3 Minute French Lessons 1 3 PDF
3 Minute French Lessons 1 3 PDF
3 Minute French Lessons 1 3 PDF
FRENCH
LESSONS 1 – 3
KIERAN BALL
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Bonjour et bienvenue (hello and welcome) to “3
Minute French”. I’m Kieran, a language tutor based
in the UK, and I wrote this book to help you to
learn to speak French.
Hullabaloo!
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Contents
LESSON 1 ......................................................................... 6
LESSON 2 .......................................................................42
LESSON 3 .......................................................................70
Merci............................................................................. 107
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LESSON 1
6
1. You’ll maintain your enthusiasm
If you want to learn anything, you have to maintain
enthusiasm or else you won’t continue. If you limit
your study time to just three minutes, you’ll keep
French fresh and exciting and you’ll be eager to
learn. If you spend hours studying, very quickly
you’ll get bored with French and it’ll turn into a
chore.
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Here’s your first word in French:
bon
It means “good”
You pronounce it “bon(g)”
I’ve put the ‘g’ in brackets because you say this word
like the word “bong” but without the ‘g’ on the end.
You can’t even really hear the ‘n’ either.
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Here’s your next word:
c’est
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How would you say this in French?
It is good.
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It is good.
C’est bon.
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You’ll start to notice similarities between French
and English words:
fantastique
It means “fantastic”
You pronounce it “fon-tass-teek”
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WORD LIST SO FAR
bon - good
c’est - it is
fantastique - fantastic
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How would you say this in French?
It is fantastic.
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It is fantastic.
C’est fantastique.
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Here’s another word that looks similar to English:
absolument
It means “absolutely”
You pronounce it “ab-so-loo-mon”
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WORD LIST SO FAR
bon - good
c’est - it is
fantastique - fantastic
absolument - absolutely
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How would you say this in French?
It is absolutely fantastic.
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It is absolutely fantastic.
C’est absolument
fantastique.
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WORD LIST SO FAR
bon - good
c’est - it is
fantastique - fantastic
absolument - absolutely
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Here’s a cute little French word:
ici
It means “here”
You pronounce it “isseey”
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How would you say these sentences in French?
It is here.
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It is here.
C’est ici.
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Here’s a word you might recognize if you’ve learnt
any French before:
très
It means “very”
You pronounce it “tray”
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WORD LIST SO FAR
bon - good
c’est - it is
fantastique - fantastic
absolument – absolutely
ici – here
très - very
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How would you say these in French?
It is very good.
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It is very good.
C’est très bon.
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très
You might be wondering what that little line is on
top of the è in très.
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The word “c’est” means “it is”, well, here’s the
opposite:
ce n’est pas
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How would you say these sentences in French?
It isn’t here.
It isn’t good.
It isn’t fantastic.
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It isn’t here.
Ce n’est pas ici.
It isn’t good.
Ce n’est pas bon.
It isn’t fantastic.
Ce n’est pas fantastique.
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WORD LIST SO FAR
bon - good
c’est - it is
fantastique - fantastic
absolument – absolutely
ici – here
très - very
ce n’est pas – it isn’t
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You’ve learnt quite a few words and phrases in
French now, and you’ve hopefully been saying
them out loud so that you can master the
pronunciation. Now, to really embed these words
and phrases in your brain, let’s do some
translations.
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I’ve put some sentences in English below. Try and
work out how to say them in French, and then
check to see if you got it right by checking the
answers at the bottom of the page.
1. It’s good
2. It’s absolutely fantastic here
3. It’s good here
4. It is very good
5. It isn’t good here
6. It isn’t good; it’s fantastic
7. It’s fantastic
8. It’s fantastic here
9. It isn’t good here; it’s absolutely fantastic
10. It’s very good here
1. C’est bon
2. C’est absolument fantastique ici
3. C’est bon ici
4. C’est très bon
5. Ce n’est pas bon ici
6. Ce n’est pas bon; c’est fantastique
7. C’est fantastique
8. C’est fantastique ici
9. Ce n’est pas bon ici; c’est absolument fantastique
10. C’est très bon ici
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Now, let’s have a go at doing some reverse
translations. Try and work out what these French
sentences mean in English, then check the
answers underneath to see if you were correct.
36
Let’s recap the words we’ve learnt in this lesson.
How did you say these words in French?
it is
absolutely
fantastic
good
here
very
it isn’t
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it is c’est
absolutely absolument
fantastic fantastique
good bon
here ici
very très
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What else?
