What Do We Do For Fun?

Let's use the negatives we just learned to find out our likes and dislikes.

Your turn. Form the negatives for the following, simply by putting "ne" before the verb and "pas" after the verb:

If you more than like something, you can say "J'adore le cinema." Of course, instead of using the negative, you can just say you hate it:

Je deteste le football (I hate football.) J'ai horreur des musees. ( I hate museums.)
("Le football" in French speaking countries refers to soccer. If you want to talk about American football, you have to be specific and say "Le football americain".)

Now you can start to put things together and tell people all about yourself.

"Bonjour, je m'appelle Claude. J'aime bien regarder (ruh gard ay) des films et le sport a la tele. J'adore la photographie et les voyages. J'ai horreur des voitures (voi toor), alors je vais au travail (tra vai) a velo." (Hello, my name is Claude. I very much like to watch movies and sports on T.V. I love photography and trips. I hate cars, so I go to work by bike.)

How about some other diversions?

Le football est le seul sport qui interesse Charles. (Football is the only sport Charles is interested in.)
Marie joue au tennis. (Mary plays tennis.)
Ma cousine (coo zeen), Natalie va patiner (pah teen ay) deux fois par semaine dans un skating pres d'elle. (My cousin goes skating two times a week at a skating rink near her.)
Le sport favori (fah vor ee) de Georges est le cyclisme. Il fait le cyclisme chaque jour et il regarde tous les grands tours a la tele. (George's favorite sport is cycling. He cycles every day and watches all the bicycle races on T.V.)

Elle joue de la guitare. (She plays the guitar.)

Ils adorent voyager. Ils ont visiter la Chine (sheen), les Etats Unies (laze etaz oo nee) , l'Amerique du Sud (sood) et l'Egypt. The love to travel. They have visited China, the United States and Egypt.

J'aime beaucoup les musees. Le Louvre, le musee d'Orsay, et, bien sur, Versailles! (I really like museums. The Louvre, the Museum of Orsay, and, of course, Versailles!) Les Francais sont passionnes par les jeux (juh) d'argent (dar jahn). (The French are passionate about games of chance.[games of money-argent means money]).

You noticed that, in French, you play "at" a sport. "Il joue au football", but for an instrument, you use the preposition "de". "Elle joue de la guitare." You probably also noticed that countries are "the". We're used to hearing that for "the" United States, but in French, we say it for other countries as well: l'Austrie, l'Angleterre, etc.

1. I don't like trips: ___________________________
2. I never read:_______________________________
3. I hardly ever watch (regarder) les sports: _________________________
4. Practice with your own information: Hello, my name is______________. I like to________. I hate______.
5. Marie plays tennis: Marie ______ au ______.
6. Natalie goes skating every day (chaque jour):________________________.
7. I play the guitar: Je ____de la ______.
8. I like museums, the movies and sports:_____________________________.
9. They visited the United States last year (l'annee derniere):____________________
10. My favorite sport is ______.: Mon sport favori est_______.