French Level 1
    Unité 13: Leçon 1a
    La Maison
    Salut! It is going to be my AWESOME task (and I mean that in a good way!) to teach you all the French vocab for "La Maison" (the house), including things that are inside a house, like "Les Meubles" (the furniture), and a few of the things that are outside of a house. I thought that the best way to start would be to just show you my house, uh, that is, the house of Monsieur and Madame LeBlanc (I rent...well, really it's my parents who rent one of the bedrooms in this house for me).

    Let's start with the outside of the house:


    Track 28


    *Note: On the outside of the house, many French people will have a walkway to their front door. This walkway is very much like the ones that we have in the U.S. except where ours are usually made of concrete, French walkways are made of some mixture containing gravel. I know that you are just dying to know why. My friend, Victoire told me that French people like to keep their personal business very private. So what does the gravel walkway have to do with privacy? I'll explain by giving you an example:

    Say that you are a French Mom or Dad and you're really upset with one of your kids so you start lecturing your kid in a pretty loud voice (you know what I mean!). All of a sudden, you hear the gravel crunching on the walkway outside. You know that someone is coming to the door. You say to your kid, "we'll continue this discussion later" and you head for the door. By the time you reach the door, you've had just enough time to compose yourself. The person outside rings the doorbell and you open the door with a GREAT BIG SMILE and a kind, "Bonjour!" for your guest. You have your visit and your guest leaves the house. Pretty, cool, huh? Of course, it's not so cool for your kid who is going to get the rest of his lecture as soon as you can't hear your guest's footsteps on the gravel any more!

    Let's get ready for the next leçon, where, with much persuasion, Monsieur and Madame LeBlanc will be allowing me to take you inside their house!