Answers: Module 02 — Greetings and Basic Communication¶
Answer Key¶
Easy Questions (1 pt each)¶
Q1. 70 = soixante-dix, 80 = quatre-vingts, 90 = quatre-vingt-dix, 71 = soixante et onze, 91 = quatre-vingt-onze
Q2. In French, days and months are common nouns, not proper nouns. The capitalization convention for proper nouns in French is narrower than in English — it applies to names of people, places, organizations, and titles, but not to the names of time units like days and months. This is a consistent rule, not an exception.
Q3. Bonsoir is a greeting used when arriving in the late afternoon or evening (roughly from 6pm onward). Bonne soirée is a farewell — said when leaving in the evening, wishing someone a pleasant rest of the evening. The parallel is bonjour (arrival greeting, day) vs. bonne journée (departure farewell, day). You say bonsoir when you walk in; you say bonne soirée when you walk out.
Q4. C'est le premier mars. The first day of the month uses premier (the ordinal adjective for "first") rather than un (the cardinal number "one"). All other days of the month use cardinal numbers: le deux, le trois, etc. Only the first of the month is exceptional.
Q5. américain → américaine; espagnol → espagnole; canadien → canadienne (double n); japonais → japonaise
Medium Questions (2 pts each)¶
Q6. The French vigesimal system reflects a historical base-20 counting system from a Celtic substrate (Gaulish) that predates the Roman conquest. From 70–99, rather than using tens words (septante, octante, nonante), standard French builds on 60 and 80: 70 = soixante-dix (60+10), 71 = soixante et onze (60+11), 80 = quatre-vingts (4×20), 90 = quatre-vingt-dix (4×20+10). Belgium, Switzerland, and some African francophone countries use the more logical septante (70), huitante or octante (80), nonante (90) — but these are non-standard in France. France's Académie Française has declined to adopt them despite their logical simplicity.
Q7. Sample answer: Bonjour, je m'appelle Claire Petit. Je suis française — je suis de Bordeaux, dans le sud-ouest de la France. Je suis comptable. Je suis ravie de vous rencontrer.
Q8. French time uses Il est + hour + minutes. For "o'clock": Il est [number] heure(s). For minutes past: state the hour then the minutes (Il est sept heures vingt = 7:20). For 30 minutes: et demie (Il est trois heures et demie = 3:30). For 15 minutes: et quart (Il est neuf heures et quart = 9:15). For minutes before the next hour: use moins (Il est huit heures moins dix = 7:50 — 8 minus 10 minutes). For 45 minutes: moins le quart (Il est six heures moins le quart = 5:45).
Q9. Nationalities used as adjectives (after a verb like être) are lowercase: Je suis française (I am French), Il est canadien (He is Canadian). Nationalities used as nouns (referring to a person as a member of a national group) are capitalized: une Française (a French woman), les Canadiens (the Canadians). When an adjective, no capital; when a noun, capital.
Q10. Salut ! Il est quelle heure ? — Presque neuf heures. T'as cours ? — Oui, à neuf heures et demie. À tout à l'heure !
Hard Questions (3 pts each)¶
Q11. Phone number: 06 93 79 81 52. Availability: Thursday between 2:00pm and 4:30pm.
Q12. Acceptable answer: a dialogue using vous, formal greetings and farewells, correct names/origins/destinations, at least 3 annotations explaining choices.
Q13. Errors: (1) Français should be français — adjective after être, lowercase; (2) Américain should be américain — same rule; (3) Français (second occurrence, adjective in parlons Français) should be français; (4) Mardis should be mardis — days of the week are not capitalized. Corrected: Je suis français et mon ami est américain. Nous parlons français ensemble tous les mardis.
Q14. Accept any 3 of the following types of situations with reasonable explanations: meeting an employer/interviewer, addressing a professor, speaking to an older stranger, contacting a business/service, official contexts (doctors, officials, bank staff), first meeting at a professional event. The consequence of inappropriate tu is perceived rudeness, arrogance, or at minimum a breach of social convention that creates awkwardness.
Expert Questions (5 pts each)¶
Q15. Strategies and techniques: Accept well-reasoned answers covering chunking (reading 79 as soixante + dix-neuf rather than processing each digit), frequent drilling (especially 71–79 and 91–99), comparing with Belgian/Swiss forms to understand the structure, using real-world contexts (prices, ages, phone numbers) for immersive practice.
Q16. Accept answers that compare the French tu/vous system with German (du/Sie), Spanish (tú/usted), Italian (tu/Lei), or other relevant languages. Strong answers note that 20th-century social changes (student revolution of May 1968, workplace democratization) accelerated tutoiement between colleagues and peers in France, and that the current situation is generationally variable — younger speakers use tu more broadly.