French · Chapter 23 · Lesson 22 · Themed review
Les saisons et la meteo
The last theme of the course. Chapter 15 gave you nature broadly; this is the weather on its own, with the seasons it arrives in.
Practise this lesson
13-word session
A quick mix of exercises - recognise, recall, type and build each word. Miss one and it comes back round until it sticks.
Worth knowing
En hiver, en ete, en automne, but au printemps
Three seasons take . Spring takes . There is no logic worth learning, only the fact.
The reason, if you want one, is that begins with a consonant sound where the other three begin with vowels, and the older form was awkward enough to be abandoned. Native speakers have never thought about it. Learners get it wrong constantly.
Months work like the first three
, , . All months take , with no exceptions, which makes spring the only irregularity in the whole system.
Days take nothing at all: on its own means on Monday. Adding makes it habitual: is on Mondays, every week.
The weather revisited
You met in the nature session and it still governs everything here: , , .
The verbs for precipitation stand alone: , , gèle. The nouns exist alongside them, , , gel, but the verbs come first in speech.
Une saison, une periode
is the season of the year and also the season in the sense of a run: touristique. is a period or era. temporade does not exist in French, whatever Spanish has led you to expect.
The last word on temps
This is the final theme of the French course, and is still doing the same double duty it was doing in chapter 2: time and weather, one word. is time passing. gâte is the weather turning. Nobody has ever confused them, because the verbs give it away every time.
