Level A1 · Review
Review 4: lessons 16 to 20
Révision 4 : leçons 16 à 20
The end of the voyage in eight sentences, the grammar of lessons 16 to 20 in a single table, and three exercises to finish level A1.
The story
Sur la Provence, la montre du commandant disparaît, puis elle revient au milieu des faux cols du commandant en second.
On the Provence the captain’s watch disappears, then turns up again among the first officer’s collars.
Une nuit, un officier se promène sur le pont et trouve Rozaine, attaché. Lupin emporte ses vingt mille francs.
One night an officer walking on deck finds Rozaine tied up. Lupin takes his twenty thousand francs.
Rozaine n’est pas Lupin, et maintenant tout le monde a peur. Nelly a besoin de protection : elle reste toujours avec le narrateur.
Rozaine is not Lupin, and now everybody is scared. Nelly needs protection: she never leaves the narrator’s side.
Le bateau vient d’arriver à New York. Au bout de la passerelle, un vieux petit homme attend : c’est Ganimard.
The ship has just arrived in New York. At the end of the gangway a little old man is waiting: it is Ganimard.
Ganimard frappe l’avant-bras droit du narrateur. Le narrateur n’est pas Bernard d’Andrézy. Arsène Lupin, c’est lui !
Ganimard strikes the narrator’s right forearm. The narrator is not Bernard d’Andrézy. Arsène Lupin is him!
Nelly laisse tomber le kodak, les bijoux et l’argent dans l’eau, et elle part sans lui.
Nelly drops the camera, the jewels and the money into the water, and leaves without him.
Un soir d’hiver, Arsène Lupin raconte cette aventure à un ami écrivain.
One winter evening, Arsène Lupin tells this adventure to a friend who is a writer.
Et l’ami écrit l’histoire que tu viens de lire.
And the friend writes down the story you have just read.
Vocabulary
- la montre: the watch
- le faux col: the detachable collar
- le portefeuille: the wallet
- la carte de visite: the calling card
- l’écriture: the handwriting
- avec reconnaissance: gratefully
- disparaître: to disappear
- emporter: to take away
- tout le monde: everybody
- seul / seule: alone
- fermer à clé: to lock
- les nouvelles: news
- attendre: to wait (for)
- la protection: protection
- rêver: to dream
- la passerelle: the gangway
- le douanier: the customs officer
- la foule: the crowd
- le parapluie: the umbrella
- la redingote: the frock coat
- le policier: the detective
- n’est-ce pas ?: isn’t it?, right?
- mort / morte: dead
- frapper: to strike
- l’avant-bras: the forearm
- la blessure: the wound
- laisser tomber: to drop
- dommage: a pity
- honnête: honest
- un soir d’hiver: one winter evening
Lessons 16 to 20 in one table
Start with the vocabulary list above, not with the table. Cover the English column, read the French aloud, and mark every word you cannot turn into English in about three seconds. Those marked words are your homework for this block.
| point | rule | from the summary above |
|---|---|---|
| de + article | de + le = du, de + les = des; de la and de l’ stay apart. The owner comes last. | la montre du commandant |
| à + article | à + le = au, à + les = aux | au bout de la passerelle |
| reflexive verbs | a pronoun that matches the subject: me, te, se, nous, vous, se | un officier se promène |
| reflexive + negative | ne goes before the pronoun, pas after the verb | je ne me lève pas |
| avoir + noun | where English says “to be”: peur, froid, faim, raison, besoin de, envie de | tout le monde a peur |
| tout | agrees: tout, toute, tous, toutes. Tout le monde takes a singular verb. | toutes les dames |
| venir de | + place = come from; + infinitive = have just done | le bateau vient d’arriver |
| adjectives before the noun | BAGS: beauty, age, goodness, size. vieil, bel before a vowel. | un vieux petit homme |
| stressed pronouns | moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles: after c’est, alone, for emphasis, after a preposition | Arsène Lupin, c’est lui |
And a word about the last two lines of the summary. Leblanc’s story does not quite end on the gangway. In the final paragraphs a new voice appears: the writer himself, who tells us that Arsène Lupin told him the whole tale un soir d’hiver, one winter evening, in his study, and that Lupin sometimes drops in unannounced. So the “I” you have followed for twenty lessons was Lupin all along, and the book is his friend’s record of it.
That is the end of level A1, and of Lupin’s first adventure. You can now read a whole short story retold in French, in the present, with all the basic grammar in place. At level A2 Lupin is behind bars in Paris, waiting for his trial. Which, being Lupin, does not mean he plans to stay there: the next story is Arsène Lupin en prison.