Understand Fast Spoken French Conversation: Mont-St-Michel with 2 native French speakers

Géraldine and Manon are at the feet of mont Saint-Michel.

– Ah, je vois le mont Saint-Michel ! On y est presque ! Merci de m’avoir amenée ici, c’est chouette d’avoir une amie dans la Manche. Oh, comme c’est beau…
Oh, I can see the mont Saint-Michel! We’re almost there! Thanks for taking me here, it’s nice to have a friend in La Manche. Oh, how beautiful it is…

→ La Manche is the name of le département where the Mont Saint Michel is located. It’s named after the sea of La Manche, the French name for the English Channel.
Which is named after Une manche, a sleeve (for clothes.) We also have the word un manche (= a handle, a stick), like un manche à balai (= the handle of a broomstick.)

– Oui, c’est magnifique. Ce qui est cool avec la baie du Mont-Saint-Michel, c’est que tu le vois de loin et tout le long de la côte.
Yes, it’s amazing. What’s nice with the bay of the Mont Saint-Michel, it’s that you can see it from far away and all along the coastline.

→ Magnifique means wonderful. Cool is used in French as in informal English. We’ll see a few more anglicisms as we go along.

– Je vais faire une photo avec les moutons, ça va être mignon.
I’m going to take a picture with the sheep, it’s going to be cute.

→ Un mouton is a sheep, and mignon means: cute.

– Ah, eux c’est des moutons des prés salés, ils sont AOP.
Ah, these are sheep of salted fields, they’re AOP-certified.

→ Un pré salé is a salted field. In the bay of mont Saint Michel, there are fields that are recovered by the sea from time to time, when the tides are really high. The sheep that are grazing on these fields get a special taste, especially for un agneau, a lamb. They’re protected by a special label of authenticity, called Appellation d’Origine Protégée (= AOP), like other famous French products such as the pepper le piment d’Espelette, the wine le Crémant d’Alsace, or the cheese le camembert de Normandie.

AOP is a label for the whole European Union. The French version (who came before the AOP) is Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC). The fact that this European label comes from France is not a coincidence. There’s an important concept in French culture called le terroir : it’s hard to translate, but it’s the result of a specific land and specific techniques that come from its local culture. I talked about it in my lesson on Normandy:

Click here to get the free lesson : Explore Normandy: Slowing Down Fast Spoken French

– Et ils sont pré-salés aussi ?
And are they pre-salted too?

→ It’s a joke. Because “un pré salé”, a salted field, sounds like the adjective “pré-salé”, pre-salted, that already comes with salt. The image in illustration with salted sheep was made by the funny brand from Normandy Heula.

– Ah, ça, c’est ce qu’on dit !
Ah! That’s what people say!

– Nan mais c’est ouf quand même, le mont, on dirait qu’il est sorti du Seigneur des Anneaux. Et l’abbaye a plus de mille ans ! Vraiment c’est dingue.
No but that’s crazy really, that mount, it looks like it comes from the Lord of the Rings. And the abbey is more than a thousand-year-old! Really that’s crazy.

→ Here we have two informal words for “crazy” : the colloquial dingue, and ouf, which is le verlan slang for fou (= crazy.)

Click here to get your lesson : Using and Understanding Verlan (You Didn’t Learn This In School)

– C’est clair. J’ai une pote qui est allée y faire une retraite de quelques jours, elle a adoré.
Clearly. I have a friend who went over there for a few-day retreat, she loved it.

→ “C’est clair” (= Clearly / Yeah) is a really common expression in everyday spoken French.
Un pote (= a friend, a buddy.) is a colloquial word, weaker than the strong un ami (= a friend, with whom you have a deep connection.)
Une retraite here is “a retreat.” But we also use the same word for la retraite, (= retirement) or retraité (= retired.) As in, for example, someone saying Je suis à la retraite. (= I’m retired) or Je suis bientôt retraité. (= I’m retiring soon.)

Retreats on le mont Saint-Michel are sought after. Click here to learn more: Faire une retraite spirituelle au mont Saint-Michel

– Ah ouais ? Sympa. C’est au milieu des touristes ?
Oh yeah? Nice. In the middle of all the tourists?

– Nan c’est à l’écart. Mais c’est vrai que c’est blindé de touristes, surtout en été. Il y a genre 2,5 millions de visiteurs par an, j’crois. En tout cas, c’est l’endroit le plus visité de France après Paris.
No, it’s away from people. But it’s true that it’s full of tourists, especially in summer. There are like two and half million visitors a year, I think. It’s the most visited French place outside Paris, at least.

→ Notice Blindé (= full, in colloquial French) and Genre (= informal way to say “like” or autour de, around / approximately.) And our informal pronunciation: Je becomes J’ (even before a consonant), Oui becomes Ouais, and Non becomes Nan.

– Faudra qu’on aille y manger une omelette en arrivant.
We’ll have to go and eat an omelet when we get there.

– Ouais, je sais pas trop. C’est quand même un sacré attrape-touriste. Mais d’un autre côté, parfois les attrape-touristes c’est fun.
Yeah, I’m not so sure. It’s really quite a tourist trap. But on the other hand, sometimes tourist traps are fun.

→ Fun is another common anglicism. On le mont Saint-Michel, you’ll hear about the famous l’omelette de la mère Poulard, a special kind of omelet. It’s kind of an emblem. The legend says that it was created in the XIXth century by a woman, a local innkeeper. (I make a mistake in the video, and say “Poularde” instead of “Poulard” with a silent “d.” Oops!)

