Lesson 19 — Chère Léa…

By the end of this lesson, you can:

• Read and write a postcard in French
• Build the passé composé with être (verbs of motion / state change)
• Make the past participle agree with the subject when the auxiliary is être
• Talk about a duration (pour, dans, il y a)
• Ask combien de temps ? "how long?" and quand ? "when?"

📝 Notes — French letter conventions

① Opening a letter. French is fussier about openings than English. The choice depends on the relationship:

• Cher Paul, / Chère Léa, — informal, friend or family ("Dear…")
• Cher Monsieur, / Chère Madame, — semi-formal, when you know the person but not closely
• Monsieur, / Madame, — formal letter (no "cher") — to a stranger or in business correspondence
• Salut Léa, / Coucou Léa, — very casual ("Hi" / "Hey")

⚠️ Note: in French cher is only for letter openings — never to address someone in conversation. Saying "cher Paul" face-to-face sounds strange or sarcastic.

② Closing a letter. Pick the right register:

• Bisous / Gros bisous — informal ("xx", "Love"). Family, close friends.
• À bientôt — "See you soon" — friendly
• Amitiés — "Best wishes / Yours" — friend, slightly more reserved
• Cordialement — "Kind regards" — work email, default professional
• Bien à vous — "Yours sincerely" — formal but warm
• Je vous prie d'agréer, Madame, l'expression de mes salutations distinguées. — ultra-formal full closing for official letters (yes, really — French formal letters keep this baroque flavor)

Mathilde uses Bisous because Léa is a close friend.

③ Étienne et moi — to talk about a group including yourself, put moi at the end: Étienne et moi ("Étienne and I"), mes parents et moi ("my parents and I"). The verb is conjugated with nous: nous sommes allés. (English does the same: "Étienne and I", not "I and Étienne".)

④ tous les trois = "the three of us / all three of us". For a group: tous les deux (both of us), tous les trois, tous les quatre… With an all-female subject: toutes les deux.

⑤ Le parc Güell — famous Barcelona park designed by Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926), the architect of the Sagrada Família. UNESCO World Heritage since 1984.

⑥ Nous rentrons dans deux jours — dans + duration = "in… (from now)", a future time reference. Don't confuse:

• il y a + duration = "… ago" (past) → il y a 2 jours "two days ago"
• dans + duration = "in…" (future) → dans 2 jours "in two days"
• pour + duration = "for…" (planned length) → pour le week-end "for the weekend"

⚠️ Anglophone trap: English uses "in" for both future and elapsed time ("I'll see you in two days"; "I finished it in two days"). French splits these — dans for future, en for elapsed time.

⚠️ False friend alert: rester = "to stay", NOT "to rest". (To rest = se reposer.) And visiter is for places only — to visit a person, use aller voir or rendre visite à.

1. Passé composé (2) — auxiliary être A small but high-frequency list

A small list of verbs uses the auxiliary être instead of avoir in the passé composé. They're almost all verbs of motion or change of state.

📋 The 14 main être verbs

⚠️ With être, the past participle agrees with the subject (gender and number). This is very different from English, where past participles never change.

Full example — aller in the passé composé:

2. pour, dans, il y a + duration When does it happen?