Transcript of the video

I gave you flowers yesterday. The day before yesterday!

For or against Valentine's Day?

Valentine's Day is the holiday for lovers. But many people also think it's a corny, has-been commercial holiday. In general, people either love it or hate it. Today, I'd like to use the theme of Valentine's Day and love to practice your French and learn some new vocabulary.

Welcome to my channel! If you don't know me, I'm Elisabeth from HELLOFRENCH. Every week, I post videos to help you improve your French. Like and subscribe! Let's start right away with the history of Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is a chestnut.

The word marronnier is used to talk about something that comes up every year. For example: Halloween, Valentine's Day, April 1ᵉʳ... These are chestnut trees. This holiday is celebrated every year in honor of Saint Valentine. But who is this Valentine? There are many legends and stories surrounding this holiday.

Let me tell you one. In one of the legends, Valentine was a Roman who is said to have lived in the IIIᵉ century during the reign of Emperor Claudius II. Emperor Claudius must not have been very nice, because he was nicknamed Claudius, the Cruel. Claudius had a hard time, he had trouble recruiting new soldiers.

So he thought about it and said that probably the reason he couldn't get new soldiers, good soldiers, was because they were too busy finding wives and having children. So he decided to ban marriages.

That's where Valentin comes in. Valentin is said to have been a priest who performed marriages in secret. When Emperor Claudius discovered this, he was furious. So he had him arrested and executed on February 14th. In any case, today, Valentine's Day is the holiday associated with lovers, the celebration of the loved one, the person you love. It's quite a romantic holiday, even a very romantic one.

It's a holiday that couples use to spend time together, have romantic dinners together, celebrate their love. Is Valentine's Day a commercial holiday? I think we can all agree that it is, at least a little bit. Even if for some people, there's a strong sentimental attachment to this holiday... It's a moment in the year that brands use to promote themselves. Florists and jewelers in particular, but also chocolate makers and cosmetics brands, for example.

It's true that it can be quite common to buy a perfume for Valentine's Day. So, of course, the meaning of Valentine's Day is up to each person, and each person lives it as he or she sees fit. No one is obliged to celebrate it. What can you do on Valentine's Day in France?

Well, in France, but that's probably the case just about everywhere. The most common thing to do is to go to a restaurant. So pretty much every restaurant is going to have a special menu for Valentine's Day.

That's the classic. Or you can have a romantic dinner at home. Another very common gesture is to give flowers to the person you love on Valentine's Day. You says we love him in French. In fact, I don't think you'll find any florists closed on Valentine's Day, because it's a very important day for their sales. Is Valentine's Day more important in the United States than in France?

Well, I think so. The United States has a long tradition of celebrating Valentine's Day with advertising campaigns that are quite aggressive and a strong commercial presence in stores. So it can give the impression that Valentine's Day is more important in the U.S., that it's more celebrated in popular culture.

If you're American, tell me if that's really the case. But in any case, in the movies we can watch or in the American series we can watch in France, we very often see in high schools or colleges that students make cards or write cards to each other for Valentine's Day.

In France, it's not done at all. So I would say that in France, Valentine's Day is celebrated, but perhaps in a slightly more subtle way. It's perhaps a little less commercially oriented than in other countries, like it might be in the United States. Do I celebrate Valentine's Day?

Well, it's been a long time since I've celebrated this day or done something special, or had someone give me something for Valentine's Day. I gave you flowers yesterday! The day before yesterday! That's just what I was going to say, that for me, it's not an important holiday at all. It's not something I care about at all. I'd rather celebrate love every day than on this day. Even, I find it a bit embarrassing to go to a restaurant specifically on February 14th where you're just going to have lots of couples around you. I find that a little embarrassing.

I'm not very comfortable. And as I was saying, I prefer to have little attentions all year round for the person I'm with or, I prefer, for the person I'm with to have little attentions for me. For example, last week I was ill and my husband bought me the cookies I like at the supermarket. He brought me flowers, even though it wasn't a specific day. It wasn't Valentine's Day.

So I think it's even more touching, because it's not an imposed date. My husband thought of it himself. Oooooh voilà! Yes, bravo! I really think the last time I did something for Valentine's Day was in 2017. And it was with a with a friend. She came to my place. We ate a raclette in front of Top Chef, which is a very famous cooking show in France, and I think that was the last time I organized something.

In any case, if you're planning to celebrate Valentine's Day, I hope you have a wonderful day. I hope you'll get all the attention you deserve and don't hesitate to tell me in the comments what you've planned or what you'd like your husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend to organize for this day of lovers. I'll see you soon and send you lots of love.