In this video, I review the first 3 episodes of Emily in Paris, the new Netflix series, and show you the interesting things you need to know to progress in French. Emily arrives in Paris without knowing speak FrenchIt is very interesting to look at his mistakes and his way of learning to speak French.

• 0:00 - Introduction
• 2:17 - Politeness formulas
• 9:29 AM - Introduce yourself
• 11:43 - His French mistakes
• 11:48 - Vocabulary

Transcript: learning French with Emily in Paris

Hello everyone! It's Elisabeth from Hellofrench and I hope you're doing well and that your learning French is going well. Today I'd like to offer you a video that's a little different from what I usually do on the channel. It's a video with a difference. Together, we're going to talk about the Emily in Paris series. This series arrived on Netflix at the beginning of October and a lot of people are watching it. In this video, we'll take a look at the vocabulary of the first three episodes.

Emily in Paris is the story of a young American woman who arrives in Paris for work. She doesn't speak French at all, and comes to work in a marketing agency. We discover with her the city of Paris, the difficulties she may have in speaking, in trying to speak French, the culture shock she will encounter when she arrives in Paris. It's very interesting to see the vocabulary together. In this series, we hear polite formulas, expressions for learning to introduce oneself and, of course, new vocabulary words.

Before you start, don't forget to activate the subtitles, to make it easier for you to understand the video. If you're new to the channel, don't forget to subscribe to my videos to learn or improve your French. I'm going to divide this video into several parts. First, we'll take a look at the polite expressions used in Emily in Paris. Then, we'll take a look at the phrases used in the first three episodes of the series to introduce ourselves.

Then, together, we'll look at the French mistakes Emily makes in these first three episodes, but also mistakes we hear in the courses she takes in the series. Finally, we'll look at some vocabulary words, because it's always interesting to learn more words. Let's start right away with the polite expressions we hear in these first three episodes. When Emily arrives in Paris, the only word she knows is "bonjour". Bonjour, as you may already know, is the word we use to greet people. When you arrive at work, when you enter a store...

In the "bonjour mademoiselle" series, we add "mademoiselle" to bonjour. Mademoiselle" is used for young women. So there's madame, which is generally used for older or married women, and mademoiselle, which is used for younger women. It's also a way of making a hello even more polite. Bonjour mademoiselle, bonjour madame or bonjour monsieur. Another polite expression is "please". In French, s'il vous plaît is often used. So we often use it in sentences where we're making requests

 To make them more polite, for example, at a restaurant I can say to the waiter, "Could I have a coffee please? Or at the bakery, I can say "I'd like a croissant please". We also use s'il vous plaît to interpellate, to call someone in a polite way, so again at the restaurant, if you want to ask the waiter to come to your table, you can just say "s'il vous plaît" so it's a way of interpellating the waiter, asking him to come in a polite way. In the series, we also hear various polite expressions of apology. For example, at one point, a man says to Emily "excuse me miss", which is a polite way of asking the waiter to come over.

polite to say: "Would you mind moving over?

"Could you please give me some room?" For example, if you're walking down the street and you want to overtake someone, and they move to the side, you can say "excuse me", which is a polite way of saying "could you please move aside". We also hear another way of apologizing when Emily's friend drops her baguette on the floor, she says "I'm sorry, I'll buy you another one", so she says "I'm sorry", it's a way of apologizing, of saying sorry. On the show, we also hear "thank you very much". Merci is when you thank someone. For example, in a restaurant, when the waiter brings you your meal, you say "thank you". So you can also say "merci beaucoup", which is an even stronger way of saying thank you, you really press the "merci", so "merci beaucoup". When Emily and her friend are at a restaurant, they say "Bon appétit". Bon appétit is what you say when you're eating to wish someone a good meal. We also hear the expression "ça va". When Emily arrives in Paris and visits her apartment with the real estate agent, he says "ça va? It's a way of saying

"does it suit you?" "Does it suit you?" "Do you like it?" You can also say ça va to ask a friend if he's all right. It's quite a colloquial expression. When Emily goes to the bakery to buy a pain au chocolat, the baker asks "Will that be all?" It's a polite way of asking if you don't want anything else if what you asked for was the only thing you wanted. So, "Will that be all?" you can answer "Yes, thank you", or "No, I'd also like a baguette", for example. When Emily leaves the bakery, she says "Have a nice day". The baker takes her back to say "UNE bonne journée". So it's feminine. Of course, we don't say "Have" either.

