Mais où est donc Ornicar ?
HIIIIII I AM BACK
(edit: the formatting is really awful I can't manage to put space between the lines on mobile help!!)
This time, it’s gonna be about coordinating conjunctions! This is more basic level, I guess, but it’s something really important to articulate your speech and start making up real sentences instead of just stringing pieces of sentences together without any natural flow to it (which is already really awesome to do, mind you).
Here’s the magic sentence every French pupil learns in school to remember coordinating conjunctions:
Mais où est donc Ornicar ?
This roughly means “Where in the world is Ornicar?” and each syllable corresponds to one of those conjunctions (the spelling isn’t necessarily the same since that sentence is just for phonetic purposes, so beware). Here’s the list (with marvelous and unnecessarily long example sentences that you shouldn’t take seriously):
- “mais”: means “but”.
=> J’adore le fromage mais j’y suis allergique. (I love cheese but I’m allergic to it.)
=> - Allez, au lit maintenant ! - Mais j’ai pas fini mon yaourt ! (- Come on, let’s go to bed now! - But I haven’t finished eating my yogurt!)
- “ou”: means “or”. It’s written “où” above, but that’s another word so don’t confuse them.
=> Tu préfères le jus d’orange ou le jus de pomme le matin ? (Do you prefer orange juice or apple juice in the morning?)
=> Arrête de répondre ou je vais m’énerver. (Stop talking back or I’m going to get angry.)
- “et”: means “and”.
=> Ma mère a habité à Paris et à Bordeaux. (My mom has lived in Paris and in Bordeaux.)
=> Il faut que j’aille à la boulangerie acheter une baguette et des éclairs au chocolat. (I have to go to the bakery to buy a baguette and chocolate éclairs.)
- “donc”: means “so” (expresses the idea of consequence).
=> La poste est fermée cet après-midi donc j’irai demain. (The postal office is closed this afternoon so I’ll go tomorrow.)
=> Il a insulté mes parents donc je lui ai foutu une grosse baffe dans sa gueule. (He insulted my parents so I slapped the shit out of his fucking face.)
- “or”: means “yet/but”. It’s quite formal so you’ll mostly see it in written French.
=> Elle m’a accusé d’avoir volé son oeuf en chocolat, or je ne sais même pas où il est. (She accused me of stealing her chocolate egg, but I don’t even know where it is.)
=> Ils disent qu’ils n’ont plus d’argent, or ils viennent de s’acheter une télé 4K. (They say they have no money left, yet they just bought a 4K TV.)
- “ni”: corresponds to the “neither... nor.../either... or...” form; in French, you just say “ni... ni...”.
=> Vous n’aimez ni le McDo, ni les kebabs ? Vous êtes vraiment bizarres ! (You don’t like either McDonald’s or kebabs? You’re really weird!)
=> Ni moi ni lui n’irons à sa fête d’anniversaire débile, il n’est même pas venu à la nôtre ! (Neither I nor he will be going to his dumb birthday party, he didn’t even come to ours!)
- “car”: means “because”. There’s a more informal version (”parce que”) that you’ll hear more often but this one you’ll see more in books and written stuff in general.
=> Elles ne sont pas venues hier car leur fils est tombé malade dans la matinée. (They didn’t come yesterday because their son had gotten sick in the morning.)
=> Je ne peux pas porter de chaussettes aujourd’hui car j’ai des ampoules. (I can’t wear socks today because I’ve got blisters.)
This is pretty simple, you just have to remember how some of these are spelled (like “et” and “ou”) to avoid confusion; some native speakers make that mistake so if you learn that properly you’ll already be better than a few of us!