French on Friday!

Today is the April 25th of 2015, do you know what day is today? It is the most important day in my life because it is-Friday. At first you might think today is someone’s birthday or some kind of important festival, don’t you? Anyway, since we talk about birthday, do you want to learn some useful sentences to compliment the person? I am very sure the answer is yes so let us start!

If you want to say “Happy Birthday!" in French you should say “Bon anniversaire!”. As everyone knows that Birthday is one of the most important day for one person. It is not because people can only celebrate once in a year, but that represent you are getting one year older. I think there is nothing more important than become older. As one person getting older people will have more expectation on you because they think you are already grown up. You should be more self control on your own behavior, but correspondent, there will be less constraint on you. Such as driving a car, drinking beer, or having a credit card...etc. It is good to celebrate one person birthday, especially they can get blessing by their family and friends. That is why “Bon anniversaire!” is the sentence that you will definitely use in your daily life.

While we get blessing from other people, answer with basic respect to them is necessary, which is “Thank You.”-”Merci beavcoup.” This is also another very useful sentence in our life, just like “Bon jour” (Hello in English). I believe no matter which language we are study, know how to say “Thank you.” are usually teach in the first or second class. Then we can know that “Thank you.” is very important in all the language, because it represent the basic respect to other people. You will use “Thank you” in any places, such as at school, in a shop, or even in your house. From my own experience, learn how to say “Thank you” is very important. Especially when you travel to that country, and if you didn't know how to say “Thank you” in their language, those local people will treat you badly and think you are not respectful at all. This might cause you to lose your job or missing the biggest chance for your whole life. Don't miss the luck because of your own disrespectful!

For today we have learn two new sentences: “Bon anniversaire!” and ”Merci beavcoup.”. These two sentences you can use it immediately if your friends birthday is on today or someone just help you. Anyway, these two sentences can be use very often and always surround in your life. Although that memorize lots of SAT words or using prefect grammar is very important as a high school students if they are study in U.S., but if you didn't have the basic respect. No matter how high the SAT score is, no matter how good is your paper is. Nobody will accept your skill and let you go into their group, and this is same in other language too!

Quiz answer

B

A

C

C

A

A

B

C

B

C

I learn how to play drums since 3 years ago.

I have learn English since I was 6

We need to practice for the band until 6 o'clock.

He need to go to study SAT until he get a good score on it.

Go to class on 8:15 is our everyday scheduled.

We need to wear suits for our everyday dress.

I need to get up early every day, so I can go to eat breakfast.

He order drogan buffet every day.

Best moment in your life!

As all the Cheshire Academy students know that we will have a head’s holiday on this coming Monday, and the reason why we will have that holiday is because of the up coming prom! Prom can be consider as one of the most important moment for students. People will invite their boy/girl friend or their close friends to go to prom and having fun over there. Interesting thing French is the represent of the romantic language in the world, so today I am going to teach you some sentences that you could use in the prom.

First sentence is “Je t’aime!”, which mean “I love you!” We all know that prom is the best place to tell somebody you love he/she or just for date. When it is the time where you are going to tell he/she your feeling, you can say “Je t’aime!” instead of “I love you!”. Think about it, when you hear your couple told you “I love you!” in French, doesn’t that will make you feel much more touching than any moment in your life? I believe for that answer will be yes, and you will love he/she more than before.

After you know how to say “I love you!" maybe I should teach you how to say its opposite sentence. “I don’t love you!” No, that is not the sentence I am going teach. The sentence I telling you is “Je te déteste!”, which mean “I hate you!” in English. WOW! now you might think why am I teaching this sentence right now? Didn’t I should teach some romantic sentences that can be use in the prom? My answer is yes and I think “I hate you!” can also be one of the sentence that could use in the prom. How so? If you are really unfortunately and you found out your boy/girl friend cheat on you, or your best friends betray you on something.(All the situation are not real, if it really happen this blogger have no responsibility to compensate) Then you decide to bring them to prom and end your relationship over there. “Je te déteste!” will be the best sentence to say, something good about saying “I hate you!” in French is they won’t able to understand what are you talking about unless they know how to speak French. This can not only help you to end your relationship in a fancy way, but also make yourselves looks high emotional quotient. However, I don’t really want you to end your relationship at prom, but this is just a backup plan and I don’t really want it happen.

Maybe we should just forget about what I said in the previous paragraph but the sentences we learn today: “Je t’aime!” and “Je te déteste!” Both of them are really usful in our life, especially when it relate to relationship. Don’t forget to tell your close friends “Je t’aime!” when you are at prom, also tell those people you don’t like “Je te déteste!”. (Just kidding)

Practice problems

1. Give me few more time, I will be ready in 5 minutes.

2. I saw you on the television today, what did you do?

3. My brother was stay at home today because he was sick.

4. I started to learn English since I was 6.

5. Due to we have a game tomorrow, we will need to practice until 7:00 today.

6. I like the food from Dragon Buffet, because it's better than the school have.

7. What is the main purpose of doing this lab?

8. I need to write an essay for my History class.

9. I usually go to school by bus.

10. I went to the hospital with my parents.

Changes about Me

During the process of my 30-day challenge, I do have some changes happen on myself. 

