Year 8 – Avoir
Bonjour and welcome back! We hope you enjoyed half term and had a good rest. This week we are working on the verb AVOIR which means TO HAVE. We have seen some amazing work so far, and we are pleased to share with you some of the beautiful French work we have received. This week, we are very proud to showcase the work by one of our students in Year 7 at King’s Oak Academy. Keep up the good work and please continue to email us at firstname.lastname@example.org 🙂.Your work (or pictures of your French cooking…miam miam) might be posted next time!
LA BLAGUE DE LA SEMAINE
Une maman citron dit à ses enfants : ” Pour vivre longtemps, il ne faut jamais être pressé* !
This joke is a play on the word *pressé which has 2 meanings in French. Try to see if you can get it!
AVOIR is one of the most used verbs in French language, and it is an irregular verb. So you’ll need to learn it, memorise it and practise it as much as possible to use it confidently and accurately. One of the best ways to memorise something is to sing it! Here’s a brilliant video on YouTube (merci Etienne). Ready for a challenge? Try to sing along!
Now let’s have a look at AVOIR paradigm (the “paradigm” is the pattern of AVOIR)
LE TRAVAIL DE LA SEMAINE
Now it’s your turn to practise what you have learnt! (download the worksheet and complete the tasks, then download the answers to check)
Proverbe de la semaine (saying of the week)
A vouloir trop AVOIR, l’on perd tout.
This proverb or saying basically is a warning against greed; it roughly translates as “the more we want to HAVE (own), the more we risk losing everything”.
Please note that the l’ before on isn’t used nowadays in French so please don’t use it. This is a very old saying in archaic French! 🙂
DICTIONARY AND MEMORY SKILLS
Memory Game – ‘I went to market…’ Now let’s try to combine “J’ai” with food items. You’ll need to use WORD REFERENCE, your MEMORY and someone at home or a family member or a friend you video call. The challenge is to repeat what has been said by the previous person and add to the shopping list.
Person A: dans mon panier j’ai un citron.
Person B: dans mon panier j’ai un citron et une pomme.
Person A: dans mon panier j’ai un citron, une pomme et des biscuits…
The challenge this week will be to read a short story in French. You may choose to find one online or you may wish to have a go at the one we have selected below (Jean de La Fontaine is one of the most famous writers in France and his work is studied in schools across France, especially in primary). Remember, you don’t need to understand every single word to get the main gist. Also remember your reading techniques…look for cognates or near cognates and pay attention to the negatives (ne…pas).