Health and visiting the doctor — French B1/B2
Santé, corps et bien-être : chez le médecinHealth, the body and wellbeing: at the doctor's
What you will be able to do
- Describe your symptoms and how an illness has developed, moving beyond textbook “j'ai mal à…” to what people actually say: “je me sens patraque”, “je couve quelque chose”.
- Use the conditionnel présent for polite requests, advice, speculation and unconfirmed information — and choose consciously between tu and vous, a distinction English does not make for you.
- Express regret and reproach with the conditionnel passé, keeping the perfect on the first verb: “j'aurais dû consulter plus tôt” = “I should have seen a doctor sooner”.
- Build all three si-clause types (plus the mixed type) accurately, and stamp out the error English speakers import from “if I would have known”: a conditional after si.
- Talk about lifestyle and prevention, and find your way around the realities of French healthcare (carte Vitale, mutuelle, arrêt de travail).
Dialogue — A consultation with a GP
Vocabulary
| Français | English |
|---|---|
| le cabinet médical | doctor's surgery, doctor's practiceFalse friend: nothing to do with a kitchen cabinet or a government cabinet. Un cabinet is a professional's practice or consulting room — un cabinet d'avocats is a law firm. |
| le médecin traitant | your registered GP, the doctor who follows your caseYou have to declare one to the Sécu; without it, reimbursement for a specialist visit falls sharply. Keep the family apart: le médecin = the doctor, la médecine = the discipline of medicine, le médicament = the medicine you actually take. |
| la salle d'attente | waiting roomattendre = to wait, never “to attend”. “To attend a lecture” is assister à un cours — and assister à does not mean “to assist” either. |
| l'ordonnance (f.) | prescriptionFeminine, and not an “ordinance”. Note also la recette = a recipe (not a receipt, which is le reçu, and not a prescription). |
| l'arrêt de travail (m.) | sick note, certificate signing you off workDoctors say it informally as “je vous arrête trois jours” = “I'm signing you off for three days”. In the same dialogue line, “il ne vous restera plus qu'à envoyer le volet” shows the trap: rester = to remain, to be left over — never “to rest”, which is se reposer. |
| la fièvre | fever, a (high) temperature“To have a temperature” = avoir DE LA fièvre, with the partitive article. English drops the article here; French cannot. |
| les courbatures (f. pl.) | aches and pains, the all-over muscle ache that comes with fluPractically always plural: j'ai des courbatures. English has no single noun for it — you have to say “I ache all over”. |
| la toux | coughFeminine despite the -x: une toux sèche / grasse = a dry / chesty cough. The verb is tousser. |
| l'angine (f.) | throat infection, tonsillitisSerious false friend: this is NOT angina. The heart condition is l'angine de poitrine — an entirely different illness. |
| le rhume | a cold“I've got a cold” = j'ai un rhume or je suis enrhumé(e). Hay fever is le rhume des foins. |
| la grippe | flu, influenzaEnglish “grippe” is archaic; the French word is everyday. The winter stomach bug is la gastro (gastro-entérite). |
| l'essoufflement (m.) | breathlessness, shortness of breathAdjective: être essoufflé(e) = to be out of breath. |
| les vertiges (m. pl.) | dizziness, dizzy spellsUsually plural: j'ai des vertiges. Weaker than English “vertigo” — it covers ordinary light-headedness. Also la tête me tourne. |
| le comprimé | tabletUn cachet also exists; beware la pilule, which on its own normally means the contraceptive pill. |
| le sirop | cough syrup, linctusUn sirop is also a fruit cordial you dilute with water — context decides which one you are being offered. |
| la prise de sang | blood test, blood samplefaire une prise de sang = to have (or to take) a blood test; usually done at un laboratoire, not at the surgery. |
| ausculter (qqn) | to listen to a patient's chest, to examine with a stethoscopeFrom the dialogue: “je vous ausculte”; the noun is l'auscultation. Screening is le dépistage. |
| la mutuelle | top-up health insuranceIt pays what the Sécu does not — the nearest equivalents are a US supplemental plan or private top-up cover in the UK. Employers are obliged to offer one. In the same field, la franchise is the small excess or deductible on medicines, not a commercial franchise. |
| le remboursement | reimbursement, refund of what you paidVerb: rembourser — vous serez remboursé(e) sous cinq jours. Remember the French model: you pay first and are refunded afterwards, unlike free-at-the-point-of-use care. |
| les effets secondaires (m. pl.) | side effects |
| la cheville | ankleFeminine. “To sprain your ankle” = se fouler / se tordre la cheville. |
| le poignet | wristMasculine. Do not confuse it with la poignée = a handle, or a handful. |
| le foie | liverMasculine — and a three-way trap for the ear: le foie (liver), la foi (faith) and la fois (a time, an occasion) are pronounced identically. |
