Étienne : la nationalité, le caractère, le collège et l'emploi du temps

Module 1 of Adosphère 2 is called Étienne. Étienne is a Canadian boy from Québec who spends three months in France with his French penfriend Wassim and goes to school in Wassim's collège. In this module you learn to say where you and your friends come from, to describe a character, to talk about your school life and timetable, and to ask questions. In the UASA paper these topics come back in Partie 1 (grammar and vocabulary: nationality adjectives, prendre / comprendre / apprendre, character adjectives), Partie 2 (short texts with questions, including vrai ou faux) and Partie 3 (writing a short message about yourself and your school).

1.1Nationality and origin

Lesson 1 starts in the playground of Wassim's collège. Wassim introduces Étienne to two girls, Émilie and Manon. They ask him why he is in France, where he lives and when he goes home. Then the friends find out that nearly everybody has an origin from somewhere else: Étienne is Canadian (from Québec), Wassim's family is of Algerian origin, Manon's grandfather is American, Émilie's father is Spanish and her mother is Malagasy (from Madagascar). Émilie then explains a Québec expression that Étienne uses: « c'est l'fun » means « c'est amusant » (it's fun).

Adosphère 2, p. 14

Say where you come from

Nationality adjectives

A nationality adjective agrees with the person. For a girl, you add -e (and sometimes double the consonant). In the plural, add -s.

Adosphère 2, p. 15

Plural: Ils sont américains. Elles sont espagnoles. Ils sont québécois. (québécois already ends in -s, so it does not change in the masculine plural.)

1.2Asking questions

In the dialogue the friends ask many questions. There are two easy ways to ask: keep the word order of a statement and put the question word at the end (short form: Tu habites où ?; with pourquoi it comes first), or start with the question word and add est-ce que. The two forms have the same meaning.

1.3The collège: places and subjects

In Lesson 2 Étienne puts sticky notes on a plan of the French collège and comments on each place: the school has a gymnase, salles de classe, a cour de récréation, a bibliothèque and a cantine. Étienne notices that in France pupils do not wear a uniform, and that his French friends often do not understand his Québec accent.

Adosphère 2, p. 16

Subjects (les matières scolaires): le français, l'histoire-géographie, les sciences et vie de la Terre (SVT), la physique-chimie, la technologie, l'anglais, les arts plastiques, les mathématiques (les maths), la musique, le sport. Your favourite subject is ta matière préférée; the timetable is l'emploi du temps; a pupil in a collège is un collégien / une collégienne. To give the timetable, Étienne says the number of hours per week (le nombre d'heures par semaine): une heure, une heure et demie, trois heures, quatre heures.

1.4Prendre, comprendre, apprendre

These three verbs follow the same pattern (comprendre and apprendre are built on prendre). Learn the group once.

Adosphère 2, p. 17

Pattern: je, tu end in -s, il ends in -d; nous / vous have one n (-nons, -nez); ils / elles have double n and -ent. Examples: Nous prenons nos repas à la cantine. Ils apprennent l'espagnol. Je ne comprends pas. Other expressions: prendre le bus, prendre un repas, prendre un stylo dans son sac, apprendre une langue.

1.5Describing character

Lesson 3 is a comic strip, Zap Collège, by Téhem. It presents the characters of a school with a short portrait of each. Read the portraits and see how the author uses the adjectives.

Adosphère 2, p. 18

Character adjectives and agreement

Adosphère 2, p. 19

1.6How often? Adverbs of frequency

Adosphère 2, p. 19

From the most frequent to the least frequent: toujours → souvent → parfois → jamais. The adverb goes after the verb (Il est souvent en retard). Jamais always comes with ne (n' before a vowel) in front of the verb: Je ne parle jamais en classe.

1.7The French collège: culture and class rules

Lesson 4 is a board game about the four years of the French collège. A pupil enters in the sixième, then goes up to the cinquième, the quatrième and the troisième (four classes). Marks are out of 20 (16/20, très bien; 5/20 is a bad mark). At the end the pupils take an exam, le brevet des collèges. The school year has holidays in October (vacances de la Toussaint), December (Noël), February, April (Pâques) and the long summer holidays in July and August (les grandes vacances); after the collège the pupils go to the lycée.

Adosphère 2, p. 20

Class rules

In Mon cours d'instruction civique you read about the heure de vie de classe: pupils and teachers talk together about the class rules and about problems between pupils. Every pupil has the right to speak, or not to speak, and the duty to listen to others. The poster of class rules uses the negative ne … pas and positive sentences:

Adosphère 2, p. 21

1.8Sounds: the stressed syllable

In French, the stress (l'accent tonique) falls on the last pronounced syllable of a word or group. It is not as strong as in English: all syllables are about the same length, only the last one is a little longer. Count the syllables first: a final silent -e is not a syllable of its own (caine is one syllable).

Also practise the verb forms: il prend ends in a nasal vowel [prɑ̃] (the d is silent), but ils prennent is [prɛn] and you hear the n (the same for apprend / apprennent, comprend / comprennent). In prenons and prenez the middle e sounds [ə].

1.9Learning to learn and exam tips

• How to be well in the collège (p. 23): talk to friends or teachers when something is wrong, do an activity you like after school so you are less stressed, and ask for help when you do not understand.
• Vrai ou faux: find the sentence in the text, then check every detail (name, number, nationality, adverb). A statement with toujours or jamais is often false if the text says souvent or parfois.
• Production écrite (a short message of about 40 words): greet, give your nationality and where you live, describe your character with two adjectives that agree, say what you do souvent or jamais, and say your favourite subject.

Summary