In this video, I explain the vocabulary related to the Covid-19 pandemic. This vocabulary isn't the happiest, but it will come in handy if you want to learn to speak French.

Transcript of "Learning French with the Coronavirus" video

Hello everyone. I hope you're doing well and that your learning French is going well. Today, I'm going to suggest a video theme that's not very cheerful, not very happy. I'm going to make a video on the coronavirus, COVID-19. In France, we've just been re-controlled. So it's a topic you hear about very, very often on the news or on the radio, on online media, in articles if you buy newspapers. I think it's important for you to understand all the vocabulary and expressions related to this global pandemic, to COVID-19. Before you start, don't forget to activate the subtitles, to make it easier for you to understand the video. If you're not yet a subscriber, don't forget to do so too, so you don't miss any videos. I'll be posting a vocabulary list on hellofrench.com with the words we'll be looking at today.

Let's start right away with the expression "la situation sanitaire". If you've listened to or watched the French news recently about Covid-19, you've probably heard the expression "la situation sanitaire". It's an expression we use to talk about the situation, the moment we're experiencing. Sanitaire comes from health. When we talk about the health situation, we're talking about the situation in which our health is at risk. We also often hear the word virus. In French, a virus is a disease that will spread through the population. For example, I might say "I've got a little virus, I've got a cough". When you have a virus or an illness, you say you're sick. I can say "I'm sick, I have a disease".

It means you're not in the best of health and something's not working right, you don't feel well, you're sick. We also often hear the words epidemics and pandemics. In the beginning, we spoke of an epidemic. It's a disease that's going to spread over a restricted territory, in a zone. Later, we spoke of a worldwide pandemic. So a pandemic is an epidemic that will spread more widely and more extensively.

We used the verb se propager. Se propager means to spread, to spread out. It's also called propagation. It's a common noun when you want to say that something is spreading. For example, you might say "the virus is spreading around the world" to say that it's spreading everywhere. The expression "to be infected" or "to be contaminated" is also widely used. It means that you have had, or are ill with, Covid-19. I've been infected or contaminated by Covid-19.

It means I have or have had this disease. You can be contaminated, but you can also contaminate someone. I can say "I contaminated Nathalie". That means I made her sick, I gave her my disease. We also hear a lot about Covid-19 being a highly contagious disease. You can also say for people that they are contagious, for girls. For a boy, he's contagious. There are diseases that are not contagious, such as cancer.

This means that if I hug or kiss someone who has cancer, I won't risk getting sick. Coronavirus, on the other hand, is a highly contagious disease. That means that if I kiss someone who has it, I could get it too, because it's a contagious disease. There's also a lot of talk about symptoms. So, what are symptoms? It's when you have a disease, you feel things, and the disease manifests itself in different ways. For example, with the coronavirus, we often say we have a fever. Fever is a symptom of Covid-19. A fever is when your body temperature rises very high. For example, I can say "I have a high fever, my temperature is 40 degrees". Another symptom we often hear about is coughing. When we cough, we go like this, expelling air from our lungs.

Another symptom we hear about in the media and around us is the loss of the sense of smell. So, what is the sense of smell? It's the ability to smell things with your nose. So, when you lose your sense of smell, it means you can no longer smell things. Another symptom-related expression is "asymptomatic". When we say that someone who has Covid-19 and is asymptomatic, it means that they have the disease inside them, so the person has Covid-19, but doesn't feel the symptoms, doesn't have any symptoms. This is good for them, because they don't feel sick, but it also means that they can give the disease to other people, who will feel the symptoms and get really sick. So, when you're asymptomatic, it means you don't feel sick. Another expression is "testing positive". When you test positive for coronavirus, it means you've had a test and the result is that you have the disease.

In France, you can be tested with a PCR test. The PCR test is what we call the test where you put a sort of cotton swab in your nose. There's another test in France called the serological test. It's a blood test that determines whether or not you've had Covid-19 in the past. This allows us to see whether, potentially, we could be immune, protected, so that we won't get the disease again.

This test shows whether you have antibodies in your blood. What are antibodies? It's what our body develops to fight against a disease, against an aggression. It will develop antibodies that will try to drive out and fight against a disease. We also talk a lot about contact cases. What is a contact case? It's an expression used to describe a person who has been in contact with someone who has the disease, for example, who has been in the same room as them, who has eaten with them, or who has seen someone who has the coronavirus.

This doesn't mean the person is ill, it just means they've been in contact with someone. So, often, we'll ask that person to isolate themselves and stay at home so as not to transmit the disease to someone else, should they become infected. We also talk a lot about first and second waves.

