. Pourquoi? (Why?) is a combination of pour (for) + quoi (what). For what? ... Why?
Who Qui kee
What Quoi kwu
Why Pourquoi pour-kwu
When Quand ko (qu in French is pronounced the same as a hard 'k' in English)
Where Ou oo
How Comment co-mo
Which Quel(le) kel
Tu peux mettre le carton la-bas stp*? Tu pe met le car-ton’ lu-bar stp
(Can) you put the carton/box over there please?
*stp – s’il te plait – see-l’ te play - the informal way of saying please to somebody you know well as opposed to the formal, polite way, s’il vous plait – see voo play
Tu veux le mettre ou exactement? tu ve le met oo exact-e-moe You want to put it where exactly?
In English we would really say something like, “Where do you want to put it exactly?” For the sake of becoming familiar with the vocabulary, the phrases will be translated word for word where it is feasibly possible.
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