Finally, before I end this first lesson, I'll just give you
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some information on what it means to learn a
language. Memorising lots of words isn't what it
means to learn a language. It's a start but it isn't
going to get you very far. What you need to be able
to do is put those words together to get your
thoughts and ideas across to somebody else.
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LESSON 2
absolutely
it isn’t
good
fantastic
very
it is
here
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Here’s your first word in French for this lesson:
délicieux
It means “delicious”
You pronounce it “day-liss-yer”
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très délicieux
Did you notice there’s another one of those
accents on top of the é in délicieux? It’s similar to
the one we saw in très but it’s facing the other way
round.
è
The letter è with a grave accent should be pronounced
like the e sound in the English word ‘fed’
é
The letter é with an acute accent should be pronounced
like the vowel sound in the English word ‘pay’ but
without the ‘y’ sound.
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How would you say this in French?
It is delicious.
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It is delicious.
C’est délicieux.
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Here’s your next word in French:
extraordinaire
It means “extraordinary”
You pronounce it “extra-or-dee-nair”
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WORD LIST SO FAR
délicieux - delicious
extraordinaire - extraordinary
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How would you say these sentences in French?
It is extraordinary.
It is absolutely extraordinary.
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It is extraordinary.
C’est extraordinaire.
It is absolutely extraordinary.
C’est absolument extraordinaire.
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Here’s a beautiful little word in French:
beau
It means “beautiful”
You pronounce it “bow”
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WORD LIST SO FAR
délicieux - delicious
extraordinaire - extraordinary
beau - beautiful
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How would you say these, in French?
It is beautiful.
It is very beautiful.
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It is beautiful.
C’est beau.
It is very beautiful.
C’est très beau.
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Here’s a useful phrase in French:
pour moi
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WORD LIST SO FAR
délicieux - delicious
extraordinaire - extraordinary
beau - beautiful
pour moi – for me
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How would you say these in French?
It is for me.
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It is for me.
C’est pour moi.
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The phrase “pour moi” actually has two meanings
in French. We’ve seen it can mean “for me” but, if
you put “pour moi” at the start of a sentence in
French, it can mean “in my opinion” or “I think”:
pour moi
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WORD LIST SO FAR
délicieux - delicious
extraordinaire - extraordinary
beau - beautiful
pour moi – for me
pour moi – I think / in my opinion
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How would you say these sentences in French?
I think it is good.
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I think it’s good.
Pour moi, c’est bon.
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Now we’ve added quite a few new words to our
French repertoire, let’s practise putting them
together into sentences. How do you say these
sentences in French?
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Now, let’s have a go at doing some reverse
translations. What do these French sentences
mean in English?
1. C’est extraordinaire
2. C’est absolument beau
3. Pour moi, c’est absolument beau ici
4. Pour moi, c’est bon
5. C’est très bon pour moi
6. Ce n’est pas pour moi
7. C’est délicieux
8. Pour moi, c’est délicieux
9. C’est absolument beau ici
10. Ce n’est pas très beau
1. It’s extraordinary
2. It’s absolutely beautiful
3. I think it’s absolutely beautiful here
4. I think it’s good
5. It’s very good for me
6. It isn’t for me
7. It’s delicious
8. I think it’s delicious
9. It’s absolutely beautiful here
10. It isn’t very beautiful
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What we’re going to do now are some recap
translations, which will incorporate words we
learnt in the previous lesson.
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Let’s now do some French to English recap
translations.
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Let’s recap all the words we’ve learnt so far. How
did you say these words in French?
1. it is
2. here
3. fantastic
4. delicious
5. it isn’t
6. good
7. very
8. extraordinary
9. I think
10. beautiful
11. for me
12. absolutely
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1. c’est
2. ici
3. fantastique
4. délicieux
5. ce n’est pas
6. bon
7. très
8. extraordinaire
9. pour moi
10. beau
11. pour moi
12. absolument
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LESSON 3
for me
I think
delicious
extraordinary
beautiful
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Here’s your first word in French for this lesson:
mais
It means “but”
You pronounce it “may”
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mais
You pronounce the word “mais” like “may” but it
ends in the letter ‘s’.
CaReFuL
For example:
sac “sak”
(bag)
pour “pour”
(for)
boeuf “beuf”
(beef)
normal “noor-mal”
(normal)
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How would you say this in French?
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It is delicious but it isn’t very
good for me.
