Talk:Learning the basics of French/Au restaurant!

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Introducing future tense?[edit source]

I would hardly think that the 2nd lesson in cursory French in a high school/grammar school would introduce the future before touching upon the present indicative forms of être, avoir, aller, and an introduction to the conjugations of the regular -er verbs. I think there are more words that can be introduced in the vocabulary beyond what is provided here.

--198.179.142.6 19:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could the text perhaps rather appear with the full index(?) instead of A, G, B as this is a basic lesson and I'm not sure what the French words are.

A(male): Garçon!

Garçon: Bonjour Madame. Bonjour Monsieur.

A(male): Bonjour, je prendrai une omelette aux champignons et une part de tarte au citron.

B(Female): Et moi, le plat du jour et ... vous reste-t-il des poires Belle-Hélène?

Garçon: Oui, il en reste.

B(Female): Alors j'en prendrai une s'il vous plaît!

Garçon: Très bien!

(cette leçon peut être modifiée et/ou allongée - this lesson can be modified and/or extended ) Alabandit 22:14, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Salut Alabandit, thanks for your feedback. I have changed the names to Antoine et Belle. You can input some other names if you like. I also edited in a table (besides better view the time sequence can also be seen). What do you say ? You can always edit wiki pages, just be bold. See you soon, ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 07:09, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have been having a hard time with the transtations could you maybe include a link to were i could get them M'Rach 21:39, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Vocabulary[edit source]

French Translation English Google Translate
Garçon waiter
prendre to take - here 'je prendrai' means i'll have...
omelette aux champignons an omlette with mushrooms
une part de tarte au citron a slice of lemon pie
Et moi and I
le plat du jour today's special
vous reste-t-il des poires Belle-Hélène? ?? Do you still have "beautiful Helena pears[1]" (a French desert)? you still there pears Belle Helena?
Oui Yes
il en reste. it (there) remands Yes, it rest
Alors then or so So
j'en prendrai une I will have one.
s'il vous plaît! Please!
Très bien! Very good! (Literally-very well)

Alabandit 22:14, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good. Thanks for your help. Would you edit it into the learning resource ?
for "il en reste" we could use perhaps "there is available" ? "Remains" sounds to me like: all others had it already and here is the rest :-) "Available" is perhaps more neutral ? What do you think ? But keep in mind I am no native French speaker.
I am wondering there exist at German and English Wikipedia articles about w:Poire belle Hélène - but why not in French ? (I mean French cuisine has a good name) Perhaps we could extend material there ? If someone makes it at home, he could make a picture and then add to the Wikipedia articles also. What do you say ? ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 07:54, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"il en reste" = in this context, "there are still some". "il reste" = "there remain(s)" or "there is/are still". And there is a mention of "poire Belle-Hélène" at the French Wikipedia: fr:w:Poire#Pour_l.27alimentation, though not an entire article. The Jade Knight 15:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merci for the infos Jade, ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 14:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tenses list[edit source]

at this point my french is some what none existant. I'm assuming this list reads some thing like this:

French Translation English Google Translate
je prends I Take (1st person singular) I take
tu prends You Take (2nd person singular) You take
il prend he/she takes [?sex] (3rd person singular) It takes
nous prenons We Take (1st person plural) we take
vous prenez You Take (2nd person plural) You take
ils prennent They Take (3rd person plural) They Take

There no need to do this for each one but the first one needs to be defined so we know what we dealing with. I am a ware that it is covered better later in this section. Perhaps we could put up a version of this on the page

(I'm literate(with a dictionary) in 4 languages that what i guessed the word list from)

Thanks for all your hard work. Alabandit 22:14, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again here also Alabandit.
Perhaps it may be better for some sections to link to materials from other Wikimedia projects ? E.g. for prendre there exists at Wikibooks: this section. Then we can also bring some attention to there, so it gets extended more and more over time and more projects can use it.
Perhaps this can also be done for the tenses ? b:French/Grammar/Tenses
"later in this section": can you give a link please ? See you, ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 07:47, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I feel this is very complicated, though conversations and scripts are a good idea to learn from. Would it be possible to get 2 good french speakers to act this out? I remember learning french at school, we used to recite etre, avoir and 4 other irregular verbs. With regular verbs, we learned -re -er -ir endings off by heart. I think starting with things like introducing yourself, your family, the weather, gettin comfortable with conjugation, first in the present, then past and future, is what the first section should be about.

Remember that prendre is an irregular verb, so simply learning the rules of conjugation won't take you the entire way with it. On the other hand, comprendre and apprendre both follow the prendre model. I'd be willing to help with acting/a conversation, though being in the same spot as another user could be an issue for anything video (I'm not in France). The Jade Knight 15:36, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]


The choice of the text[edit source]

Hi, I think the text is a little bit too much complicated for the second lesson of the basic course. The language is very formal and it is not at all the way you would speak in the day to day life. The vocabulary is very difficult in my opinion. Well, I'm French so maybe I am not the best suited for judging the difficulty but when I read it, I really thought the text was not so easy for beginners.

Maybe it would be better if we could keep this dialog for a more advanced lesson or at list modify it to make it easier, using more common vocabulary and more common expression. With this text, we can feel that we are in a very expensive restaurant with very well educated people. Why not change it to an average restaurant with average food and average people? It would keep the idea of the restaurant which is good while providing a more accessible dialog.

Albane69 16:16, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]