Season 3 – Lesson 20 – Coffee Break French

This week we’re testing you on what you’ve learned in the first twenty episodes of season 3. We’re providing you with a series of sentences in English to translate into French, and you’ll be encouraged to think of the grammatical constructions and vocabulary which have been covered in the texts of Veronica, Alf and Katie. You’ll have 20 seconds to work out each translation and then Mark will talk through the translation and talk about the language contained in the example. Please note that lesson 20 of Season 3 was originally known as lesson 320 of Coffee Break French. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to make things more simple for our listeners.

Get the podcast

Access this lesson and all future lessons of Coffee Break French automatically by subscribing to the podcast. You can access the podcast on your computer, tablet or phone using the appropriate links below.

Join the conversation

Join the conversation with the Coffee French team on social media! We post regular language and cultural information on Facebook, and you can keep up with Coffee Break Languages on Instagram.

Go Premium...

The premium version of Coffee Break French Season 3 provides additional materials which will help you move forward more effectively with your French studies. These are available on the Coffee Break Academy.

Extended audio

Each lesson of Coffee Break French Season 3 features a full discussion of the text with extended audio recordings.

Lesson notes

Study the language of each lesson in greater detail and access additional information about French in our comprehensive lesson notes.

Available on the Coffee Break Academy

All our online courses are available only on the Coffee Break Academy where with a single login you’ll be able to access the premium elements of the course.

You can access everything online or, if you prefer, you can download the materials to your own device and take your learning with you wherever you go.

Would you like a free trial?

Not quite sure if you’re ready to sign up for the premium version of Coffee Break French? Pas de problème! We’d love to offer you a free trial. Just enter your details below and we’ll send you an email to confirm your level and get you set up with the first three lessons of the course absolutely free, with no obligation!

5 thoughts on “Season 3 – Lesson 20 – Coffee Break French”

  1. In the third sentence you refer to “faire de l’exercice” but my dictionary says that “exercice” is masculine. Shouldn’t it be “faire du exercice” ?

    Reply
  2. Hello Susan. When a masculine partitive article, i.e. du (de + le) is followed by a word beginning with a vowel, it becomes ‘de la’ instead in order to facilitate pronunciation. Same happens with possesive pronouns. A possessive pronoun when used with l’école(f) will be referred to as ‘mon école’ and not ‘ma école’. This also happens with certain masculine adjectives like beau and nouveau which turn into a ‘masculinised’ version of their feminine form instead. Eg. un bel ami, ma nouvel école.

    *Notice how the ma for école is retained when the does not immediately precede école 😉 . Hope this helps.

    Reply
  3. Sorry for this double post, but I made a slight error and coudn’t find a way to edit. Here’s my correction. When the masculine partitive article du is followed by a word starting with a vowel it becomes de l’ as in de l’exercise and not de la as I stated earlier. It should have been obvious before as well, but just to be absolutely certain. Hope this clears it up.

    Reply
  4. You are welcome but I actually noticed another error I made. It would always be ‘ma nouvelle école’ and not ‘nouvel école’ since école is a feminine noun. I’m such an idiot! How I wish one could edit their posts!

    Reply

Leave a Comment