Jouer and Faire

Hi Year 10, we hope you’ve had a good week. We have been very impressed with some of your work so far. Do continue to email us with your amazing work at mflwordpress@clf.uk

Last week we looked at regular present tense verbs (er, ir and re). This is so crucial to your success in French. As you may imagine, there are some verbs which unfortunately don’t follow the rules and are irregular. This week we will look at “jouer” (to play) which is a regular “er” verb and “faire” (to do) which is a very important irregular verb. Hopefully, after last week, you feel confident conjugating “jouer”. Have a look below to check if you were correct and also have a look at the conjugation of “faire”. You will need to learn this verb. If you need to remind yourself of the pronouns have a look back at the first blog post.

These two verbs are mainly used to speak about games, activities and sports. There are a few important rules to remember when using them. The main one is that we use faire (+ du,de la, de l’) for sports without balls and jouer (au, à la) for sports with balls. Check out the rules below :

This little rap below should also help to recap everything for you!

There are just two further exceptions to note which were mentioned in the video and this is musical instruments and board games. For musical instruments we actually do use the verb “jouer” but with du, de la, de l’. For example, je joue du piano or je joue de la trompette. For board games also we use the verb “jouer”. For example, je joue aux échecs (I play chess).

Now it’s your turn! Have a go at the activities below. For the first grid activity aim to conjugate the verbs “jouer” and “faire” with a range of different pronouns. Then translate each of the phrases in to English. I will also upload an example answer sheet at the bottom of this post.

Now, can you work out which sport/activity the following descriptions refer to? If it would help, you could perhaps try looking up some of the words using http://www.wordreference.com as we look at in the first blog post :).

Les blagues du jour! (Jokes of the day!)

Why don’t the French have a full English breakfast? Because one egg is un oeuf!

La culture française

How fast can you say this phrase?

How many times did it take you to say it correctly?

Tongue twisters are a great way to practise speaking French out loud. Below, we’ve chosen a few for you to have a go at, they are quite fast and you will need to start off slow, just give them a go! Maybe you could practise them with your family and have a little competition as to who can say them the best, in the quickest time.

Bigflo et Oli, Vianney, Louane, Stromae, Angelina. Have you heard of any of these people?

They are all famous French singers. How much French music do you listen to?

French music is a great way for you to practise your listening skills. Here are some French music artists we would love you to try out. Let us know who you prefer.

Here is a great website that you can try to help practise listening to French music. Let us know how you get on.