I am (proud to be) Canadian [the end] + In France this is considered very English

04.12.2009

Hey,

today we first warmed up about the gifts you would like Santa Claus to bring you for Christmas and here is what we said:

Lucie eats at Mc Donald's every other week. She usually orders a fish menu with fries and a regular sprite.
Her diet is not the greasiest one but not the healthiest one either. According to Sue, the healthiest option is the happy meal because she thinks it's well-balanced (équilibré).

Grammar:
THE + -EST = Le plus / La plus / Les plus.

Then we resumed our commentary on the I am Canadia commercial. We filled in the blanks of the worksheet and worked on new Canadian stereotypes. Here is what we said:

"to be written by Maeva"

Preterit Modal -> qu'est-ce que c'est? qu'est-ce que ça change par rapport au prétérit classique pour les verbes ?

"to be written by Maeva".

Finally we describe the picture which goes with the new document entitled "In France this is considered very English". Here is what we said about it:

- The picture depicts / represents the stereotype of a French person.
- He is wearing a beret, he has a moustache , he is smoking.
- All his defects / flaws are accentued. It's a caricature.

- French people are believed to smoke a lot as if they were all smokers. He is just missing the bread (baguette) under his arm, some cheese and a bottle of wine.
-> French people are thought to be drunkards as though everyone liked drinking / as though they were all in A.A.
- He looks vicious and sadistic. He looks like he's waiting for money from tourists.
-> French people are considered to be vicious as if everyone in France were sadistic.

Remember:
as if / as though + prétérit modal = comme si...

Eventually, I began reading the text with you and you had to spot out the names of the different characters:

There are 5 characters in the text:
Paul, who is English
Jean Marie who speaks English quite well and 3 employees (Marc, Bernard and Stéphanie) who are crap at / really bad at English.
They are attending a meeting in Paris in order to find a name for the tearooms but they don't agree about it.

Paul's proposals:
Tea time or Tea for two
= According to the French employee, it doesn't sound English. It's not a funny name.

The employees' proposals:
My tea's rich or Tea's cafe
= According to Paul, it's not English and it doesn't even mean anything.

HW: learn your lesson for next time.
You can download the text I gave you here:

And the "as if / as though exercise" here:

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