| le sommeil | sleep (both the state and the need for it)“I'm sleepy” = j'ai sommeil, with no article — a fixed avoir expression like j'ai faim, j'ai soif. |
| l'alimentation (f.) | diet, the way you eatNot “alimentation” in any English sense. Actual food is la nourriture, and a slimming diet is un régime. |
| guérir | to recover, to get better; to cureComplementation: guérir DE quelque chose. It works both ways — le médecin l'a guéri (transitive) and il a guéri (intransitive). |
| se soigner | to look after your health, to take care of yourself while illSoigne-toi bien ! = “Get well soon, look after yourself”. Related: consulter used on its own means “to see a doctor” (j'aurais dû consulter plus tôt), not “to consult” someone in the business sense. |
| se remettre | to recover, to get over an illnessComplementation: se remettre D'une grippe, d'une opération. Careful: se remettre à + infinitive means to start doing something again. |
| tousser | to cough |
| se surmener | to overwork, to run yourself into the groundNoun: le surmenage = overwork, the exhaustion of doing too much. |
Expressions and collocations
| Expression | Meaning |
|---|---|
| être patraque | to feel off-colour, to be under the weather (informal, for a mild bout of something) |
| ne pas être dans son assiette | to feel out of sorts, not to feel quite right (literally “not to be in one's plate”) |
| couver quelque chose | to be coming down with something |
| avoir la gorge qui gratte | to have a scratchy, tickly throat |
| avoir mal au cœur | to feel sick, to feel nauseous (WARNING: nothing to do with heartache or with pain in the heart!) |
| avoir un coup de barre | to suddenly flag, to hit a wall (e.g. after lunch) |
| tomber dans les pommes | to faint, to pass out (literally “to fall into the apples”) |
| être au bout du rouleau | to be at the end of one's tether, to have nothing left in the tank |
| se remettre sur pied | to get back on one's feet, to recover after an illness |
| faire une nuit blanche | to have a sleepless night, to stay up all night (French sees the night as white; English says “I didn't sleep a wink”) |
| manger sur le pouce | to grab a bite on the run, to eat standing up in five minutes |
| avoir une santé de fer | to have an iron constitution, to be as strong as an ox |
Grammar
The conditional (conditionnel présent and conditionnel passé) and the three types of si-clause
Le conditionnel présent et le conditionnel passé ; les trois systèmes hypothétiques avec si
HOW IT IS BUILT. The conditionnel présent is the future stem plus the imparfait endings: -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient. For regular verbs the stem is simply the infinitive (parler → je parlerais, finir → je finirais; -re verbs drop the final e: prendre → je prendrais). The irregular stems are EXACTLY the ones you already learnt for the futur simple: être → ser-, avoir → aur-, aller → ir-, faire → fer-, pouvoir → pourr-, devoir → devr-, vouloir → voudr-, savoir → saur-, venir → viendr-, voir → verr-, envoyer → enverr-, falloir → faudr-, valoir → vaudr-. So there is nothing new to memorise: one stem set serves both “will” and “would”, much as English builds both from the same root. Do watch the spelling, though: je parlerai (future, “I will speak”) and je parlerais (conditional, “I would speak”) sound all but identical in modern French, so on paper that single final -s carries the whole meaning.
WHAT THE CONDITIONNEL PRÉSENT DOES. Treat it as French “would” and four of its jobs will feel familiar straight away. (1) Politeness: je voudrais un rendez-vous (“I'd like an appointment”), pourriez-vous m'expliquer… ? (“could you explain…?”), ça vous dérangerait de… ? (“would you mind…?”). Je veux and pouvez-vous are not rude exactly, but at a reception desk they land as bluntly as “I want” and “can you” would in English. This is also where the tu/vous choice bites, and English gives you no instinct for it: the doctor and the patient in the dialogue use vous to each other from start to finish, because vous is obligatory with a professional you do not know socially, and it is the doctor's job — not the patient's — to propose tu if it ever changes. Reserve tu for friends, family, children, fellow students and colleagues you already drink coffee with; when in doubt, use vous and let the other person downgrade you. (2) Advice: à ta place, je consulterais; tu devrais dormir davantage; il faudrait faire une prise de sang. (3) Unconfirmed information — the one use with no English grammatical equivalent: le virus serait plus contagieux means “the virus is said to be / is reportedly more contagious”. French does with a verb tense what English does with an adverb (reportedly, allegedly, apparently), and every news bulletin runs on it. (4) Future in the past: il a dit qu'il viendrait (“he said he would come”), elle savait qu'elle guérirait vite — the same backshift you already perform in English without thinking.
