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 French learning is going well. Today, I'm going to show you a video that is a little different from what I usually do on the channel. It's a bit special. We are going to talk together about the series Emily in Paris. This series arrived at the beginning of October on Netflix and a lot of people are watching it. In this video, we will see together the vocabulary of the first three episodes.

So the story of 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 she comes to work in a marketing agency. We discover with her the city of Paris, the difficulties that she can have to speak, to try to speak French, the cultural shock that she is going to meet by arriving in Paris. It is very interesting to see the vocabulary together. In this series, we hear polite expressions, expressions to learn how to introduce oneself and, obviously, new vocabulary words.

Before you start, remember to activate the subtitles, it will be easier for you to understand the video. If you are new to the channel, please consider subscribing to receive my videos to learn or improve your French. I'm going to divide this video in several parts. First of all, we will see together the polite phrases that we hear in Emily in Paris. Then, we will see together some phrases that are used in the first three episodes of the series to introduce ourselves.

Then, we will see together the French mistakes that Emily makes in these first three episodes, but also mistakes that we hear in the classes she takes in the show. Finally, we'll see some vocabulary words because it's always interesting to learn more words. Let's start right away with the polite words we hear in these first three episodes. When Emily arrives in Paris, the only word she knows is "bonjour". Hello, you may already know this word, it's what we say to greet people. When you arrive at work, when you enter a store...

We also hear in the series "bonjour mademoiselle", we add to bonjour "mademoiselle". Miss, we say that to young women. So there is madame, in general, it's more for older or married women, and mademoiselle, it's more used for younger women. It's also a way to make a hello even more polite. Hello Miss, Hello Madam or Hello Sir. We see another politeness formula which is "please". So s'il vous plaît, we say it very often in French. So we often put it in the sentences where we make requests

 to make them more polite, for example at the restaurant I can say to the waiter "could I have a coffee please?" Or at the bakery I can say "I would like a croissant please". We also use please to challenge, 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 "please" so it's a way to challenge the waiter, to ask him to come in a polite way. In the series, we also hear different polite ways of apologizing. For example, at a moment, a man says to Emily "excuse me Miss", it is a way of

polite to say, "Could you please move over?"

"Could you please give me the room?" For example, if you are walking down the street and you want to pass someone and they move to the side, you can say "excuse me", this is a polite way of saying "could you please move over, out of the way". We also hear another way of apologizing when Emily's friend drops her breadstick 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, saying sorry. We also hear in the series "thank you very much". Thank you 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 "thank you very much", it's an even stronger way of saying thank you, you really press the thank you, so "thank you very much". When Emily and her friend are at a restaurant, they say "Bon appetit". Bon appétit is what you say when you eat 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? This is a way of saying

"Is this okay with you?" "Is it okay?" "Do you like it?" You can also say it's okay to ask a friend if they are okay. It's a familiar expression. When Emily goes to the bakery to buy a loaf of chocolate, 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 you can say "no, I'd like a baguette too," for example. When Emily leaves the bakery, she says "Have a nice day. The baker takes her back to say "Have a good day". So it's feminine. Obviously, we don't say "Have" either.

We say "have a nice day". You can also just say when you're 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 having their glasses touch. It's "cheers" in French, we say "Santé". At one point, we see Emily having a drink by herself at a coffee shop 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 have this chair?" You're expecting someone, it means, is someone going to come and sit in this chair. Emily also uses an expression that is "c'est la vie." "C'est la vie" is an expression to say that's the way it is, it's not that bad. For example, I might say yesterday, I had to work until 9pm to finish a file.

Someone will say "poor thing", you can answer, "that's life eh". It means it's not so bad that it's just the way it is. Among the expressions that we also hear in the series, there is "of course". "Bien sûr", in French, is another way of saying yes. For example, if someone asks you "do you like coffee?" "Of course, I drink it every morning" or at work, for example, "can you pass me that file?" "Sure, here it is." We also hear the expression I just said "voilà". So voilà in French can mean many things. For example, in some contexts, it can be used at the end of sentences to conclude when you are not very comfortable. For example, if I introduce myself, I'll say my name is Elisabeth, I'm 28 years old and I live in Paris. It's a way to conclude. It can also be used to introduce someone or something. For example, I can say "this is Emily, she just came from Chicago". Or, as I just did, I can say "here's the file". Now let's look at the introductory phrases we hear in the show. When Emily arrives at her friend's party, her friend introduces her by saying "she's from Chicago and she works in a marketing agency".

