Latest / The Learn French With Alexa Podcast / EP 10 | De quelle origine est mon père ? (Where is my father from?)

Transcript

EP 10 | De quelle origine est mon père ? (Where is my father from?) · The Learn French With Alexa Podcast

• 0:00
  Bonjour et bienvenue à Learn French with Alexa, the podcast.
• 0:06
  In today's podcast, I'm going to read a short passage in French,
• 0:11
  of course, because that's what I'm known for, based on a fun
• 0:15
  fact about me, Alexa Polidoro. Now, this text is of A2/B1
• 0:20
  level, which means it's a little bit more than a beginner's
• 0:25
  level, it is an intermediate level.
• 0:28
  Now, remember that the reason for this podcast is all about
• 0:33
  practising your listening skills, your understanding of
• 0:38
  grammar, because every time, I focus on a grammar point.
• 0:43
  Now, in this text, you're going to hear a lot of passé composé.
• 0:48
  So we are going to go through the passé composé, and I'm going
• 0:51
  to teach you a little bit about it.
• 0:53
  I'm not going to teach you a lot because I teach in great details
• 0:58
  all these really tricky grammatical points on my course
• 1:03
  at learnfrenchwithalexa.com. It sounds like I'm
• 1:06
  self-sponsoring, but I am. "On fait ça avec les moyens du
• 1:11
  bord" like we say in French. Now, we are going to read this
• 1:17
  text once, and it's all about my father.
• 1:20
  So that's the title of this podcast "Mon Père".
• 1:23
  Now, remember, this is based on true facts about me.
• 1:26
  If you don't know me, I am Alexa Polidoro, a YouTuber, and
• 1:33
  hopefully you'll enjoy just listening to the podcast if you
• 1:37
  don't know what I do. Now, I'm going to tell you a
• 1:43
  couple of questions on this text.
• 1:45
  And then we are going to read the text again and again and
• 1:50
  eventually translate it together.
• 1:53
  So listen to the text, and I will not tell you the questions
• 1:57
  quite yet. I just want you to absorb the
• 2:00
  text first. Remember, it's all about my
• 2:03
  father, and the chance is that I will probably ask you questions
• 2:07
  about my father. So listen really, really
• 2:11
  carefully. Mon père est italien.
• 2:15
  Sa famille est arrivée en France dans les années 1960.
• 2:21
  À cette époque, beaucoup de familles italiennes sont venues
• 2:25
  s'installer en France pour travailler.
• 2:29
  Mon grand-père a travaillé dans les mines en Bourgogne pendant
• 2:34
  de nombreuses années. C'était un travail très
• 2:38
  difficile et très dangereux. Mon père, lui, est devenu
• 2:42
  monteur en ligne électrique. C'est un travail technique et
• 2:46
  parfois dangereux, car le monteur en ligne électrique doit
• 2:50
  installer, entretenir et réparer de gros câbles électriques.
• 2:56
  Aujourd'hui, mon père est à la retraite et c'est bien mérité.
• 3:02
  Now, I could talk about my father for hours.
• 3:05
  What an extraordinary man actually.
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  Not only because he worked so hard throughout his life, it's
• 3:15
  very physical what he does, and I'm going to tell you, but
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  because he managed to bring up five children, and we all turned
• 3:24
  out to be okay-ish. I'm just thinking about me.
• 3:30
  I've turned out okay-ish, I suppose.
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  Anyway, but I come from a working-class family, and I
• 3:38
  think that we turned out really well.
• 3:41
  So I'm very proud of my background.
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  Now, the first question about this text is: De quelle origine
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  est mon père ? And that's the first question.
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  "Origine" as in where does he originate from?
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  So "de quelle", from which origin is my father?
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  And so you can answer just by giving me one word or two words.
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  Never mind. De quelle origine est mon père ?
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  So you can assume that I'm French.
• 4:17
  Je suis française. But I'm actually half French.
