Pif le sapin

In this post, you will practice the conversation: Pif le sapin-Pif the tree, where we will learn from Grandpa and how he planted his little tree that he grew up and called it after the name of the magazine he read back then.

Enjoy this conversation, watch the video and after you’ve watched, don’t forget to summarise what you heard out loud. Write down some key words and incorporate them in your summary. This helps to build your spoken French skills.

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French	English
– Tiens, François, on va le planter là ton arbre. Tu vas l’appeler comment ?	– Here, François, we are going to plant your tree there. What are you going to call him?
– Je ne sais pas… Géant peut-être… Il va devenir trèèèès grand ! Et toi Papy, Maman m’a dit que tu as eu un arbre aussi quand tu étais petit. Il vit encore ? Il est où ?	– I don’t know … Giant maybe … He will become very big! And you Grandpa, Mom told me that you had a tree too when you were little. Is he still alive? Where is he?
– Là où j’habitais avant, près d’une forêt. Il est immense maintenant. Il mesure 12 mètres.	– Where I used to live before, near a forest. It is huge now. It measures 12 meters.
– Ah! Il est vieux, alors? Il s’appelle comment ?	– Ah! Is he old then? What’s his name?
– Pif a 36 ans. J’avais 13 ans quand je l’ai planté. C’était une toute petite branche.	– Pif is 36 years old. I was 13 when I planted it. It was a very small branch.
– C’est drôle comme nom!	– It’s funny as a name!
– C’est le nom du journal pour enfants que je lisais. Il n’existe plus, il s’est arrêté en 1993. Mais il était formidable. Chaque numéro contenait un gadget: par exemple un périscope ou un kaléidoscope à fabriquer… Et un jour, il y a eu une pousse de sapin dans un sac de plastique.	– That’s the name of the children’s newspaper I was reading. It no longer exists, it stopped in 1993. But it was great. Each issue contained a gadget: for example a periscope or a kaleidoscope to be made … And one day, there was a sprout in a plastic bag.
– Mais alors, il y a d’autres Pifs! Au total il y a eu 360 000 pousses de sapins ! Tous les enfants voulaient leur sapin. Et moi aussi j’en ai eu un. Mon papa m’a aidé à le planter et il s’est vite développé!	– But then, there are other Pifs! In total there were 360,000 fir shoots! All the children wanted their tree. And I too had one. My dad helped me plant it and it grew fast!
– Et les autres arbres? Tu sais où ils sont? Tu les as vus ?	– And the other trees? Do you know where they are? Have you seen them?
– C’est amusant ta question! J’ai eu la même idée que toi ! Un jour, en 1997, j’ai parlé de mon arbre dans un journal. J’ai dit aussi que je me demandais où étaient les autres Pifs, s’ils vivaient encore…	– It’s funny your question! I had the same idea as you! One day in 1997, I wrote about my tree in a newspaper. I also said that I was wondering where the other Pifs were, if they were still living …
– Et alors Papy?	– So then, Grandpa?
– Eh bien beaucoup de gens m’ont écrit… Comme ça, j’ai retrouvé 120 sapins. Ils sont un peu partout en France… Il y en a même au Canada, en Turquie… Je reçois des photos… Si tu veux, tu pourras lire les lettres avec leurs histoires.	– Well a lot of people wrote to me … That way, I found 120 trees. They are all over France … There are even some in Canada, in Turkey … I receive photos … If you want, you can read the letters with their stories ..