This is a way to introduce someone. You can also change the sentence to first person, so speak in "I". "I just moved here from Chicago and I work at a marketing agency." When you say "she arrived", it's another way of saying "she's from" (Chicago). So in fact saying "she arrived from Chicago" we insist on the fact that she has just moved to Paris, so she has just arrived in the city.

When Emily arrives at her job for the first time, she uses an automatic translator that says "I'm going to work in this office." It's a bit of a crude way of saying that it's her first day. So, rather than saying I'm going to work in this office, if you arrive in France and it's your first day, it's better to say, for example, "it's my first day, I'm coming to work here" or "hello, I'm starting to work here today". Still in the phrases that you can use to introduce yourself, Emily says "I speak a little French". So this sentence is very correct to say that you don't speak French perfectly and that you speak a little French. So another sentence that you hear to introduce yourself is when she is running, she is listening to French classes and the person says "my name is... (her first name)". For example "my name is Elisabeth". It's a formula that we don't use very much, it's a bit of a strange formulation.

Rather than saying "my name is Elisabeth", it is better to say "my name is Elisabeth", it sounds more natural. The French are more likely to say "je m'appelle" with their first name than say "mon nom est". So let's move on to the French mistakes that Emily makes or that we hear in the show. For example, in the classes she takes, we hear things that are not very natural, that are not really said like that 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 feminine and masculine. 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 will be "a" each time. To say le, la or les, it will be "the". In French, apart from learning by heart which are the feminine and masculine nouns, there is not really any secret. So we see in the series, Emily, she has difficulty, for example, for things that are feminine attributes, she does not understand why it is a masculine determinant. 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 shit".

So it means that something sucks. In French, we'll just say "c'est de la merde". For example, I can say, my phone works every other time, it's crap. At another time, she wants to thank her neighbor for lending her his shower to wash herself. She's going to say, "thank you for the shower" because she doesn't actually know how to say it. So you have to say, "thank you for the shower". The shower is the word to talk about the installation where you wash yourself with water that comes from above.

You can also take a bath in a tub. 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 pick up on that and say "I'm excited". In reality, this expression, for some people, it can be connotative. However, it is an expression that is used in French, there is an expression that is "je suis excitée comme une puce".

This means that we are indeed very enthusiastic. It's even more than enthusiastic. So he's going to take it back because this expression can be connotative.

It can have a sexual meaning. However, in everyday language, you can say "I'm very excited to go on vacation" or "I'm very excited to go to Disney tomorrow". So that there is no debate about the use of the expression, it is better to add what you are excited about. As I said, for example, "I'm excited to go on vacation" or "I'm excited to go 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". The boots are closed shoes of winter or autumn. Moreover, she is going to say to her boss to tell her that she likes her shoes, she is going to say "I like boots". Already, her boss wears sandals, open shoes, therefore, it is not the correct word, and especially, we will rather say "I like your boots" or "I like your boots" if you are polite to the person. Again in the classes that Emily attends, well the ones she listens to in the headphones while running, she is made to repeat a sentence "please speak a little slower". This sentence is correct in French, but it is a bit aggressive.

We use the imperative, so we give a command. "Please speak a little slower". That's okay, but it can sound a little aggressive to say it that way.

It is better to say "Could you speak a little slower, please?" "Could you speak a little slower, please" you can use if someone speaks too fast or you don't understand what they just said. This last phrase, "Could you speak a little slower, please," you can use when someone has spoken too quickly, too fast, or you just 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. We'll start right away with the vocabulary about food. Let's start with pain au chocolat. It is one of the first things that Emily will eat, she goes to get it at the bakery. It's very greasy with butter and chocolate. We usually eat it for breakfast. In France, in some regions, we'll say a chocolatine. If you travel in France, you may be in a region where they don't say pain au chocolat, but they will say chocolatine.