So today, in France, we say we're in the second wave. The first wave was in March, and now, in October, we're in the second wave. This means it's the second time we've been hit hard by the disease. The next word is "mask". It's simply this. There's also a lot of talk about compulsory masks. Compulsory means that you have to wear a mask, either on the street or in the stores.

If we don't wear it, we can be asked to leave the store, or fined by the police. We've talked about masks, but we're also talking about visors. Visors are the front of caps, so the hats we wear to protect ourselves from the sun.

What's ahead is the visor. Today, we also talk about visors when we're talking about protective equipment. Sometimes, you see people who have this on the street or in hospital who come like this, it's transparent, it's a visor, it's another way of protecting yourself. Let's take a look at three closely related words that may be difficult for you to differentiate because they are so close. There's containment, deconfinement and reconfinement. Each of these words also has an associated verb, so confine, deconfine and reconfine. Confinement, or confining, is when you're forced to stay at home and you're not allowed to go outside. You're in confinement. This is to prevent the disease from spreading. Then there's decontainment. In France, we were decontaminated in May. Then there's recontainment, which means confining again. This means that we've been confined, we're no longer confined, and once again we're asked to stay at home and not go outside.

For example, you could say "France confined its population for the first time in March, deconfined the French in May and is reconfining its population again in October". This may not be the case in your country, but France requires its population to fill in exit certificates. This is a document you have to fill in when you want to go out. Officially, it's called an attestation de déplacement dérogatoire. It's a bit of a complicated expression, but between us we call it an "attestation de sortie". So, as I was saying, it's the document you have to fill in if you want to go out to prove that this outing is important, that it's not to go and see friends, you have to tick boxes, for example, if it's to go shopping, take your child to school or go to the doctor. France has also imposed a curfew. What is a curfew?

It's when the state forbids you to go out after a certain time. In France, you're not allowed to go out after 9pm. It's a curfew. We also often hear the word quarantine. A quarantine is when you isolate people or a person from the rest of the population to prevent a disease from spreading. For example, England quarantines all French nationals entering the country. This is also known as quatorzaine.

Quatorzaine is used to refer to a 14-day quarantine.

Let's take a look at some words still linked to the spread of Covid-19. But they're also words that you might find useful when talking about illness in general, or anything to do with medical situations. Perhaps you're already familiar with this word, but it's a term we're hearing a lot these days: hospital and hospitals. The plural of the word hospital becomes hospitals. So it's the place where you go to be treated when you're ill, where you go to have an operation, where women can give birth if they're pregnant. We also use the expression "to be hospitalized". When you're hospitalized, it means that you're in hospital, that you have to sleep there because you've either had an operation or need to be treated. We also hear a lot about intensive care, and we hear a lot about being in intensive care. Intensive care is the part of the hospital where you have to be monitored very, very regularly, either because your state of health may be deteriorating, or because, for example, you may be in a coma.

We also talked a lot about respirators. During the first wave, we were very short of respirators. A respirator is a device that allows you to breathe in place of a sick person. In other words, to breathe artificially because our lungs are too sick and we have difficulty breathing on our own. In the hospital, you'll find the nursing staff. Carers are the people who look after sick people. They can be nurses or doctors.

A doctor is a doctor. A moment ago, I was talking about the expression "in intensive care". We hear a lot in the media about the expression "there are so many intensive care beds left". When we talk about available intensive care beds, we're talking about available places, i.e. the number of places in hospitals that can accommodate new patients. It's very important to count the number of places left, so as to be able to assess the number of people who can be accommodated and cared for in hospitals.

We've talked about hospitals, but we also talk a lot about EHPADs. EHPAD. These are retirement homes, nursing homes. In France, we've talked about them a lot, because the elderly are very fragile and can therefore be sicker if they have Covid-19. We've talked about it a lot in France, because these are places where the situation is very complicated. Another word that may be useful to you, even if you come to France on vacation or if you currently live in France, is pharmacy. The pharmacy is where you can buy medicines to treat yourself, but you can also buy skin creams and sun creams.

The next words are deaths and fatalities. Every day, in the media, we count the number of deaths linked to Covid-19. These are the people who have lost their lives. Let's end with a slightly happier word: "healing". When you're cured, it means you've been cured, you're no longer ill, the disease has gone.

That's it for today. I hope you were able to learn a few things in this video, even if, as I said, it's not a very happy theme, it's still interesting vocabulary to know, to learn for yourself to talk about the global pandemic or to understand if you want to read media, watch TV or listen to the radio in French right now. If you liked the video, remember to put a like and I'll put you, as I said, the vocabulary list for this video on the www.hellofrench.com website. See you soon and take care of yourself.