Hello, and welcome in your fourth French lesson
In French, there are two ways to speak to someone
depending on how close you are to that person
First scenario:
Calling someone "tu",
for the persons we know,
for example,
for a family member,
you will use "tu",
for example, your father, in the morning,
you can tell him "Hello dad,
are you doing well?"
"Are you doing well?"
"Did you sleep well?"
Voilà
With your friend, with your classmate,
you will use "tu"
"Did you do the homework for today, Mathieu?"
"Did you do the homework for today?"
With your colleague, also,
you can use "tu"
"Hey, Marc, you are not working very fast, today"
To your boyfriend,
you will say
"Do you love me, Nicolas?"
"Do you love me?
"Do you think we will die together?"
"When will you ask me to marry you?"
"Tu" is for the persons that we know
Then,
second scenario: calling someone "vous"
That is to say
that you will use the personal pronoun "vous"
with the persons that you don't know well,
or the persons you have to show some respect to
For example, your Math teacher,
that you know, he is your teacher since the beginning of the year,
but he is your teacher,
he is not your friend, he is not your brother, no no no
So, we respect him, we tell him "vous"
For example,
"Mister,
can you explain to me once again yesterday's lesson?"
Voilà
Your boss, generally, you call him "vous"
A stranger, in the subway,
who bumps into you, for example
you will tell him "You could pay attention!"
"You could pay attention"
Because he is a stranger, and even if he bumps into you,
you cannot call him "tu",
this is lack of respect,
you have to call him "vous", you don't know him
Voilà
For example, your neighbor,
this is a typical example of...
"it depends",
your neighbor, it depends on the relationship you have with him,
if he is a neighbor you invite at your house every week-end to barbecue,
in this case, you can tell him "tu"
because you became friends,
you became close friends
While if this neighbor,
you barely say "Hello" to him in the morning,
if you are not very sociable
and he is just a neighbor you don't have affinities with,
you will use the personal pronoun "vous",
in the morning, you see him, you tell him
"Hello Mister, are you doing well?"
"Are you doing well, Mister, today?"
Voilà
I hope you took some notes
Now,
what do we do when we want to speak to several persons at the same time?
When we want to speak to several persons
either we know them or not,
we will use "vous"
Yes, "vous"
"Vous" has two functions
"Vous" is used for speaking to one person that we don't know well,
or to several persons,
either we know them or not
I am giving you the example of the parents
To my mother, for example, I will say:
"Mummy, you smell good!"
"You smell good, mummy!"
And, to my father, I will say:
"Oh lala! You too, daddy,
you smell good!"
But,
if you want
to give the same compliment
to both at the same time, to both of your parents,
you will tell them:
"You smell good, daddy and mummy!"
Because they are two people
Individually, you tell them "tu" and "tu",
but if they are together, you tell them "vous"
There
I think that... at least I hope
that it was clear enough
I will give you just some examples of sentences
calling someone "tu" and calling someone "vous"
so that you see the difference,
for example, the sentence
"What's your name?"
There, this is when you call someone "tu"
And "What's your name?"
This one is when you call someone "vous"
So, you are going to tell me "But...
«What's you name?»
is the type of question we ask to someone we don't know,
usually, so we should use «vous»"
And you are right, but
try to take into consideration that
using "tu" is very common
among young people,
that is to say that if you are a teenager, or even
even beyond 20 years old
if you are in a rather "young" ambiance,
in a young and dynamic company
with an average age of 20 years old, between 20 and 25 years old,
you can tell "tu" to those people,
even if you don't know them already
you can ask them "What's your name?"
If you have a doubt, try to listen what the other ones are saying,
if they are using "tu" or "vous",
but using "tu" is very common in rather young ambiances
There
Another type of... well, another question
"How old are you?"
This one is using "tu"
And "How old are you?"
This one is using "vous"
There, I gave you those two questions
because in the next lesson,
we should see how to introduce ourselves
and how to ask questions to someone so that they introduce themselves
That way, you already have "What's your name?"
and "How old are you?",
you are already almost ready
There, I will add
another small sentence,
the sentence to apologize
We say "Excuse-me"
if we know well the person
"Excuse-me, Nathalie,
I forgot your birthday"
"Excuse-me"
And we say "Excuse-me"
if we don't know well the person
for example, in the subway, if you bump into someone,
and that you are polite, you will tell them
"Excuse-me"
"Excuse-moi" using "tu"
"Excusez-moi" using "vous"
There, I think I am done
I thank you for watching this video,
and I tell you "see you soon"
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