A little later in the series, we also see that she is going to eat a croissant. Again, it's a pastry with puff pastry, so it's a bit of a moon shape. When she goes to a restaurant, she eats a steak and there is a debate, a discussion about the cooking. The meat can be blue, rare, medium and well done. I've been from the most raw to the most cooked. By the way, if you're interested in the different words that can be used in a restaurant, the basic words, I 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, going back to those first three episodes of Emily in Paris, still at the restaurant, her girlfriend says "don't have sweetbreads". So, as she says, sweetbreads are not rice with meat, so with veal. No, sweetbread is a dish where, in fact, we take the offal of the meat, the offal is the less noble parts, the parts that are not meat, so it will be for example the organs.

So to finish with the expressions about food, his colleague says "my little cabbage". A chou is a pastry, so something sweet that has more or less this shape, and often it is filled with cream. So you can say my cream puff. In French, we also say mon petit chou. We use it as a nickname. So, I can say to someone "How are you, my little cabbage?".

Let's move on to the rest of the vocabulary we hear in these three episodes that are not food related. To continue with the nicknames, her co-workers also call her "the hick." You can say "the slob" for a boy and "the slob" for a girl. They make her think it's a nice nickname, but it's not. It's a mean word used to refer to people who come from the country, people who are not from the city, so people from the city look down on them a little.

Because they are not well dressed, they are not chic enough and they are not very classy. It's a mean expression, you shouldn't use it.

In the vocabulary words that we also see, we hear the tea and the coffee. It is hot drinks that we can take, what we often take at the breakfast, but that we can take throughout the day. We also hear the word "la Seine". The Seine is simply the river that runs through Paris. When Emily meets the real estate agent, he tells her that her apartment is a maid's room. So, a maid's room in Paris 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. It's the rooms below the roof. Here, it's more like an apartment, it's a pretty spacious apartment. It's not really a maid's room. We see a very nice view. The apartment is very bright. Normally, maids' rooms don't really look like this. His boss uses the word disgusting to refer to the pizzas in Chicago.

So, the word disgusting, we often use it to talk about food, to say that it is really not good. For example, I could say this cake is disgusting, it tastes really bad, it's not good. At the party Emily goes to, again her boss is going to talk to her and say, "What a makeover". A metamorphosis is when one has completely changed. Here, he means that she doesn't look like, she doesn't have the look she usually has every day, so telling her "what a metamorphosis" means what a change. Her boss is going to use the word team, so she says team, that's the French word for team. A team can either be the people you work with, it's my team at work or a sport, it can be a soccer team, 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 it a little bit in the background, he's saying "I have to get the thing ready". So, in French, the word "truc" is a word that we use to talk about everything and nothing. We use it either because we have forgotten the name of an object, or to go faster. So, instead of saying "Can you pass me the remote control?", I'll say "Can you pass me the thing?

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

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

We also hear the vocabulary words tattoo. So, a tattoo is a drawing that we have under the skin with ink and that does not leave. Emily is talking with a boy at her friend's party, the boy tells her that he is a painter. Then in French, the profession of painter, that can mean several things. Either one is a painter, one is an artist, like Picasso or Dali, or one can also be a house painter.

So that means that we paint, for example, the walls of the houses in the apartments. When Emily walks with this boy, they say a lot of things they like, they will say for example "I like oysters". Oysters are shellfish that are usually eaten at Christmas, it's something luxurious. So the last one, it's not really a vocabulary word, it's more of a sentence that Emily says, she uses a translator to say it, but the sentence is correct and it can be very useful in the work.

"I would like to share ideas about" something. For example, "I would like to share my thoughts on this issue." This is something you can say to your colleagues, to your boss, just to share with him or her. That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed this video, that you were able to learn new words and expressions thanks to this series Emily in Paris, I think I'll do other videos on the vocabulary of the next episodes and also I'll do a video on the stereotypes, the clichés about Paris that we see in this series.

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