Good morning!

Recently in French class, we’ve started an entirely new unit, on locations around town and on giving directions. Since I’ll be taking a month-long posting break in June, I’ll be covering this particular unit in two parts: this edition, and the one that releases in two weeks. After that (and this is another benefit of taking June off), I’ll be able to gather a lot of extra material from school for both French Connection and It All Adds Up during the summer.

Unlike the last edition, today’s French Connection will be largely vocabulary-based, but the vocabulary featured will be of great use to you if you ever visit France, or ask for directions.

Les Endroits (Places)

In the French language, there are many words that are cognates, or words that largely resemble the same word in English, like the pharmacy and la pharmacie. Then, there are others like l’eglise and the church that bear no resemblance to each other. Some are easy to identify, others you have to memorize. You should also note whether a word has la, le, les, or l’ in front of it (words have genders!)

For a quick review:

• Le means that a singular noun is masculine, typically ends in a consonant (with exceptions)
• La means that a singular noun is feminine, typically ends in an e (with exceptions)
• Les means that a noun is plural, and can be used on both masc. and fem. nouns
• L’ means the same as le or la, but is used when the noun starts with a vowel

Press CONTINUE READING for location vocabulary!

Here are some basic places that might be found in a town:

La Boutique- the shop

La Librarie- the bookstore

Note: The translation for bookstore is very similar to a certain other place that involves books- make sure you remember which is which! The library = la bibliothèque. 

La Papeterie- the paper store

La Banque- the bank

La Poste- the post office

L’église- the church

La Pharmacie- the pharmacy

L’hôpital- the hospital

Le / La Fleuriste- the florist

Note: The reason why the florist has both le and la is because when we say the florist, we are referring to a person. Therefore, choose the appropriate preposition based on the gender of the person who is the florist.

Le Salon De Coiffure- the hair salon

Le Marché- the market

L’arrêt De Bus- the bus stop

La Station De Metro- the subway station

I don’t like sticking just to vocab, though, so here are some verbs that can be associated with these places. As far as conjugating most of them, please refer to this post.

• The verb envoyer means to send, such as envoyer une lettre.
• The verb acheter means to buy, such as acheter une pomme.
• The verb prendre means to take, as in prendre le bus. However, it’s most commonly used when referring to food.
• The verb attendre means to wait, such as attendre le metro.
• The verb aller means to go, such as aller au restaurant.

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There are some other important vocab words that you can use when referring to places:

Le plan- the map

La rue- the street

Note: If you’re speaking about addresses, you often could be referring to something like a drive, boulevard, way, square, avenue, instead of a street. I recommend looking these up.

Note #2: When writing street names, you put the type of street first, followed by the name of the street. For example, Green Boulevard would be written as Boulevard Vert. Need to refresh your colors? Click here!

Le pont- the bridge

Le feu- the traffic light

Le carrefour- the intersection

Le ticket-  the ticket

Planning Your Day

As you probably know, it’s a good idea to plan out your day, and this usually involves putting events in order. Here are some phrases to help you do that:

First, I am going to go to… = D’abord, je vais aller au/à la…

Then, I need to go to… = Ensuite, j’ai besoin d’aller au/à la

After… = Après…

And then… = Et puis…

Finally… = Finalement…

First, Second, Third, Fourth, etc. = Premier, Deusieme, Troisieme, Quatrieme, etc.

And I also need to go by… Et je dois aussi passer chez…

In each of these phrases, you’d replace the three dots with whatever you’re trying to say, whether it be a location or a verb, or saying that you are going to do something.

Modes of Transportation

This is the last thing to cover today: while there are many, many ways to travel, here are a few basic ones:

À pied- by foot

À vélo- by bike

En bus- by bus

En voiture- by car

En taxi- by taxi

En métro- By metro

En train- by train

En avion- by plane

En bâteau- by boat

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Recently, while writing posts, I found out accents with my Mac- and it’s so easy! No more false words in French Connection! 👍 I also found out how to do a pi symbol! (Thank goodness!) Unfortunately though, autocorrect was really tough on my today when typing French words, so if you see any words that look weird or were translated into English, thank autocorrect for me.

Also, thank you for reading! You can access the Quizlet page for this edition by clicking on the blue Quizlet icon just below my name. Have a great day!

Gabe

Click the Quizlet icon to access the study set for today’s lesson.