Spoken French Essentials in 40 Minutes (Part 1)

In spoken French, we often skip words on purpose! Here's how you can do it too, to sound more authentically French.
💾 Read, save and/or print the full written lesson here (free): www.commeunefrancaise.com/blo...
🎓 Join my Everyday French crash course (free): www.commeunefrancaise.com/wel...
Want to sound less like a robot or textbook and more like an authentic French speaker? There are certain unwritten spoken French "rules" you'll need to learn first - starting with this easy fix!
Here's something your high school French teacher probably never told you: if you’re using the full “ne… pas” in a French conversation, you'll sound formal and stilted. I know you've been taught to use these words in any negative sentence, but in modern spoken French we typically drop the "ne". Allow me to explain more, with examples, in today's lesson.
Take care and stay safe.
😘 from Grenoble, France.
Géraldine

[@biscottihottie37]

I used to watch you like six years ago back when I was in high school, I’m pretty sure I found you on tumblr lol time flies you really taught me so much! Thank you.

[@thepokekid01]

You are very talented at making lessons that can teach people something at many different levels.

[@1978Marianne]

Great lesson Geraldine! I love learning French again since my teenage years and I regret not learning enough back then!

[@ysbel]

I haven’t been able to drop the ‘ne ‘
completely but I do drop the ‘e’ after the ´ne ´ so instead of saying ‘Je sais pas’ I’ll say ‘Je n’sais pas’ or ‘J’n’ai pas vu’ instead of J’ai pas vu.´
It’s hard to drop the ‘ne ´ in rapid conversation completely if you’ve learned it that way because the ‘ne ´ is usually out of your mouth before you realize it and then it’s too awkward to correct yourself. The best I’ve been able to do is drop the ‘e’ of ´ne ´.

[@chrismeeks809]

i’m an american and i learned spanish already. have been really interested in french lately and it’s beautiful! really wanna start learning

[@Nadia-YBY]

Is Spanish easy to learn? I'm studying French but I'm interested in Spanish as well, it sounds very beautiful.

[@chrismeeks809]

@@Nadia-YBY for me after learning the basics it was. There’s alotta weird conjugations u gotta learn but it’s relatively easy for english speakers. And after learning spanish i have a head start on portuguese which is really similar

[@LauraMorland]

Geraldine, I know it's mal élevé to comment on someone's appearance, but I can't help but tell you how happy I am to see *all* of your beautiful face again!

[@sarahdetenber5300]

Love this! Merci!

[@shaunmckenzie5509]

Thanks for this!

[@bia-zz4sj]

loved the lesson

[@sheilawavamunno9372]

Je suis ougandaise et j'aime bcp tes vidéos! Merci :) Keep them coming!!

[@analiza7494]

Merci, Géraldine

[@garybrady2723]

Thank you for explaining the difference between what I hear and what I "know".

[@jeanlopez909]

I really like your videos and I am a subscriber ! Merci beaucoup, c'est très gentil !

[@gregfreeman2370]

Thank you for making this so fun

[@emcustard]

It's kind of like how we say I dunno instead of I don't know

[@Niesty]

Thank you

[@katherinemarsh784]

Merci Beaucoup Geraldine. J'aime ca beaucoup. Salut. : )

[@resiliencewithin]

Thank you for your amazing work
I would love if you give us some tips to enhance our pronunciation

[@mediterraneox521]

You are the best!!!!!

[@hamishmcmaniac3049]

I love watching this channel ❤ XXXXXX Greetings from Liverpool UK ❤❤ XXXXXX

[@deinaduval]

This one confused me. I understand dropping the "ne" in a negative but when you drop both the "ne" and the "pas" - now "J'sais plus" becomes a positive statement...doesn't it? Hmmm? :). Love your lessons!

[@bochoda7754]

Merci beaucoup! Peuvez vous dire un exemple dans un dialogue de la vie quotidienne pour "J'ai sais plus'" et "J'ai sais jamies"
Jái pas compris le sens exact.

[@ghadeeradral8055]

Great video thanks a lot, im wondering but if we drop the ne then how would the other person knoq we are negating? For negation we use ne so dropping ne wouldnt it send the opposite message?

