Bonjour à tous ! This latest video I've made is a joke. I hope you like jokes. I do, I already made one when I started this channel, it was about a dog... Remember ?! If you check this first joke video, you'll probably notice that my "teaching technique" has evolved. Hopefully it's a good change :) As always, please give me some feedback, I love it and it allows me to create videos that suit you !
I won't be talking long today in this blog post, so here is the video's transcription :
Hello my dear students ! Today’s lesson will be a joke ! No really, a joke, a French joke! I’m going to say the joke, then explain all the vocabulary and slang and stuff, and then give its translation. Let’s go!
I won't be talking long today in this blog post, so here is the video's transcription :
Hello my dear students ! Today’s lesson will be a joke ! No really, a joke, a French joke! I’m going to say the joke, then explain all the vocabulary and slang and stuff, and then give its translation. Let’s go!
- J'ai la dalle !!
- Ca tombe bien, moi j'ai le
ciment ! On fait une
terrasse ?
J’ai la dalle !
“Avoir la dalle” is a slang expression which means “to be hungry”. The
correct way to say that you are hungry is “J'ai faim”, but a lot of young
people rather say “j'ai la dalle”, which literally translates as “I have the
slab” !
Ca tombe bien !
“Ca tombe bien” is an expression you use when you want to say that
something happens at a convenient moment or that it would be helpful for you in
some kind of way. If it can help you to understand, the literal translation
would be “It falls well”. And in correct English I would translate this as
“Well, that’s perfect”.
Moi j’ai le ciment !
“ciment” means “cement”.
Also, note that the joke says “MOI, j’ai le ciment”.
We put moi in the beginning of our sentences to stress the difference
between what our interlocutor says and what we say. It’s a little thing, but
it’s important, as it makes the sentence complete, even though we could
understand the meaning of the sentence without this moi. In English I feel like
you rather insist on the pronoun to stress that difference. For instance, if A
and B don’t agree on something : A says “I thinks it’s right”, B says “And I
think it’s wrong”, as opposed as …
On fait une terrasse ?
I don't know if I need to translate to you the word “terrasse”, as it's
very similar to the english word for it, which is “terace”! As I said in a
previous video, English and French have a lot of words in common, even though
their pronunciation is different!
Last thing, “on” is a pronoun which can be used in two different ways.
The first one is to mean we. Indeed, “on” is extremly often used as a
more casual way to say “nous”. For instance, grown up, serious people would say
a formal “Nous avons faim!”, and kids or friends would say an unformal “On a
faim!”.
The second way to use on is to refer to an undefined person. In
English, you use “they”, like in “They say the earth is round”, where “they”
refers to no one in specific. The English formulation “to have been told” would
also be translated with “on” in French. So when you say “I’ve been told she got
fat”, us French say “On m’a dit qu’elle a grossit”.
That’s it for explanations! Now, let’s hear the joke again, and see if
you understand it this time!
- J'ai la dalle !!
- Ca tombe bien, moi j'ai le ciment ! On fait une terrasse ?
For those who still haven’t fully understand the joke, here goes its
english translation :
- I have the slab / I’m hungry
- Well, that’s perfect! I have the cement! Wanna make a terace?
So next time that a French guy tells you “J'ai la dalle !”, smile at
him and say “Ca tombe bien, moi j'ai le ciment ! On fait une terasse ?!”
And that’s it for today’s lesson!
For your homeworks, leave a comment below saying if you did understand
the joke after the explanations. And also, tell me what do you want the next
lesson to be about!
For more infos on this video and to get its transcription, check the
related blog post on my blog.
To see what’s behind the teacher, check my main channel, Chuly Darlyn, forVlogs and beauty videos in English and French!
Also, you can add me as a Friend on Facebook! All links below.
Until next class, bye bye!
