Transcript

French spelling and grammar can be very complicated, even for French speakers themselves.

There are plenty of exceptions, agreements to respect and a mistake can happen quickly. Even Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has made spelling mistakes in tweets.

Welcome to this new French lesson. Today, we are going to correct some spelling mistakes made by French-speaking stars, French-speaking celebrities on their social networks.

We will see spelling mistakes of Angela, Karim Benzema, Kylian Mbappé, Patricia Kaas and many others.

I'll post a tweet, Instagram post or Facebook post from a celebrity and give you a few seconds to find the mistake or mistakes. Then we'll correct them together and I'll explain the mistake.

Obviously, the objective of this video is not at all to make fun of these celebrities or to stigmatize them. When you write all day long on social networks and sometimes you have to write very fast, a mistake is quickly made.

I just wanted to take a little more fun work material for this French lesson rather than taking mistakes found on the internet, made by strangers, made by anonymous people.

I too sometimes make spelling mistakes and I'll put one at the end of the video.

To make this video I used a spellchecker unlike any other. This spellchecker is called MerciApp. It's an extension you can add to your browser that corrects you in real time everywhere, all the time.

In your emails, on WhatsApp, on Facebook Messenger or even in Word or Outlook. The special thing about this spell checker is that in addition to showing you the spelling mistakes you have made, this tool also explains the grammatical rule or the spelling rule.

And that's really great because in addition to correcting you, it allows you to progress in French. What can also be very interesting for you who are learning French is that the tool will tell you if you are mistaken in the meaning of words. It understands the context of your sentence and tells you if you made a mistake in writing the word.

For example, if I write, "my friend's sea is nice" and I write "sea" M E R, MerciApp will understand that I meant a mom and not the sea where we go to the beach.

On any site you go to, if you double click on a word, you also get the definition of the word that appears and synonyms for that word. This is also very useful for someone who wants to learn French by reading.

This tool also allows you to save a lot of time. Let me give you a personal example. When I send an email, I'm always stressed about making spelling mistakes, so I sometimes re-read it four or five times.

Since I've been using the MerciApp tool, if no words are underlined, I know it's okay, that I can send the email without stressing.

In the tool's interface, you also have statistics that tell you the mistakes you make most often. This is a very good indicator to tell you what you need to work on.

There is a free 100 % version and a pro version. For the pro version with more features, you have 30 days trial totally free and then you can get 30 % with my code HELLOFRENCH.

Now let's get down to business. Let's start right away with two Instagram posts from Marion Cotillard. You certainly know her if you have seen the movie Batman.

So I display the first post on the screen. Here she relayed the text of a French politician who made a mistake, but she should have checked before copying and pasting it. I'll give you a few seconds to find the mistake which is easy. Let's start slowly.

As you may have guessed, "an" is missing an "s". "Two years" is a plural, so it needs an "s".

Second post by Marion Cotillard. *Post reading on screen*.

Here, there are three errors. I'll give you a few seconds to find them.

Then you can see it. Personally, doesn't spell like that.

Here, it's the usual spelling, there are no rules, you just have to know the right spelling of the word.

"Paimpol" must take a capital P because it is a city.

Then, another mistake that is very common. You see, it's a mistake in punctuation. We always add a space between an exclamation mark or a question mark and the word before it.

So you see here the extension that I use explains it. So the exclamation mark is stuck to the text that precedes it. Now, it must be preceded by a space.

You certainly know the singer Angèle, especially for her duet Fever with Dua Lupa. We will have two mistakes she made.

The first in an Instagram post. *Read the post".

I'll give you a few seconds to find the error. December and the months of the year are always written with a lower case letter. There is never a capital letter. The same goes for the days of the week.

In a TikTok she puts *Read the post".

There are two here. A spelling error and a punctuation error.

The spelling mistake, you may have found. "I wrote".

Written is a past participle here, so it must be written with a "t". When you put three small dots to mean etc., you have to put a space between the three dots. Here you don't need a space, you have to stick the three dots with the word before.

Let's move on to "Jul" who is a very famous rapper in France. His music records more than 5 billion streams in France.

On the other hand, he makes some small spelling mistakes on the networks.

So the first one. *Read the post"

I'll give you a few seconds to figure it out. The error is in the word "likes", it is not tuned correctly. Again, this is a mistake I see very often on the networks. You have to agree the verb with the subject. People tend to put an "s" if you put "you". But no, it's "likes" with an "e".

*Post reading*. There is a mistake here. If you write "his" S A. It is a possessive determiner.

Now, here we have a verb. It happens. This is short for "it happens".

So of course you have to write that, c cedilla a and add the capitalization obviously.