CONDITIONNEL PASSÉ = the conditionnel présent of avoir or être plus the past participle: j'aurais consulté, tu aurais dû, elle serait allée, nous nous serions reposés. It maps one-to-one onto English “would have + past participle”, and the choice of auxiliary and the agreement rules are precisely those of the passé composé — so the être verbs still take être, and the participle after être still agrees with the subject (elle serait allée, with that -e English simply does not have). The meaning is something that did not happen: regret, reproach, a hypothesis about the past. J'aurais dû arrêter de fumer plus tôt (“I should have given up smoking sooner”), tu aurais pu m'appeler (“you could have called me”). Learn this asymmetry cold, because it is the single most persistent English-speaker error in the unit: English puts the perfect on the second verb (“should HAVE stopped”), French puts it on the first. So “I should have” = j'aurais dû + infinitive, never *je devrais avoir; “I could have” = j'aurais pu; “I would have liked” = j'aurais voulu / j'aurais aimé.
THE THREE SI-CLAUSES. These are your first, second and third conditionals, and the shapes line up almost perfectly. (1) Open, real hypothesis: si + présent → présent, futur simple or imperative — Si tu as de la fièvre, prends du paracétamol; Si vous continuez comme ça, vous tomberez malade. Exactly like English, both languages keep the future OUT of the if-clause (“if you have a temperature”, not “if you will have”). (2) Unreal or unlikely in the present or future: si + imparfait → conditionnel présent — Si j'avais le temps, j'irais à la piscine tous les matins (“If I had the time, I'd go to the pool every morning”): French imparfait where English uses the simple past, French conditional where English uses “would”. (3) Unreal in the past, the tense of regret: si + plus-que-parfait → conditionnel passé — Si j'avais su, j'aurais consulté plus tôt (“If I had known, I'd have seen a doctor sooner”): pluperfect against pluperfect, “would have” against conditionnel passé. There is also a very common mixed type — past cause, present consequence: Si j'avais arrêté de fumer il y a dix ans, je ne serais pas essoufflé aujourd'hui. Either clause may come first, and the comma is written only when the si-clause opens the sentence. One point where the languages part company: French has no counterpart of the fossilised English subjunctive “if I were you” — it just uses the imparfait, si j'étais toi, and more idiomatically à ta place.
WHERE ENGLISH HELPS AND WHERE IT TRAPS YOU. Take the free lunch first: the conditional is “would”, the conditionnel passé is “would have”, the si-clauses are your three conditionals, and the medical vocabulary of this unit is overwhelmingly Latinate — symptôme, infection virale, consultation, ausculter, s'hydrater, aggraver, prescrire all decode on sight. Spend your effort on the handful of places where the two systems diverge. (a) Never put a conditionnel or a futur after si in a hypothesis. Police this one hard, because colloquial English — North American English especially — tolerates “if I would have known” and “if you'll be free tomorrow”, and that habit transfers straight into French: si je pouvais, not *si je pourrais; si tu as le temps, not *si tu auras; si j'avais su, not *si j'aurais su. (b) The exception: when si means “whether” (an indirect question), the future and the conditional are perfectly correct — je me demande si ça ira, il ne savait pas s'il guérirait. Test it by substituting “whether” in English; if “whether” works, si is free. (c) English “would” is ambiguous in a way French is not: “When I was a student I would go swimming every day” is a past habit, not a hypothesis, and French uses the imparfait — quand j'étais étudiant, j'allais nager tous les jours, never *j'irais. (d) Elision: si + il → s'il, but si + elle stays si elle. (e) au cas où takes a conditional where English uses a present tense: prends ta carte Vitale au cas où il faudrait aller aux urgences (“in case you have to go to A&E”). (f) Il faudrait que… triggers the subjunctive: il faudrait que tu ailles voir un médecin, not *que tu vas. English has no living subjunctive left — “it is essential that he go” survives only in formal writing — so nothing in your ear will warn you here. Treat il faut que / il faudrait que as a fixed trigger, learn the form separately, and check it on paper rather than trusting instinct.
