Unité 1
cajun 101 - learn louisiana french at home |
Leçon 1 - Bonjour, tout le monde!
Bonjour, tout le monde! Comment ça va?
Hello, everybody! How are you?
Greetings are important in everyday conversation. In French we say bonjour when we greet each other, which literally means good day. There are many other ways to greet a person and we'll add these other ways to our vocabulary in future lessons.
It's polite to inquire how a person is doing. Comment ça va? is one way of asking. It literally means "how is it going?" In International French this form is a little more informal than comment allez-vous? Cajuns will typically use a less formal speech unless there is a reason for employing formal (or "polite") constructions.
In French words have genders, either masculine or feminine. The words jour and monde are masculine. The definite article ("the" in English) for masculine words is le.
- le monde, the world
- le jour, the day
Typically, in French we'll use the definite article in speech even when it is left out in English.
The expression tout le monde means everybody, but it can be translated literally as "all the world." So tout means "all." You'll see as we progress that adjectives, such as tout, must match the nouns they modify in gender. Thus tout here is masculine. The feminine form is spelled a little different, like this: toute.
To study these words, go to the Quizlet set for this lesson.