Let's move on to the leader of France, our president Emmanuel Macron. After the defeat of the Blues in Qatar, he made a tweet that he very quickly deleted.

But here he is - will you find the spelling mistake he made?

In one tweet, he misstated the auxiliary with the subject. "We" is of course spelled O N T.

Soprano, a French rapper from Marseilles just like Jul. Here is a first sentence. *Read the post".

Here there are two spelling mistakes but they are related. So first, "as" is of course spelled A S.

There is a bad agreement between the subject and the auxiliary. Then, the second mistake is "regalé". Régalé you must of course put an S because the direct object complement is placed before the verb and when it is the case with the auxiliary avoir, most of the time, you must agree.

Another sentence from Soprano that he posted on Instagram.

Join me this Saturday, December 3rd at 2pm for an exclusive showcase.

Here you have two mistakes. As in Angela's sentence, and it was about the same month, December is always written with a lower case.

Find me. You must always hyphenate a verb with the pronoun that follows it.

Kylian Mbappé. I don't know if it's necessary to introduce him to you. He is an international soccer star. He is talking to a little girl.

*Post reading*.

So this error here may be a little harder to find, I'll give you a few seconds.

"Continue" should not be written with an "s". In the imperative form, the "s" falls off if it is a first group verb. So if you had E S, even if you are addressing the second person singular, you must remove the S.

Let's move on to the mistakes made by Adele Exarchopoulos, who is a great French actress. She played in the film "La Vie d'Adèle", which won a prize in Cannes.

It got the Palme d'Or, I think. *Post reading*.

There is a mistake here and I'll give you a clue. It's in the second sentence. I'll let you think about it.

The error is in "left". "Laissé" is written with an "é" with the auxiliary "avoir" the past participle usually does not agree, unless the direct object complement is placed before the verb.

Here it is not the case so we do not agree. This is the basic rule.

*Post reading*.

So shorts, it's implied short films and à l'arrache, it means without preparation. It's slang, it's colloquial language. There is a mistake in this sentence, it is quite easy to find.

The error is in the verb "did". The agreement is incorrect with the subject. The subject is "on" third person singular. Faisait is written with a "t".

Karim Benzema, also an international soccer player. *Post reading*.

There are two mistakes here. Thank you should be capitalized because it is the beginning of a sentence. When you start a sentence, you capitalize it. That's how it is in French. "All" should of course be written with an "s" to match your messages. There are several messages, so of course you have to put an "s".

Carla Bruni. I don't know if this name rings a bell. She is a former first lady of France. She is the wife of Nicolas Sarkozy who is also a singer, actress and model.

You may have seen her in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. *Read the post*.

You have two mistakes in this sentence, one easy and one much more difficult. I'll give you a few seconds to find them.

First mistake. A few days ago took place. The auxiliary is not correct. The accent is reserved for the preposition "a".

The second mistake is in fundraising. We always raise funds. There are several of them, so you always have to put an "s" when you talk about raising funds.

A post from Alizée, I think she is very famous in Japan, she is a singer who sings "Moi Lolita", I don't know if you know this music.

*Post reading*.

So here, the error is quite difficult to find. The mistake here is in "balade". When we talk about a stroll, a walk, the word is written with only one L. If you put two Ls, then you are talking about a poem or a song.

Patricia Kaas, the interpreter of "Mon mec à moi". Where are the men?

Here, there are two errors, but one main error that comes up very frequently in French. I leave you the time to look at it.

"Where" is written O U with an accent on the ù. So both exist in French. If you write "or" O U, you leave a choice.

Do you prefer dogs or cats?

On the other hand, when we want to talk about a place, we must put an accent. This is an interrogative adverb. Where are the men? Where are they? Where are the men?

And finally let's end with a mistake I made in a YouTube video that was pointed out to me in a comment.

Not very nicely by the way. But you're right to tell me when I make mistakes too. "I broke my leg"

I had written "broken" É E. Since the basic rule with the auxiliary to be in the past participle is to agree it with the subject.

Obviously this is French and there are many exceptions. This is the case in this sentence because it is a reflexive verb. So I broke my leg.

With pronominal verbs, the basic rule is that the past participle agreement is the same as for the verb to have. So we will only agree the past participle if the direct object complement is placed before the verb.

To find a direct object complement, you must ask the question who or what. In this case, I broke what? A leg as it is placed after the verb, so there is no agreement, it remains invariable.

That's it for today.

I hope you enjoyed this exercise.

I hope you enjoyed correcting the spelling mistakes of these French-speaking stars and celebrities with me.

If you do, feel free to tell me in comments. Let me know if you want more videos like this. And of course, put a like on the video.

To help me make this video I used the MerciApp extension. If you are interested, don't forget, I put a description and a promo code in the description of my video.

See you soon!