[@nefwaenre]

i learnt in Purple Noon that Alain said sais pas for i dunno. And usually they say 'on' to say we, etc. i too, therefore have dropped the 'ne' from all the ne-pas structure! In Paradis' songs, Peut-etre is said as P'tetre, Je-me become Jme, etc. i learnt a lot listening to song s by Paradis. TuT

[@alk5161]

Love the blouse. Where is it from?

[@ultramet]

I just say “pas” . I even drop the verb. Whatever my wife wants me to do I say “no” 😂😂😂

[@lucasvivaldo2101]

Just a suggestion: I think it would be very positive if you could make some videos in French, with subtitles

[@hellophoenix]

A great video , is there a difference in meaning between “ Je ne sais plus “ and “ Je sais plus “ ?
On google , it said the first means “ I don’t know anymore “ and the second one is “ I don’t remember “ !!

[@simonebaker4915]

“Je sais plus” = “Je ne sais plus” = I used to know but I have forgotten, I no longer know... hope it helps. That’s why we may see “I don’t remember” in subtitles. It’s not the exact meaning but it’s close enough.

[@hellophoenix]

@@simonebaker4915 merci

[@gamewithgreg]

You say that you would never write "j'sais pas", but would you write "je sais pas"? Do you tend to include the "ne" or not when writing?

[@shaunmckenzie5509]

Depends how formal you're writing. If it's just a quick message to a friend, you wouldn't write it. If you're writing a thesis, you include it. Think of it like the difference between "do not" and "don't". Writing it like "j'sais or chai" would be the equivalent of writing "I wanna" in English instead of "I want to". It's a very informal and kinda slangy.

[@7HPDH]

There are some people who spell out ne + pas no matter how informal the context. Others don’t care. It depends on the audience!
But for emails / letters etc. you have to spell it out.

[@alexysq2660]

Ma chere *Geraldine,* en vrai toi t'es une telle prof archi-douee quoi, je dois dire, parce que - bien sincerement - tu donnes des renseignes tellement clairs et ravissants sur tant de trucs qu'on doit savoir et piger afin de pouvoir s'appeler - meme si seulement/quand meme au moins jusqu'a` un certain point - "francophones", et en fait c,a c'est l'une juste des raisons que 'faut te remercier autant, en plus de pourquoi vraiment on t'adore trop, voila` 😊💚💖...! Mais bah bof, c'est dommage trop: je devrais expliquer que reycemment j'utilisais un "livre- chrome" ( ...d'Hewlett-Packard 😒... ) hyper relou, pour ficher les genres de bails tels que faire des commentaires a` YT, mais il parait que celui-ci c'est aucunement conc,u a` permettre de jamais eycrire correctement - qui ici se fait voir autant - l'ortho franc,aise/les "lettres particulieres" du franc,ais je crains, et c,a me rend carreyment dingue, je peux assez bien en raconter moi ☹.... ¬💖💚

[@1981messiking]

I am learning French on Duolingo. This will be hard to remember. Although when conversing with friends hopefully I will remember.

[@lavellecole9082]

Try Busuu it’s better in my opinion

[@sophiekrol8058]

Can you also drop the ‘ne’ in ‘ne…[verb]…que’ structures? Thanks :)

[@kiorodjirane8517]

I'm french and to be honest i didn't even know that the structure 'ne…[verb]…que’ existed because we never said that even in formal speech. 'J'ai que des problème en ce moment', 'Tu as qu'une journée pour finir ton projet'. So thank for introduce me to the proper form but yes, you can definitly drop the 'ne'.

[@sophiekrol8058]

@@kiorodjirane8517 thanks so much!

[@Le_Trouvere]

Is it true that when you do the ' J'sais pas' the ' j's' part sounds like you're sayind 'shh sais pas'? I heard it once and maybe it's a dialectal thing but sometimes i hear a 'sh' sound in place of the usual 'je' sound. There are other examples too, but im really interested in phonetics to sound more native.

[@mgparis]

yes, you are right, it does sound like "sh" :)

[@gustavocraque10]

Why not "informal" instead of "incorrect"?

[@gustavocraque10]

@@etienne6586 informal doesn't mean it's broadly incorrect. the meaning of a language is to develop and share the information one wants to, if you say "je sais pas quoi porter" and your friend understand it than the communication was achieved thus arriving at the final destination.
"incorrect" doesn't relate to the idea that languages are for communication but it only looks at the textbook concept of it, leaving a lot behind, that's why there's "formal and informal", because at the end of the day it's a matter of looking through the lents of one or the other.