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  What is my second nationality, if you wish?
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  What's my father's nationality? Quelle est la nationalité de mon
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  père ? And the second question I want
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  to ask you about this text is: Quand la famille de mon père
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  est-elle arrivée en France ? "Quand" means "when".
• 4:43
  La famille de mon père. So the family of my father.
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  My father's family. La famille de mon père est
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  arrivée en France. Quand est-elle arrivée en France
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  ? Now, "elle" meaning the family.
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  La famille. Now, remember that in French, we
• 5:00
  don't have "it" per se. So everything has to be "elle"
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  or "il" referring even to an object.
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  So if I'm looking at this glass here, I'm holding a glass.
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  This is "le verre". But I could describe it as it is
• 5:15
  big, so I could say "il est grand", referring to the fact
• 5:20
  that "verre" is masculine. Cheers.
• 5:23
  Drinking. Anyways, so first question: De
• 5:26
  quelle origine est mon père ? Deuxième question: Quand la
• 5:30
  famille de mon père est-elle arrivée en France ?
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  Two questions focus on that. We are going to listen to the
• 5:37
  text again. Mon père est italien.
• 5:40
  Sa famille est arrivée en France dans les années 1960.
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  À cette époque, beaucoup de familles italiennes sont venues
• 5:49
  s'installer en France pour travailler.
• 5:53
  Mon grand-père a travaillé dans les mines en Bourgogne pendant
• 5:56
  de nombreuses années. C'était un travail très
• 5:59
  difficile et très dangereux. Mon père, lui, est devenu
• 6:03
  monteur en ligne électrique. C'est un travail technique et
• 6:07
  parfois dangereux, car le monteur en ligne électrique doit
• 6:11
  installer, entretenir et réparer de gros câbles électriques.
• 6:16
  Aujourd'hui, mon père est à la retraite et c'est bien mérité.
• 6:24
  We've listened to the text twice now with two questions.
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  De quelle origine est mon père ? Did you get that?
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  Where is my father from? It was the very first sentence.
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  Mon père est italien. My father is Italian.
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  That's where he comes from, a tiny little village near
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  Pescara, in the East part of the Adriatic coast, and a tiny
• 6:57
  village where he was born in that house in Torino di Sangro.
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  Now, mon père est italien. He's Italian.
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  Now, if it had been my mother, I would have used "italienne", of
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  course, the adjective having to agree in number and gender with
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  the noun. So the fact that "mon père" is
• 7:18
  here masculine and singular, then you will have to reflect
• 7:24
  that with the nationality "italien", masculine singular.
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  Now, the second question was: Quand la famille de mon père
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  est-elle arrivée en France ? When did they arrive in France?
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  It was during the wave of immigrants arriving in France
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  because there was lots of work to be done.
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  And I will tell you in a minute what it was exactly and why they
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  arrived in the Bourgogne region. Now, sa famille est arrivée.
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  So they all arrived. Ils sont tous arrivés en France
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  dans les années 60 ou dans les années 1960.
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  They arrived in 1960s, dans les années 60.
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  Now, if you wanted to say 80s, you would say les années 80,
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  90s, les années 90, etc. Donc sa famille est arrivée en
• 8:27
  France dans les années 1960. Now, I want you to focus on "est
• 8:32
  arrivée", which is a passé composé.
• 8:36
  And like I said to you, we covered the passé composé
• 8:41
  extensively in the complete French course at
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  learnfrenchwithalexa.com. Now, "est arrivée" here is a
• 8:50
  passé composé which is used with the auxiliary verb to be,
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  "être", because "arriver" is a movement verb.
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  So what you have to understand is that we have two types of
• 9:03
  verbs in the passé composé. The verbs conjugated with the
• 9:07
  auxiliary "avoir", like I have done something.
• 9:12
  I have played chess, for example.
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  So here you have "j'ai" and then played, "joué".