We say "have a nice day". You can also just say when leaving a business, so there, the bakery, you can just say, "have a nice day", so, you don't have to say "have a nice day", you can just say "have a nice day, goodbye". When Emily is at a work party, she'll toast with someone. They'll say "cheers" by making their glasses touch. It's "cheers" in French. At one point, we see Emily having a drink by herself at a café terrace, and someone comes up to her and asks, "Are you expecting someone?"

This expression, "you're expecting someone," is a polite way of asking "can I take this chair?" You're expecting someone, it means, is someone going to come and sit in this chair. Emily also uses an expression that's "c'est la vie". "C'est la vie" is an expression to say, that's the way it is, it's not so bad. For example, I could say yesterday, I had to work until 9 p.m. to finish a file.

Someone will say, "You poor thing", and you can reply, "That's life, isn't it? It means it's not that bad, it's just the way it is. Among the expressions we also hear in the series is "bien sûr" (of course). In French, "Bien sûr" is another way of saying yes. For example, if someone asks you "do you like coffee?" "Bien sûr, j'en bois tous les matins" or at work, for example, "est-ce que tu peux me passer ce dossier?" "Of course, here it is. We also hear the expression "voilà". In French, voilà can mean many things. For example, in certain contexts, it can be used at the end of sentences to conclude when you're not very comfortable. For example, if I'm introducing myself, I'll say je m'appelle Elisabeth, j'ai 28 ans et j'habite à Paris...voilà. It's a way of concluding. You can also use it to introduce someone or something. For example, I might say "This is Emily, just in from Chicago". Or, as I just did, I could say "here's the file". Let's take a look at some of the introductory phrases we hear in the series. When Emily arrives at her friend's party, her friend introduces her by saying "she's just arrived from Chicago and she works in a marketing agency".

It's a way of introducing someone. You can also change the sentence to the first person, i.e. speak in "I". For example, "I've just arrived from Chicago and I work in a marketing agency". When we say "she's arrived", it's another way of saying "she's from" (Chicago). So saying "she's arrived from Chicago" emphasizes the fact that she's just moved to Paris, so she's just arrived in the city.

When Emily arrives at work for the first time, she uses an automatic translator that says "I'm going to work in this office". It's a rather crude way of saying that it's her first day. So, rather than saying je vais travailler dans ce bureau, if you've just arrived in France and it's your first day, it's better to say, for example, "c'est mon premier jour, je viens travailler ici" or "bonjour, je commence à travailler ici aujourd'hui". Still on the subject of phrases you can use to introduce yourself, Emily says "je parle un peu français" ("I speak a little French"). This is a very good way of saying that you don't speak perfect French, but that you do speak a little French. So another phrase you might hear to introduce yourself is when you're running, listening to French lessons, and the person says "mon nom est... (her first name)". For example, "My name is Elisabeth". It's a formula we don't use much, it's a bit of a strange formulation.

Rather than saying "my name is Elisabeth", it's better to say "je m'appelle Elisabeth", which sounds more natural. The French are more likely to say "je m'appelle" with their first name than "mon nom est". So let's move on to the French mistakes Emily makes or hears in the series. For example, in the lessons she gives, we hear things that aren't very natural, that aren't really said that way in spoken French, in everyday French.

First of all, it's not really a fault in particular, but it's something more global. It's the difference between masculine and feminine. So we understand in the series that it's really complicated in French to know what is feminine and masculine, especially if you speak English. In English, to say un or une, it's "a" every time. To say le, la or les, it's "the". In French, apart from memorizing which nouns are masculine and which are feminine, there's really no secret. So we see in the series, Emily, she has trouble, for example, with things that are feminine attributes, she doesn't understand why it's a masculine determiner. So, that can create some funny situations in the show. Another mistake she'll make, not really a mistake, is that she doesn't know how to say it. She'll say "it's basically crap".