But it’s a bit of un attrape-touriste (= a tourist trap.) Like a lot of things on le mont Saint-Michel, to be honest! On the meandering medieval streets below the Abbey, there are countless gift shops and restaurants and a crowd of travelers, and they’re not all high quality. The museum can be worth a look, though. And the abbey itself is a wonder. That’s even the name for the top buildings of the Abbey: la Merveille (= the wonder.)

Notice: Il faudra (= We’ll need to, we’ll have to…) gets cut in fast informal spoken French and becomes simply Faudra. Manon also uses Quand même, that I’ve talked about before.

Click here to get your free lesson: Quand Même in English: Its Uses and Translations

– Tu viens souvent au mont Saint-Michel toi ?
Do you often come to Mont Saint-Michel?

– Bah quand des amis ou de la famille viennent me voir, ouais on finit souvent par monter jusqu’à l’abbaye. C’est un peu un passage obligé. Mais finalement je préfère le voir de l’extérieur. L’été dernier j’étais allé à un concert dans la baie, il faisait super chaud, mais c’était super de pouvoir voir les musiciens avec le mont Saint-Michel en fond.
Well, when friends or family come to visit, yeah we often end up climbing to the abbey. It’s a bit of a must-see. But in the end, I prefer seeing it from the outside. Last summer, I went to a music show in the bay. It was super hot outside, but it’s was great to see the musicians with the Mont Saint-Michel in the background.

→ Bah is an informal pronunciation of Bien (= Well,) but here it’s mostly a filler word.
Then we have both uses of super : as an adverb in super chaud (= really hot), and as an adjective in C’était super. (= That was great.)

– Ah trop bien ! Et vous êtes pas tombés dans les sables mouvants ?
Ah, fantastic! And you didn’t fall into the quicksands?

– Presque pas, non ! Mais il y avait bien quelques passages avec pas mal de vase. On s’enfonçait jusqu’au genou… Mais pour traverser la baie à pied, tu es obligé d’avoir un guide de toute façon, et lui il sait comment éviter les passages dangereux.
Almost not, no! But there were indeed some parts with quite a bit of mud. We were sinking up to our knees… But to cross the bay on foot, you have to have a guide anyway, and he knows how to avoid the dangerous parts.

→ The bay of mont Saint Michel is famous for les sables mouvants (= quicksands.) That’s why you’re not allowed to cross it on your own, or they’ll have to send a helicopter to rescue you. Notice also the expression Pas mal. It’s VERY common in spoken French. It can be used literally, to mean “not bad,” like C’est pas mal ! (= That’s not bad!)
Or as an adverb, to mean “quite a lot,” like : “Il y a pas mal de gens ici.” (= There’s quite a lot of people here.)

– Mouais… Je vais préférer prendre la navette, pour aujourd’hui. J’ai pas non plus envie de risquer de se faire rattraper par la marée. Qu’est-ce qu’on dit déjà ? Ah oui, ici, la mer monte “à la vitesse d’un cheval au galop.”
Meh… I’d rather take the shuttle, for today. I don’t want to risk getting caught by the tide either. What do they say? Oh, yeah, here the tide rises at the speed of a galloping horse.

→ Mouais is an informal pronunciation of “oui”, when you’re not sure, or when you don’t fully agree.
I also use the word Déjà that can mean “already” or “first of all,” in a specific way.

Click here to learn more : The French “Déjà” Explained for English Speakers

– Exactement ! Mais on le verra de là-haut. Pour le moment, on est encore plutôt à marée basse. C’est impressionnant de voir la marée arriver. En quelques minutes, deux fois par jour, tout le mont redevient une île.
Exactly ! But we will see it from up there. For now, we’re still rather at low tide. It’s impressive to see the tide coming in. In a few minutes, twice a day, the whole mountain becomes an island again.

→ La marée (= the tide) It’s a big part of the charm of mont Saint-Michel. The whole bay around the mount is really flat. So when it’s marée basse (= low tide) the rock stands in the middle of a giant plain of sand and mud – and at la marée haute (= high tide), the mount can become an island, and it’s a wonder to watch.

Saying it’s “twice a day” is a bit of an exaggeration. The tide often gets to the base of the mount, but it really becomes a full island (without a beach) at the highest tides only, a few times a year.

It wasn’t always the case. Touristic infrastructures led to an accumulation of sands that prevented the tides from ever reaching the Mount. In the 1990s, a giant project got started to make le mont Saint-Michel an island again. It was finally finished around 2015.

Click here to learn more: Projet Saint-Michel (Wikipedia)

– J’ai hâte de voir ça. Ah vraiment, c’est chouette la Bretagne…
I can’t wait to see it. Ah, really, Brittany is sweet…

→ Notice: J’ai hâte (= I can’t wait), C’est chouette (= informal French for That’s nice, that’s pretty good.)

That line is a joke, a jest. Mont Saint-Michel is in la Normandie (= Normandy), but it’s very close to the border with the region of la Bretagne (= Brittany), its rival. So people from Brittany will try to “steal” it and claim it’s theirs. It’s one of those funny French debates that people play up to have fun.

Click here to learn more : Funny Regional Rivalries in France

Or click on the links below to get to your next lesson about French amazing touristic sites:

• Explore Parisian Architecture With Me! (And Learn French Grammar)
• Lavender Harvest In Provence (And Learn French Grammar)
• The Best French TV Shows to Explore France Like a Local

À tout de suite.
I’ll see you in the next video!