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  However, sometimes we are using the auxiliary être (to be) in
• 9:28
  order to conjugate in the passé composé.
• 9:34
  Now, we are using être (to be) for movement verbs such as
• 9:37
  "arriver" and "venir". Here we've got it in the text.
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  Then "devenir", to become. Here we've got it again in the
• 9:44
  text. And for reflexive verbs, the
• 9:48
  verbs that come back to you, such as "se regarder", to watch
• 9:54
  oneself in the mirror. "Se regarder dans le miroir"
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  would have to use the auxiliary to be in the passé composé and
• 10:02
  not to have. Two different things.
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  J'ai regardé la télévision. I watch TV.
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  Here, because it's not reflexive, it is conjugated with
• 10:17
  the auxiliary "avoir", I have watched.
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  However, "je me suis regardé dans le miroir", I watched
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  myself in the mirror. Suddenly, we are changing the
• 10:29
  auxiliary "Je me suis regardé" because we are using it as a
• 10:35
  reflexive. So hence the reflexive "me".
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  But here, "je me suis regardé", I watch or I was looking at
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  myself in the mirror. "Je me suis regardé dans le
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  miroir". Anyway, I covered that in great
• 10:51
  detail in the course. If you're enjoying learning
• 10:53
  French with me and would like to go even further, my certified
• 10:58
  complete French course brings everything together in one
• 11:02
  place. You'll have lessons, quizzes,
• 11:04
  and support guides to help you reach your goals.
• 11:08
  And it's all taught by me. Use code ALEXAPOD for 15% off.
• 11:15
  So we established that my dad is Italian.
• 11:18
  We established that they arrived in France in the 1960s, hence
• 11:24
  why he ended up marrying a French woman, my mother, and
• 11:28
  hence why I'm half Italian, half French, by the way.
• 11:32
  "Je suis moitié française, moitié italienne".
• 11:35
  Another question I could ask you from the text is, did you gather
• 11:42
  what my grand-père, actually, weirdly, both of them did back
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  in the '60s ? My grandfather arrived with my
• 11:51
  father, his son, his daughters, and his wife.
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  And they arrived for work, and there was a lot of work in the
• 12:01
  Burgundy region. Did you gather what it was?
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  Now, I'll read you the sentence. "Mon grand-père a travaillé dans
• 12:09
  les mines en Bourgogne pendant de nombreuses années.
• 12:13
  C'était un travail très difficile et très dangereux."
• 12:17
  So my grandfather worked in the mines, so the coal mines, "les
• 12:23
  mines de charbon", in Burgundy for several years.
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  "C'était un travail très difficile et très dangereux."
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  It was a very difficult work and very dangerous.
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  Now, my grandfather arrived from Italy to Burgundy, and he ended
• 12:43
  up working in the mines. But weirdly, that's what my
• 12:47
  grandfather from my mother's side used to do as well, and
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  I've got pictures of him in the "mines de charbon", in the coal
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  mines. And it's tough work.
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  You can hardly notice him in the picture.
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  This is one of the most beautiful picture I own,
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  actually. You can hardly notice him
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  because he's the same colour as the coal.
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  He's covered in dust, in coal dust.
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  And the picture, it takes you a while for your eye to adapt to
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  actually get these silhouettes inside the mines.
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  Beautiful picture, and sad at the same time to know that
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  people had to work, or still do, in effect, in some part of the
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  world, had to work in these conditions.
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  Anyway. Now, the last part of the text
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  was about what my father became. He did not work in a coal mine
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  just like my grandfather or his father.
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  He worked as a "monteur en lignes électriques".
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  He became a power line fitter. Do you know what a power line
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  fitter, a "monteur en lignes électriques"?
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  Now, I explain actually what it is.
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  So before I do that, let's have a look at the full text now,
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  translate it, and it is all going to make a lot of sense.
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  So, "Mon père est italien." My father is Italian.
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  "Sa famille est arrivée en France dans les années 1960."