So it means something sucks. In French, we simply say "c'est de la merde". For example, I can say, my phone works one time out of two, it's crap. At another point, she wants to thank her neighbor for lending her his shower to wash. She'll say "merci for the shower" because she doesn't actually know how to say it. So you say, "merci pour la douche". The shower is the word for the installation where you wash yourself with water coming from above.

You can also bathe in a bathtub. It's another bathing facility that's a bit like a mini-pool. At one point, she'll say "I'm very excited" or "I'm excited", and her colleague will take her up on it and say that she should say "I'm enthusiastic". In reality, for some people, this expression can be connotative. However, it's an expression that's used in French, there's an expression that's "je suis excitée comme une puce" ("I'm as excited as a flea").

That means we're very enthusiastic indeed. It's even more than enthusiastic. Then he'll take it back, because that expression can be connotative.

It can have a sexual meaning. But in everyday language, you can say "I'm very excited about going on vacation" or "I'm very excited about going to Disney tomorrow". So that there's no debate about the use of the expression, it's best to add what you're excited about. As I was saying, for example, "I'm excited about going on vacation" or "I'm excited about going to Disney". So in Emily's classes, we have them repeat phrases, I like tea, I like coffee... There's a phrase "I like boots". Booties are closed shoes for winter or autumn. In fact, when she tells her boss that she likes her shoes, she says "I like boots". Already, her boss wears sandals, open-toed shoes, so that's not the right word, and more importantly, we're going to say "I like your boots" or "I like your boots" if you're being formal. Once again, in the classes that Emily attends - well, the ones she listens to on the headphones while running - she is made to repeat a phrase: "Please speak a little more slowly". This phrase is correct in French, but it's a little aggressive.

We use the imperative, so we're giving an order. "Please speak a little more slowly". This is correct, but it can sound a little aggressive to say it like that.

It's better to say, "Could you speak a little more slowly, please? "Could you speak a little more slowly, please", you can use if someone speaks too fast or you don't understand what they've just said. This last phrase, "Could you speak a little more slowly, please", you can use when someone has spoken too quickly, too fast or simply that you didn't understand and want to hear the phrase again. Let's move on to the vocabulary words we hear in these first three episodes of Emily in Paris. Let's start with food vocabulary. Let's start with pain au chocolat. One of the first things Emily eats, she picks it up at the bakery. It's very fatty, with butter and chocolate. We usually eat it for breakfast. In France, in certain regions, we'd say a chocolatine. If you're traveling in France, you may be in a region where they don't call it pain au chocolat, but chocolatine.

Later in the series, we also see her eating a croissant. Again, it's a pastry with puff pastry, so it's a bit moon-shaped. When she goes to a restaurant, she eats a steak and there's a debate, a discussion about cooking. The meat can be blue, rare, medium and well done. I've gone from the most raw to the most cooked. By the way, if you're interested in the different words you can use in a restaurant, the basic words, I've made another video specifically on this theme, so I invite you to watch it to learn more about the vocabulary to use in a restaurant.

So, back to those first three episodes of Emily in Paris, still in the restaurant, her girlfriend says "don't have sweetbreads". So, as she says, sweetbreads are not rice with meat, and therefore with veal. No, sweetbreads are a dish where, in fact, you take the offal from the meat. Offal is the less noble parts, the parts that aren't meat, so it's the organs, for example.

So, to finish with the expressions about food, his colleague says "mon petit chou" (my little cabbage). A chou is a pastry, so something sweet that's more or less this shape, and it's often filled with cream. So you might say mon chou à la crème. In French, we also say mon petit chou. We use it as a nickname. So, I can say to someone "ça va, mon petit chou?".