C’est délicieux mais ce n’est
pas très bon pour moi.
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Here’s your next word in French:
oui
It means “yes”
You pronounce it “wee”
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WORD LIST SO FAR
mais - but
oui - yes
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How would you say these in French?
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Yes, it’s for me.
Oui, c’est pour moi.
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Here’s a common yet useful word in French:
merci
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WORD LIST SO FAR
mais - but
oui - yes
merci – thank you / thanks
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How would you say these sentences in French?
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Yes, thank you, it’s delicious.
Oui, merci, c’est délicieux.
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Here’s a new word for you:
toujours
It means “always”
You pronounce it “too-joor”
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WORD LIST SO FAR
mais - but
oui - yes
merci – thank you / thanks
toujours – always
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How would you say these in French?
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It is always fantastic here.
C’est toujours fantastique ici.
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Here’s a perfect little word in French:
parfait
It means “perfect”
You pronounce it “par-fay”
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WORD LIST SO FAR
mais - but
oui - yes
merci – thank you / thanks
toujours – always
parfait – perfect
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How would you say the following in French?
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Yes, it’s perfect, thank you.
Oui, c’est parfait, merci.
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Here’s a tiny word in French with a funny thing on
it:
ça
It means “that”
You pronounce it “ssa”
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WORD LIST SO FAR
mais - but
oui - yes
merci – thank you / thanks
toujours – always
parfait – perfect
ça– that
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How would you say this in French?
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That for me.
Ça pour moi.
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ça
The little squiggle underneath the letter ç is called
a cedilla and all it does is tell you to pronounce the
c like the letter s. That’s why ça is pronounced like
sa.
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C+E/I=S
For example:
c’est – it is (pronounced “say”)
cinéma – cinema (pronounced “sin-ay-ma”)
C+A/O/U=K
For example:
café – coffee (pronounced “ka-fay”)
concombre – cucumber (pronounced “kon-kom-br”)
curiosité – curiosity (pronounced “ku-ree-oss-itay”)
For example:
ça– that (pronounced “ssa”)
garçon – boy (pronounced “gar-sson”)
façade – front (pronounced “fa-ssad”)
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If you put the word “ça” in front of the word “c’est”
you get:
ça c’est
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WORD LIST SO FAR
mais - but
oui - yes
merci – thank you / thanks
toujours – always
parfait – perfect
ça – that
ça c’est – that is
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How do you say these in French?
That is good.
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That is good.
Ça c’est bon.
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It’s time to practise what we’ve learnt in this lesson.
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Now, let’s have a go at doing some reverse
translations.
1. Oui, merci
2. C’est absolument parfait
3. Ce n’est pas fantastique mais c’est très bon
4. Pour moi, c’est parfait
5. C’est toujours absolument fantastique ici
6. Pour moi, c’est absolument extraordinaire
7. C’est toujours très bon
8. C’est toujours très bon ici
9. Oui, ça c’est pour moi, merci
10. Ça c’est absolument délicieux
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What we’re going to do now are some recap
translations, which will incorporate words we
learnt in the previous lesson.
1. It isn’t fantastic
2. It’s very good here
3. It’s good here
4. It’s delicious
5. I think it’s absolutely beautiful here
6. It isn’t very good here
7. It is absolutely fantastic
8. I think it’s good
9. It is fantastic
10. It’s absolutely extraordinary here
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Let’s now do some French to English recap
translations.
1. It isn't good
2. It isn’t very good for me
3. It’s beautiful
4. It’s fantastic
5. It’s extraordinary here
6. It’s extraordinary
7. It isn’t fantastic
8. It’s very beautiful here
9. It isn’t good here
10. It isn’t very extraordinary
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Let’s recap all the words we’ve learnt so far. How
did you say these words in French?
1. beautiful
2. thanks
3. here
4. it is
5. yes
6. very
7. for me
8. that
9. always
10. fantastic
11. good
12. absolutely
13. I think
14. perfect
15. extraordinary
16. but
17. it isn’t
18. delicious
19. that is…
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1. beau
2. merci
3. ici
4. c’est
5. oui
6. très
7. pour moi
8. ça
9. toujours
10. fantastique
11. bon
12. absolument
13. pour moi
14. parfait
15. extraordinaire
16. mais
17. ce n’est pas
18. délicieux
19. ça c’est…
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Merci
Before you go, I’d like to say “merci” for buying this
book. There are lots of French books available and
you chose to read mine, so I am eternally grateful
for that.
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