Even after all this time, I remember my first lessons in French kind of well: the specific expressions I was taught back then as opposed to “later”. Of course I understood everything the woman in this video says but I have compared the first French lessons she provides to my own ones such as I have been able to recall them (however vaguely); read the comments below.
To begin with, I really don’t agree that I was ever taught “enchanté(e) (de te/vous rencontrer)” along with the absolute basics like “bonjour”, “au revoir” and “merci”. Mind you, no English person says “enchanted” in the way French people say “enchanté(e)”: if something is “enchanted” in English it basically means that it is influenced by magic. This is only my opinion but, in the case of people, saying “enchanted” in this way in English may even be taking as flirting, as if to say, “I have fallen under your spell!”
Then there’s “merci”, which is one of the first French expressions anyone learning French learns, and one which no learner of French should be without – but I can’t say I was specifically taught “Je vous remercie”, with the verb form of “merci”, straight away. I would never have been able to point this out at the time but adding an “en” between “vous” and “remercie” – the addition of a pronoun – doesn’t actually change anything in this context. Maybe the reason I was never taught “je vous remercie” straight away is because an enthusiastic student might say something like “What is French for ‘We thank you?’”, which is of course “Nous vous remercions”, but it’s best to wait until you have mastered the basics before learning things like the full scope of verb conjugation straight away.
I had probably heard of either or both of “de rien” and “je vous en prie” in my earliest French lessons as well, after I said “merci” for something – I was taught by a native French speaker – even if I’m sure I didn’t come across it on the pages of the textbook. In this linked-to video Ingrid says that “de rien” means “it’s nothing” when it really means “of nothing” (i.e. the “de” bit) or would that be too literal a translation?
I agree that I was taught “salut” as well as “bonjour” when I first started learning French, and that the former is more informal than the latter, but was surprised to learn from Ingrid in this video that “salut” can also mean “au revoir” in actual practice, so to speak. One thing I do know is that, if I did know that “salut” could mean the same as “au revoir” all those years ago when I started learning French, I definitely would have remembered it. Just like I have remembered for so long that “ça va?” can amount to saying “hi” in actual practice as well as “how are you?” (even though it ends with a question mark) – where is that expression in this video? Before I even clicked on it to watch it for the first time that was one of the very expressions I knew I fully expected to see, even if it was never to be explained that “va” is taken from the verb “aller”, meaning “to go”. Is it because the cedilla has gone out of fashion? Is that it? One thing that amuses me is that “ça” is actually short for “cela” but “cela va” in spoken French is unheard of. Also, I would never translate it as “it/that goes” – compared to “of nothing” for “de rien”, that translation is just blatantly too literal!
Next we have “à bientôt”, which I understand is commonly used for “goodbye” as an alternative to “au revoir”, but it should only really stand for “see you soon”, as Ingrid says at 6:58 in this video. After all, it’s an incomplete sentence which could be translated more literally as “until (very) soon”. Mind you, anyone familiar with the verb “voir” in French should see that even “au revoir” might be translated more literally as “until I/we see you again” or “until we see each other again”; as if everyone involved fully expected to see each other again – it was just a matter of how soon… expected or not? You tell me. I may have a degree in French but it’s not my mother tongue. It just is what it is.
At 9:52 in the video, why does “Oui” have an accent mark on the i? That’s not what I was taught. I just thought it was a normal i with no markings. In fact, I don’t think I have ever seen that letter in French, only in Spanish and maybe in a few other languages; but it’s not even pronounced differently in French so… what?
Of course I was taught the numbers 1-10 early on, if not how to give my phone number. I think I would have mastered this by being made to do simple sums in French e.g. “trois plus cinq font huit” (“three plus five make eight”) and maybe one or two other things. I was just a bit surprised to see “My phone number is” translated not as “Mon numéro (de téléphone) est” but as “Mon numéro c’est le…”, since in English a phone number is not preceded by a definite article. But I would never have disputed that as proper French in actual practice. I’ve been to France before.
By the way, why is “bonjour” two words in one i.e. “bon” + “jour” – “good” + “day” when the French would never write “bonnenuit” for “good night”?