| Infinitive | Stem (as in the future) | Conditionnel présent (je) | Conditionnel passé (je) |
|---|---|---|---|
| parler | parler- | je parlerais | j'aurais parlé |
| finir | finir- | je finirais | j'aurais fini |
| prendre | prendr- | je prendrais | j'aurais pris |
| être | ser- | je serais | j'aurais été |
| avoir | aur- | j'aurais | j'aurais eu |
| aller | ir- | j'irais | je serais allé(e) |
| faire | fer- | je ferais | j'aurais fait |
| pouvoir | pourr- | je pourrais | j'aurais pu |
| devoir | devr- | je devrais | j'aurais dû |
| vouloir | voudr- | je voudrais | j'aurais voulu |
| savoir | saur- | je saurais | j'aurais su |
| venir | viendr- | je viendrais | je serais venu(e) |
| voir | verr- | je verrais | j'aurais vu |
| falloir | faudr- | il faudrait | il aurait fallu |
Exercise — fill in the gaps
Wpisz poprawną formę i naciśnij Enter — sprawdzi się od razu. Akcenty warto pisać, ale odpowiedź bez nich też zaliczymy (pokażemy poprawny zapis).
Exercise — translate into French
Napisz zdanie po francusku i naciśnij Enter. Dopuszczamy naturalne warianty — liczy się sens i poprawna struktura.
Quiz
An unreal hypothesis about the past — the English third conditional: si + plus-que-parfait → conditionnel passé (“If we had come earlier, we wouldn't have waited two hours in A&E”). A conditional NEVER follows si, so “serions venus” and “viendrions” are out. Venir takes être, which gives the plus-que-parfait “étions venus”.
A classic false friend. « Avoir mal au cœur » means to feel nauseous, to feel like being sick. Genuine chest or heart pain is « j'ai une douleur à la poitrine » or « j'ai des douleurs cardiaques », and heartbreak is « j'ai le cœur brisé ». While you are here, three more traps from this unit: demander = to ask (for), not “to demand” (that is exiger or réclamer); « ce n'est pas grave » means “it doesn't matter, no harm done”, not “it is not grave”; and « ce n'est pas méchant », said of an illness, means “it's nothing serious”, not “it isn't nasty-tempered”.
An open, real hypothesis: si + présent + imperative. Neither a conditional (“aurais”) nor a future (“auras”) can follow si — and both are exactly what spoken English invites you to write. The imparfait version would require a conditional in the main clause (“tu prendrais”), not an imperative.
This is the conditionnel de l'information non confirmée, the staple tense of French news reporting. English does the same job with a word rather than a tense: “reportedly”, “allegedly”, “is said to be”, “is due to be”. A certain future would be « sera remboursé ».
« Se remettre (de qqch) » = to recover from something, to get over it. The frame « mettre du temps à + infinitive » means “to take (so much) time to…”. « Se rappeler » is to remember, « se rendre » is to go somewhere, « se remplir » is to fill up.
« Faire une nuit blanche » = to go a whole night without sleeping — French colours the sleepless night white where English says “I didn't sleep a wink” or “I pulled an all-nighter”. « Une nuit noire » is a literally pitch-dark night (weather, lighting), and the other two are not French collocations at all.
Advice calls for the conditionnel présent: the stem ir- (as in the future) plus the ending -ais. « J'irai » is the futur simple (a firm plan), « j'allais » is the imparfait, and « j'aille » is the subjunctive, which nothing in this sentence triggers.
Pronunciation — say it aloud
Posłuchaj wzoru, potem powiedz zdanie. Mikrofon oceni je słowo po słowie (zielone = dobrze wymówione).
France in practice
French healthcare from the inside: the carte Vitale, the parcours de soins and “les antibiotiques, c'est pas automatique”
Almost nothing in French healthcare runs on paper. The patient taps a green chip card, the carte Vitale, on a reader, the doctor files the claim electronically (la télétransmission), and the Assurance maladie — everybody calls it la Sécu — pays the refund into your bank account, usually within three to five working days. The mental model is not the NHS, where care is free at the point of use: in France you pay the doctor and get most of it back, rather as you would claim on an American insurance plan, only with far less paperwork. And it really is only most — the basic reimbursement covers about 70% of the fee. The rest is picked up by la mutuelle, top-up insurance that since 2016 every employer has been obliged to offer its staff and to fund by at least half. That is why the first question at a French practice is not “are you insured?” but “vous avez votre carte Vitale et votre mutuelle ?”. Since late 2024 an appointment with a GP costs €30 (it was €26.50), and so-called secteur 2 doctors may add dépassements d'honoraires — a top-up above the official tariff that is reimbursed only marginally.