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  His family arrived, well, and him, "Sa famille et lui sont
• 14:26
  arrivés en France," have arrived in France in the '60s.
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  "À cette époque" So at that time, back in the time,
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  "beaucoup de familles italiennes sont venues s'installer en
• 14:37
  France pour travailler." There's a lot of Italian
• 14:41
  families that came to settle in France to work.
• 14:45
  Now, I want you to have a look at "sont venues".
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  Now, "sont venues" comes from "venir", to come.
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  They came. This is known here as a movement
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  verb. And like I said to you early on,
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  the movement verbs and the reflexive verbs use "être" in
• 15:04
  the past tense. In a passé composé.
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  So here, "familles italiennes", so Italian families came, "sont
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  venues" does not translate as "are come" but it's actually
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  "came". So "sont" refers to the fact
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  that "familles italiennes", which is the subject, is
• 15:26
  "elles": elles sont venues. Now, then I go on to say, "Mon
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  grand-père a travaillé." So that's a simple passé composé
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  using the verb "travailler", to work.
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  My grandfather worked, has worked, auxiliary is "avoir"
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  here. "Dans les mines en Bourgogne" In
• 15:46
  the mines in Burgundy. "Pendant de nombreuses années"
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  For several years. So I've already translated that.
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  "C'était un travail très difficile et très dangereux."
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  Difficult and very dangerous work.
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  "C'était" means "it was". Learn that.
• 16:02
  It's very useful to know. Now, here comes a bit where I
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  describe what my father did. "Mon père, lui, est devenu".
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  Again, "devenu" is used with the auxiliary "être" because it is
• 16:16
  the verb "devenir", to become. My father, him, he became.
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  Became "monteur en lignes électriques".
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  Devenir is a movement verb. "Est devenu".
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  So "monteur en lignes électriques" is known as a power
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  line fitter. I don't know if you know what
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  that is, but "C'est un travail technique et parfois dangereux."
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  It is a very technical and sometimes dangerous job.
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  Un travail dangereux. Car le monteur en lignes
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  électriques doit installer" Because the line fitter must
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  install and repair electric cable.
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  "Il doit installer, entretenir" Maintain, "et réparer des gros
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  câbles électriques" Big fat electric cables.
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  By the way, I'm not talking about your electrics at home.
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  If you don't know what a line fitter is, we are talking about
• 17:15
  people that work with a harness, climb up the pylons, God knows
• 17:22
  how many feet up, and have to fix the cables.
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  That's what my dad-- He's not this little man, this little
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  electrician. There is nothing wrong with
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  electricians, by the way. But what I mean is that he's not
• 17:40
  doing what an electrician does at home.
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  And as a matter of fact, I'm not sure my dad is even good at
• 17:47
  electricity in the house. I'd have to ask him, but I've
• 17:52
  never seen him do anything remotely important regarding
• 18:00
  electricals in the house. Anyway, don't know.
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  So, "Aujourd'hui mon père est à la retraite" My father is
• 18:08
  retired. "Et c'est bien mérité" And it is
• 18:12
  well-deserved. For people out there, if you're
• 18:15
  listening to me, and if you work hard outside, and I can assure
• 18:21
  you, every time I see people working outside on the roads or
• 18:25
  whatever, I feel for them because I know that the working
• 18:29
  conditions are tough. Because I've seen my father come
• 18:33
  back every night at 7:00 p.m., having left at 5:00 a.m. every
• 18:38
  single day, and coming back utterly physically exhausted.
• 18:41
  Now, for the people that are interested in reading this text,
• 18:46
  you can do so because there is a guide available with this very
• 18:50
  lesson. If you enjoyed this kind of
• 18:53
  podcast, let me know. What do you want to know?
• 18:57
  Anything that you can think of, I will try to make a podcast out
• 19:03
  of it. That's it for me.
• 19:05
  Au revoir, à bientôt, bisou bisou.