Let's move on to the rest of the vocabulary we hear in these three episodes that isn't food-related. Continuing with nicknames, her colleagues also call her "la plouc". You can say "le plouc" for a boy and "la plouc" for a girl. They make her think it's a nice nickname, but it's not. It's a nasty word used to refer to people who come from the country, people who don't come from the city, so city people look down on them a bit.

Because they're not well dressed, they're not chic enough and they're not very classy. It's a nasty expression and should be avoided.

In the vocabulary words we also see, we hear tea and coffee. These are hot drinks that can be taken, often at breakfast, but which can be taken throughout the day. We also hear the word Seine. The Seine is simply the river that flows through Paris. When Emily meets the real estate agent, he tells her that her apartment is a chambre de bonne. In Paris, a chambre de bonne is the top floor of a building where servants used to live. People who cooked for other people, who cleaned, who did the laundry. Normally, a maid's room is very small indeed. It's the rooms below the roof. Here, it's more like an apartment, quite spacious. It's not really a maid's room. You can see a very pretty view. The apartment is very bright. Normally, maids' rooms don't really look like this. His boss uses the word "disgusting" to refer to Chicago pizzas.

So the word disgusting is often used to talk about food, to say that it's really not good. For example, I might say this cake is disgusting, it tastes really bad, it's not good. At the party Emily goes to, her boss will once again talk to her and say, "What a metamorphosis". A metamorphosis is when you've changed completely. Here, he means that she doesn't look like, she doesn't have the look she usually has every day, so telling him "quelle métamorphose" means what a change. Her boss is going to use the word équipe, so she says équipe, which is the French word for team. A team can either be the people you work with, like my team at work, or a sport, like a soccer team or a field hockey team. It's the people close to you with whom you collaborate, with whom you work. When the plumber comes to fix Emily's shower, he uses the word "the thing". You can hear him in the background, saying "I've got to get the thing ready". So, in French, the word truc is a word we use to talk about anything and everything. We use it either because we've forgotten the name of something, or to go faster. So, rather than saying "Tu peux me passer la télécommande?", I'm going to say "tu peux me passer le truc?".

It's a slightly quicker way of describing anything and everything. So at one point, Emily is having a discussion with her boss and she's talking about "balance ton porc". Balance ton porc is the "me too" movement that was launched in France more or less two years ago, the French version of me too. It's the French version of me too. It's a movement to denounce aggressors or men who have behaved badly.

The expression "I'm really into it", like "I'm really into my job", is used to say that you're putting all your energy into something. For example, I might say "right now, I'm really into comics". That means I read a lot of comics. You could also say that you're really into someone. So if, for example, I say "I'm really into Mathieu", it means I'm in love with him or I like him a lot.

We also hear the vocabulary words tattoo. So, a tattoo is a drawing under the skin with ink that doesn't come off. Emily is chatting with a boy at her friend's party, and the boy tells her he's a painter. So in French, le métier de peintre can mean several things. Either you're a painter, you're an artist, like Picasso or Dali, or you can also be a house painter.

So that means painting, for example, the walls of houses in apartments. When Emily goes for a walk with this boy, they say lots of things they like, like "I like oysters". Oysters are shellfish that are usually eaten at Christmas, they're a luxury item. So the last one, it's not really a vocabulary word, it's more a sentence that Emily says, she uses a translator to say it, but the sentence is correct and it can be very useful to you at work.

"I'd like to share ideas about" something. For example, "I'd like to share my ideas about this file". This is something you can say to your colleagues, your boss, just to share with him or her. That's it for today. I hope you've enjoyed this video, that you've been able to learn some new words and expressions thanks to this Emily in Paris series, I think I'll be making more vocabulary videos for you in future episodes and also that I'll be making a video about the stereotypes, the clichés about Paris that we see in this series.

I'm going to make you a vocabulary sheet that includes all the words and expressions we've seen here, which I want to put on the Hellofrench website. You'll find the link to this vocabulary card in the video description. To see more videos, don't forget to subscribe to the HelloFrench channel and activate the bell to receive a notification when a video is put online. See you soon and have a nice day.