Learn French with this clip from Balades ep 1. It’s 16 seconds long and has 46 words. Use our transcription quiz to test your French listening and improve!
Learn French with a podcast snippet! This clip is from Balades Episode 1. Listen and fill in what you hear below. Read more and find a translation below. Find the full podcast here.
Normally…
Let’s continue with lesson 14. A couple of expressions around normally or daily use in this snippet that I’m committing to my memory palace.
It’s about time we get a lesson really focused on when. In this brief clip we get four temporal expressions. En temps normal, tous les jours, toujour, and reste de l’année. Juxtaposing this time just after the holidays with how things are normally.
What a perfect branch of expressions for this time now when things are anything but normal.
Does “Always” // “toujours” fit in this group? You be the judge. I think it does as it’s used to juxtapose the now as different from the always.
I did this clip on intermediate and found the opening after en plus to be especially difficult. The words really blend together. This probably comes back to my not knowing how the word collègues should be pronounced.
How much of this snippet are you understanding?
Can you only hear the articles or are you catching keywords?
What’s your favorite part about this?
There’s absolutely no way that I could get through an entire podcast in French without melting my brain, that’s why I broke it up into snippets like this. Join me for the next snippet.
The snippet in English
Find a translation of this snippet here, how much of this did you hear?
En plus, cela ne se limite pas aux collègues sympa que l’on côtoie tous les jours. Non, il y a aussi le chef qui en temps normal s’enferme toujours mal luné dans son bureau. Ou l’assistante du troisième étage qui vous ignore le reste de l’année.
In addition, it is not limited to the nice colleagues that we meet every day. No, there is also the boss who normally always locks himself up in his office in a bad mood. Or the assistant on the third floor who ignores you the rest of the year.
The above text courtesy of Google Translate. Source
What does “en temps normal” mean in French?
“En temps normal” is a French phrase that translates to “in normal times” or “under normal circumstances” in English. It’s used to indicate that something is true, common or usual when things are normal, but it’s not the case currently.
Examples:
“En temps normal, je vais à la gym tous les matins, mais je ne peux pas en ce moment” (In normal times, I go to the gym every morning, but I can’t right now)
“En temps normal, je prends le train pour aller au travail, mais je travaille à distance en ce moment” (In normal times, I take the train to work, but I’m working remotely now)
“En temps normal, nous organisons une grande fête pour les vacances, mais nous ne pouvons pas en raison des restrictions” (In normal times, we organize a big party for the holidays, but we can’t because of the restrictions)
In general, “en temps normal” is used to indicate that something is true, common or usual when things are normal, but it’s not the case currently. It’s a way to compare the current situation with a situation that is considered as normal or usual.
What words did I look up in this snippet?
Find keywords for this snippet below, from fr.wiktionary.org or Wikipedia.
sympa
côtoie
tous les jours
s’enferme
mal luné
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The following words/phrases were new to me: “luné” and “côtoie”
“Ignore” was difficult to hear the first time but I figured it out in context and then I could hear it.