The first change I can think of is the enthusiasm about one activity. Before I started the 30-day challenge, I had never done this kind of long continuity activity. The longest one I had done before was only for one week, then I got tired about it pretty soon. The 30-day challenge really change my attitude on continuing doing one thing every single day. Especially because the challenge I am doing is something really interesting for me, so I would able to push myself to learn one sentence every day. 

Beside I get more focus on continue doing one thing every day. My personality have also change because of the challenge. I used to be a person who was really easy to get distracted and not focus. Such as the homework that can be finish on one hour, for me it need to take two hours to finish. It is because I will get distracted by other things around me. However, because of the 30-day challenge, now I would able to become more focus on doing my work. Such as doing my homework, memorize SAT vocabulary, or working on my challenge...etc. I won't be distracted by my smartphone or fancy IPad when I was working, and that leads me to finish my work before study hall end.

Anyway, these two are the major changes I have so far, but who knows what else could be change during this 30-day challenge. Maybe will just like what I said in the previous blog post, you will see a different kind of "Gol'don"!

The most busiest month!

After few weeks, there are AP/IB exams coming up. For some people they might need to take SAT/TOFEL to prepare for their college application. Juniors are also start to ask their teacher to write recommendation letter for them. From those event we can guess that next month will be the most busiest for students. However, how is that matter to my 30-day challenge? The reason why I mentioned those event is because the sentences I learned have close relationship to them.

The first sentence is “Comment Çava?”, it’s mean “How are you?” No matter where did you lived in this world, “How are you?” will usually be the one of the first sentence to learn. Saying “How are you?” can be consider as the basic manner to other people, so that people will think this person is really kind and polite. Anyway, “Comment Çava?” is asking people in a more formal way. If you just want to ask your friends or in daily language way, you can just say “Çava”. It is mean “What’s up?” in English, which is less formal than “How are you?”. I think it is important for anyone who want to learn French to know this sentence, because learn how to say “Hi” to other people is the beginning of learning that language. This sentence will be use in the future very much, no matter you are talking to a professor or just your friends. Remember to say “Çava” to your French friends next time!

Next sentence for today is “Bon courage”, which mean “Cheer up” in English. This is the best sentence to say around during this time period because people having many tests and projects need to do. This might make some students feel tired about it, even more, having negative attitude all the time. If you have this type of friends around you right now, tell them “Bon courage” and everything will overcome. Beside “Bon courage”, you could also say “ Bonne chance” which mean “Good luck” in English. We will use “Bonne chance” before one person having their test or before present their project. In a conclude, both of these sentences have the meaning of encourage people, but one is more likely to use for having a test and another one is use for daily life encourage. Anyway, both sentences are very useful in our daily, and after today I hope everyone can say these two sentences very often in their life.

Today we learn: “Comment Çava?”, “Bon courage”, and “Bonne chance”. All of them are the basic greeting to other people, or encourage people to being possitive. Just like what I said in the beginning, these sentences are the best to learn during this time period. Due to many students having their AP/IB exams or SAT/TOFEL, people usually are very nervous and having a huge pressure among them. These sentences I just teach can make them less worry about the projects or tests that coming up, and their feeling might change from being negative into positive. Most important, they will be happy to having you saying during their tough time.

Bonjour!~ Je m'appelle Gordon

“Bonjour! Je m’appelle Gordon. Comment tu t’appelles?” Did you know what I have just said? That means “Hello! My name is Gordon. What is your name?” Today is just the 8th day of my 30-day challenge, and I already have the ability to introduce myself in French. I guess I am just really good at French!

Besides the basic introduction, I learned some sentences that were very useful for our daily lives. The first one is “C’est la vie”; We can understand this sentence as “That's life!” in English. My roommate told me that when your friend or someone who is in a bad mood or has an unlucky day, french people will say “C’est la vie” to them. This sentence not only could help them to calm down a little bit, but also it could be the most appropriate sentence to say when you are facing that kind of situation. Think about it, if one of your friend is in a bad mood and you didn't know the reason, can you say anything to comfort them? The answer is “No” because you don’t know what happened to them, so you have totally no idea how to start the conversation. I will suggest saying “C’est la vie” because it works all the time, and the person who you try to comfort will feel better. Look! You just learn how to speak French; Let's continue the lesson!

The next sentence is “Il est quelleheure?” It's mean “What time is it right now?” Although the meaning is "What time is it right now?" the way of sentence structure is very different. In the last blog post, I had mentioned that French grammar is very different than English. Every object has its own gender, so does time. If we translate “Il est quelleheure?” into English right away, it will become “He is which hour?” Didn't believe what I just said? What I just said is 100% true, and this is how French grammar works, believe or not. After we know how to say “What time is it?” we need to know how to answer back, don’t we? It is very easy to answer; We just need to say”Il est XX heure” (XX here represents the number). If we translate into English it will be “He is XX hour”. Kind of know how the French grammar works? I do, and sometime it is confusing, just like some grammar rules in English.

Today we learned three useful daily sentences in French: “C’est la vie”, “Il est quelleheure?”, and ”Il est XX heure”. All of them are very common sentences that people will use in their lives. Anyway, I can have a really short conversation with French people by using these sentences. Today is the 8th day, which means there are 22 more days to go. After this 30-day challenge, I can promise that you will have a new student in your class, and his name will be “Gol’don”!