Unlocking French with Paul Noble: Your key to language success with the bestselling language coach. Paul Noble

       pour

       (poor)

      Now, to say “for dinner” in French, you will literally say “for the dinner”. How do you think you would say that?

       pour le dîner

       (poor luh din-ay)

      Alright, how would you say “I have reserved a table for dinner” / “I have booked a table for dinner”?

       J’ai réservé une table pour le dîner.

       (zhay ray-zurv-ay oon tarb-luh poor luh din-ay)

      As you can see, these “ation” words really are very useful. Not only do you get more than a thousand words right away – like “réservation”, “préparation”, “information” and so on – for free but these “ation” words also give you access to the past tense in French, allowing you to create many, many new words such as “reserved”, “prepared”, “informed” and so on. And you can achieve this simply by cutting off the “ation” from the end of the word and and adding an “é” in its place.

      Actually there are many other English words you can make into the past tense in French simply by adding the “é” from “café” onto the end of them – and for these you don’t even need to cut anything off first!

      For example, take the English word “command” and add an “é” onto the end of it. Do that now – what do you get?

       commandé

       (comm-on-day)

      This means “commanded”.

      Well actually, it doesn’t only mean “commanded”, it also means “ordered”. This makes sense really, if you think about it – after all, an order and a command are more or less the same thing, aren’t they?

      Now that you know that “commandé” means both “commanded” and “ordered”, how would you say “I have ordered”, “I ordered”, “I did order”?

       J’ai commandé

       (zhay comm-on-day)

      And how would you say “I ordered dinner” (you will say literally “I have ordered the dinner”)?

       J’ai commandé le dîner.

       (zhay comm-on-day luh din-ay)

      “The roast beef” in French is:

       le rosbif

       (luh ros-beef)

      So how would you say “I ordered roast beef” (again, you will literally say “I have ordered the roast beef”)?

       J’ai commandé le rosbif.

       (zhay comm-on-day luh ros-beef)

      And once again, how would you say “for dinner” (literally “for the dinner”) in French?

       pour le dîner

       (poor luh din-ay)

      Now put these two things together and say “I ordered roast beef for dinner” (literally “I have ordered the roast beef for the dinner”)?

       J’ai commandé le rosbif pour le dîner.

       (zhay comm-on-day luh ros-beef poor luh din-ay)

      And how would you say “I ordered the roast beef for you”?

       J’ai commandé le rosbif pour vous.

       (zhay comm-on-day luh ros-beef poor voo)

      Good, now can you recall how to say “I visited”?

       J’ai visité

       (zhay visit-ay)

      How about “I spent”?

       J’ai passé

       (zhay pass-ay)

      “I reserved” / “I booked”?

       J’ai réservé

       (zhay ray-zurv-ay)

      “I prepared”?

       J’ai préparé

       (zhay pray-par-ay)

      “I ordered”?

       J’ai commandé

       (zhay comm-on-day)

      To say “paid” in French, you can simply take the English word “pay” and once again add an “é” onto the end of it.

      Do that now – what do you get?

       payé

       (pay-ay)

      So, how would you say “I paid”?

       J’ai payé

       (zhay pay-ay)

      Do you remember what “we have” is from our Building Blocks section in Chapter 1?

      If not, don’t worry, it’s:

       Nous avons

       (noo za-von)

      With this in mind, how would you say “we have paid”, “we paid”, “we did pay”?

       Nous avons payé

       (noo za-von pay-ay)

      And do you remember what “you have” is in French?

       Vous avez

       (voo za-vay)

      How would you say “you have paid”?

       Vous avez payé

       (voo za-vay pay-ay)

      “The bill” in French is literally “the addition”, which in French is:

       l’addition

       (la-dis-yon)

      So, how would you say “you have paid the bill”?

       Vous avez payé l’addition

       (voo za-vay pay-ay la-dis-yon)

      How about “we have paid the bill”?

       Nous avons payé l’addition.

       (noo za-von pay-ay la-dis-yon)

      And “I have paid the bill”?

       J’ai payé l’addition.