Unlocking French with Paul Noble: Your key to language success with the bestselling language coach. Paul Noble

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      And “I did spend the weekend in Paris”?

       J’ai passé le week-end à Paris.

       (zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree)

       Time to steal some words!

      Word Robbery Number 1

      Let’s forget our weekend in Paris for just one moment now and start stealing some words. Around half the words in modern English have come into our language via French. Once you can identify them, you will have a large, instant, usable vocabulary in French. After all, why bother learning French vocabulary when you can simply steal it?

      The first group of words we are going to steal are words that end in “ic” and “ical” in English.

      Words like “romantic”, “exotic”, “illogical”, “typical” and so on.

      There are around 750 of these in English and they are the same in French, except that in French they end in “ique” (pronounced “eek”), becoming “romantique”, “exotique”, “illogique”, “typique” and so on.

      Let’s now see how we can work these into our weekend in Paris and expand our range of expressions in French!

      Words stolen so far 750

      Bearing in mind what we’ve just learnt in the Word Robbery above, let’s try changing the “ic” on the end of the English word “romantic” into “ique”.

      Doing this, what will “romantic” be in French?

       romantique

       (roe-mon-teek)

      And so what will “fantastic” be in French?

       fantastique

       (fon-tass-teek)

      Let’s now try doing the same with “ical”. Change the “ical” on the end of “typical” into “ique”.

      Doing this, what will “typical” be in French?

       typique

       (tip-eek)

      And what will “political” be?

       politique

       (po-lee-teek)

      Let’s now try using these “ique” words to expand our range of expressions and to make some more complex sentences in French.

      “It was” in French is:

       C’était

       (set-ay)

      So, how would you say “it was political”?

       C’était politique.

       (set-ay po-lee-teek)

      And how would you say “it was typical”?

       C’était typique.

       (set-ay tip-eek)

      How about “it was romantic”?

       C’était romantique.

       (set-ay roe-mon-teek)

      Finally, how would you say “it was fantastic”?

       C’était fantastique.

       (set-ay fon-tass-teek)

      Now, do you remember how to say “I have visited” in French?

       J’ai visité

       (zhay visit-ay)

      And what about “I visited”?

       J’ai visité

       (zhay visit-ay)

      And “I did visit”?

       J’ai visité

       (zhay visit-ay)

      Do you remember how to say “I have spent”, “I did spend”, “I spent” (literally “I have passed”)?

       J’ai passé

       (zhay pass-ay)

      And how would you say “I spent the weekend”?

       J’ai passé le week-end

       (zhay pass-ay luh weekend)

      And how do you say “in Paris” in French?

       à Paris

       (a pa-ree)

      So how would you say “I spent the weekend in Paris”?

       J’ai passé le week-end à Paris.

       (zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree)

      And once more, what was “fantastic” in French?

       fantastique

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