[@andiemorgan961]

I've heard Je ne sais pas spoken as J'en sais pas also.
And the faster they speak the shorter it gets!🤣

[@msjennable]

Although I understand, I think it's kinda sad really to cut out so much of what makes French beautiful.

[@bia-zz4sj]

If "Je sais plus" means "I don't know anymore" how could we say "I know more"? It would be same structure, only changing the pronunciation of "plus"? Thanks! :)

[@tommyzDad]

I think you're leaving out _pas?_
_Je sais pas plus,_ ou c'est _Je sais plus pas?_ Je ne suis pas sûr.
Edit: I'm a dummy -- I just remembered, _plus_ is taking the place of _pas!_ So, legit question. ;)

[@bia-zz4sj]

@@tommyzDad So, I think we leave out the "pas" here because the "plus" already carries the negative connotation of the sentence

[@siranneau]

I know more --> J'en sais plus

[@anncartier1406]

"plus" (without pronouncing the S means "not any more"
plus (pronouncing the S at the end) means "more"

[@7HPDH]

You’ll tend to see « J’en sais plus » or even « J’en sais davantage ». The word en might be omitted in spoken French but it’s mostly incorrect. If I see « Je sais plus » i assume it’s an abbreviation of « Je ne sais plus ». So in spoken french the difference is whether or not the s is pronounced, in written French the difference is the word en.
In context it’s never ambiguous, don’t worry too much about it lol

[@nawimal]

Cimer pour enseigner la Français familiale.

[@firacabrayilova]

👍👍👍

[@michaeltres]

Is the missing "ne" common throughout France, or is it a regional variation?

[@1981messiking]

Bonne question

[@mgparis]

It's very common everywhere

[@johngalvin3763]

i will be honest I use 'ne' I have studied French for years and still continue to learn French and why should i need to use short cuts when i am trying to add to an already difficult vocabulary.
not using 'ne' changes the whole structure of what i have learnt,

[@7HPDH]

It’s better to learn the language as it is, not as the textbook tells you it should be! You’d think it would be weird if a foreigner used « whom » and « shall », right?

[@johngalvin3763]

@@7HPDH personally i will stick to textbook french , coz i dunna wanna speak French that way.

[@lisalu910]

Chais pas = I dunno

[@Dreyno]

A French person encouraging foreigners to speak French incorrectly? Will wonders never cease? 🤔
😉

[@utubeozpat]

Why is the 'pas' before the verb 'compris' but after the verb 'sais'?

[@abbreviatedalex2418]

Take a closer look at the structure of "J'ai pas compris". It's in the past tense, conjugated in le passe compose. If it were in the present tense, it would be written "Je comprends pas". Think about the English. In present tense, not negated, you would say "I understand", and the past tense most like le passe compose would then be "I did understand". Make it negative: "I did not understand". You wouldn't say "I did understand not."
If you were speaking in l'imparfait, your instinct would be correct. It would be "Je comprenais pas". But this particular example was conjugated in le passe compose.

[@utubeozpat]

@@abbreviatedalex2418 Maintenant, je comprends. Thank you for a very clear explanation.

[@juandiegovalverde1982]

I dunno.

[@focalplane3063]

For some reason I would rather sound formal and maybe a little stuffy rather than try and be cool and never know the "correct" way to speak French and later I will understand why I'm using and from where the casual way comes from.

[@daniel6678]

Yeah this kind of thing is definitely more useful for more intermediate/advanced learners. Beginners need to know the rules and where they’re coming from rather than get themselves confused by slang and casual speak. If you don’t understand it all properly, you’ll use the slang incorrectly and come off even worse than if you spoke the “stuffy” way. But once you’re past that point, this is good for helping you learn how most people will be talking in real life, even if it’s just to understand people better and you don’t actually use it in your responses.

[@baronmeduse]

T'as pas raison ! Well okay, you are right.

[@mariamkinen8036]

Je sais pas is what the French do say.

[@marlinpals4233]

I seem to have lost a lot of you material.

[@bren4681]

Mec! Je compris pas! 😊

[@lizonyuh2290]

Just an observation from a German-American....why does my family's language get so much shit for sounding "harsh" when your language is lifted up as a beautiful language, yet you always sound like you're going to puke all over me. German and English, we're chill....you?.... not so much