French Holidays: Expressing Past Experiences

• Unit 3 covers "Les vacances - holidays"
• The main goal is to use patterns to express meanings in different tenses.

Key Grammar and Concepts

• Understanding and using irregular verbs in the present and past tenses is essential
• Specifically, focus on irregular past verbs like "être" (to be) and "avoir" (to have)
• Learn how to form the past tense with "avoir" and "être"

Expressing Past Holiday Experiences

• Learn how to describe what you did during past holidays or yesterday
• Indicate places you stayed during your holidays
• Specify modes of transport used during the holidays
• Add details to sentences using time expressions like "hier..." (yesterday)
• Discuss activities you do or did during holidays
• Give opinions on activities and holidays
• Indicate places you went in the past
• Describe the weather in the past
• Express how your trip was (good, horrible) and use "c'était" (it was)

Interacting and Asking About Holidays

• Ask about hobbies and holidays in the past and present tenses
• Make negative sentences and use negative structures

Verb Conjugation and Sentence Structure

• Regular verbs follow a conjugating pattern
• Conjugations change based on the tense
• Understand the difference between regular and irregular verbs
• Recognize differences between various text formats

Vocabulary Related to Holiday Activities

• Learn phrases to ask what someone did during the holidays
• Use verbs to describe activities done during holidays, like visiting a theme park, drinking a soda, taking photos, watching a show, boat rides, and seeing favorite characters.

Describing your Holiday Experiences

• Use phrases to talk about playing tennis, eating ice cream, meeting up with friends, listening to music, buying trainers, watching video clips, swimming in the sea and relaxing at home.

Describing people you went on vacation with

• Use phrases to describe who you went on vacation with, like family or friends.
• Use conjugated verbs and learn the structure of “on est allé(e)s / nous sommes allé(e)s...” (we went).
• Learn destinations like Spain, France, Greece, Morocco, or the USA.
• Express how you traveled, such as "en avion" (by plane), "en bateau" (by boat), "en bus/en car" (by bus/coach), "en train" (by train), or "en voiture" (by car).

Vocabulary related to modes of transport, accommodation and desciption

• "La voiture" (car), "le train" (train), "la gare" (train station), "l'avion" (plane), "l'aéroport" (airport), "le bus" (bus), "le tram" (tram).
• "L'hôtel" (hotel), "la chambre d'hôtel" (hotel room), "le camping" (camping), "la tente" (tent), "l'auberge de jeunesse" (youth hostel), "la villa avec piscine" (villa with pool), "la caravane" (caravan).
• "Magnifique" (magnificent), "formidable" (formidable), "grand/petit" (big/small), "célèbre" (famous), "sympathique" (nice), "cher" (expensive), "bon marché" (cheap), "touristique" (touristic), "historique" (historic), "tranquille" (quiet), "nul" (rubbish/awful), "mauvais/bon" (bad/good).

Other useful phrases

• "Perdre son téléphone/portefeuille/passeport" (to lose your phone/wallet/passport), "casser son téléphone" (to break your phone), "tomber" (to fall), "vomir" (to vomit), "rester au lit" (to stay in bed), "être malade" (to be sick), "arriver en retard" (to arrive late), "rater l'avion" (to miss the plane), "oublier son passeport/téléphone/appareil photo" (to forget your passport/phone/camera).
• Discussing travel: "en avion" (by plane), "en train" (by train), "à vélo" (by bike), "en bateau" (by boat), "à moto" (by motorcycle), "en bus" (by bus), "à pied" (by foot), "en métro" (by subway), "à cheval" (on horseback), "en taxi" (by taxi).
• Use "en" with feminine countries and "au" with masculine countries.

Time Expressions

• "Hier" (yesterday), "hier soir" (last night), "le weekend dernier" (last weekend), "la semaine dernière" (last week), "l'été dernier" (last summer), "le mois dernier" (last month), "il y a un mois" (a month ago), "il y a une semaine" (a week ago).

Useful Verbs

• "J'ai gagné un concours" (I won a competition), "J'ai passé une semaine à Paris" (I spent a week in Paris), "J'ai visité la tour Eiffel" (I visited the Eiffel Tower), "J'ai mangé au restaurant" (I ate in a restaurant).
• Describing your experience in Paris - "J'ai admiré la Pyramide du Louvre" (I admired the Louvre Pyramid), "J'ai regardé le feu d'artifice" (I watched the fireworks), "J'ai acheté des souvenirs" (I bought some souvenirs), "J'ai rencontré un beau garçon/une jolie fille" (I met a good-looking boy/a pretty girl), "J'ai envoyé des cartes postales" (I sent some postcards), "J'ai pris des photos" (I took some photos), "J'ai vu la Joconde" (I saw the Mona Lisa), "J'ai attendu le bus" (I waited for the bus), "J'ai très bien dormi" (I slept very well), "Je n'ai pas visité Notre-Dame" (I didn't visit Notre-Dame), "On a fait les magasins" (We went shopping), "On a bu un coca" (We drank a cola).

Describing the Experience

• "Bien" (good), "bizarre" (weird), "cool" (cool), "cher" (expensive), "effrayant" (scary), "ennuyeux" (boring), "fabuleux" (wonderful/fantastic), "génial" (great), "horrible" (horrible/terrible), "intéressant" (interesting), "marrant" (funny/a laugh), "nul" (rubbish), "Ce n'était pas mal" (It wasn't bad).

High-Frequency Words

• Learn essential question words like "à quelle heure?" (at what time?), "quand?" (when?), "combien?" (how much/how many?), "comment?" (how?), and "où?" (where?).

Common Travel Phrases

• "Je suis allé(e) (à Paris)" (I went [to Paris]), "Je suis parti(e)/arrivé(e) à (dix heures)" (I left/arrived at {ten o'clock]), "Le train est parti/arrivé à (huit heures)" (The train left/arrived at [eight o'clock]), "Je suis sorti(e)" (I went out), "Je suis resté(e) (chez moi)" (I stayed [at home]), "Je suis tombé(e) sur la plage" (I fell over on the beach).
• Phrases about travel mishaps: "J'ai oublié mon passeport" (I forgot my passport), "J'ai cassé mon portable" (I broke my phone), "J'ai perdu mon porte-monnaie" (I lost my purse), "J'ai beaucoup vomi" (I vomited a lot), "Je suis resté(e) au lit" (I stayed in bed), "On a raté l'avion" (We missed the plane), "On est arrivés en retard" (We arrived late).

Key Irregular Verbs in Passé Composé

• Use "avoir" (to have) or "être" (to be) as auxiliary verbs, depending on the verb.
• Conjugate auxiliary verbs in the present tense
• Add the past participle of the main verb.
• With "être," the past participle must agree in gender and number with the subject

Agreement with Être

• When using "être" as the auxiliary verb - make sure the past participle agrees in gender and number with subject.

Irregular Past Participles

• "Prendre" → "pris" (taken)
• "Écrire" → "écrit" (written)
• "Avoir" → "eu" (had)
• "Dire" → "dit" (said)
• "Faire" → "fait" (done)
• "Mettre" → "mis" (put)
• "Connaître" → "connu" (known)
• "Voir" → "vu" (seen)
• "Savoir" → "su" (known)

Être Verb List

• Aller (to go), Venir (to come), Entrer (to enter), Sortir (to exit), Monter (to ascend), Descendre (to descend), Rester (to stay), Partir (to leave) Naitre (to be born), Mourir (to die), Arriver (to arrive), Tomber (to fall), Passer (to pass), Retourner (to return)