The idea that governs everything is le parcours de soins coordonnés. You have to declare a médecin traitant to the Sécu — roughly the equivalent of registering with a GP practice in the UK or Ireland, or picking a family physician in Canada. Go to a specialist without that doctor's referral and your reimbursement drops from around 70% to 30%, which stings. A handful of specialities are direct-access: gynaecologist, ophthalmologist, dentist, and psychiatrist for the under-26s. On top of that sit small non-reimbursable charges: a participation forfaitaire of €2 on every consultation and a franchise of €1 on every box of medicine (in this context la franchise is an excess or deductible — nothing to do with a commercial franchise). They are token sums, far below a typical US copay, and deliberately designed to discourage casual over-use. The country's real problem is les déserts médicaux: whole départements where millions of people have no médecin traitant at all and where an appointment with a dermatologist can be months away. Booking now happens mainly through Doctolib, which has become a verb in France (“je t'ai pris un rendez-vous sur Doctolib”).
The emergency numbers are worth learning by heart: 15 is the SAMU, the medical emergency service, whose call handlers are doctors and who will triage you over the phone; 18 is the fire brigade, which also does rescue work; 112 is the Europe-wide number; and 116 117 reaches the on-call GP in the evenings and at weekends when it is not a true emergency — the counterpart of NHS 111 or an Irish out-of-hours co-op. If the pharmacy is shut, the address of la pharmacie de garde, the duty pharmacy, is posted on the door. French pharmacists now have real clinical powers: they give flu jabs and can renew certain prescriptions.
And then there is the line every French person knows: “Les antibiotiques, c'est pas automatique” — the slogan of a 2002 public-health campaign, still quoted half-jokingly whenever somebody tries to take a shortcut. France was then one of Europe's heaviest consumers of antibiotics; the campaign genuinely shifted both what patients expect and what the family doctor reaches for. So do not ask for an antibiotic “just in case”, the way you might get away with in some countries: you will get the slogan back at you, followed by a short lecture on the difference between a viral and a bacterial infection.
Reading — real history
Qui prendra un nouveau patient ?
Sześć milionów Francuzów bez lekarza rodzinnego i ustawa, która utknęła w Senacie: dlaczego Francja spiera się o to, gdzie lekarz może otworzyć gabinet.
Le 11 juin 2026, au Sénat, le débat s'est arrêté en plein milieu. Les sénateurs venaient d'adopter le premier article d'une proposition de loi contre les « déserts médicaux », par 215 voix contre 118. Puis le temps de parole réservé au groupe qui défendait le texte s'est terminé. Les autres articles n'ont jamais été votés. Depuis, la loi attend une nouvelle date.
Le problème, lui, n'attend pas. En France, 6,4 millions d'assurés n'ont pas de médecin traitant. Selon les défenseurs du texte, plus de 75 % de la population vit dans un territoire où l'offre de soins est insuffisante. Entre 2000 et 2021, la densité de médecins généralistes a baissé de 18 %. Obtenir un rendez-vous est devenu, pour beaucoup, une affaire de patience ou de chance.
L'idée du député Guillaume Garot était simple et radicale. Aujourd'hui, un médecin libéral s'installe où il veut : c'est la liberté d'installation. Le texte voté par l'Assemblée nationale le 7 mai 2025 la limitait. Dans une zone déjà bien dotée, un nouveau médecin ne pourrait s'installer que si un confrère partait.
Le Sénat a gardé le principe, mais il lui a enlevé les dents. Dans sa version, le médecin devrait demander une autorisation à l'agence régionale de santé et, en échange, accepter de travailler une partie de son temps dans une zone sous-dotée. Le reste — combien de jours, dans quelles conditions — serait fixé plus tard, par décret. Autrement dit, l'essentiel a été renvoyé à demain.
Les partisans de la régulation rappellent que les infirmiers, les pharmaciens et les sages-femmes sont déjà régulés depuis longtemps, et que les aides offertes par les communes ont coûté cher sans changer grand-chose. En face, l'Ordre des médecins a répété le 21 mai 2026 son opposition : contraindre les jeunes découragerait les vocations. Leur argument tient en une phrase : on ne répartit pas une pénurie, on la déplace.
Le gouvernement, lui, préfère la douceur. Depuis son pacte d'avril 2025, il propose une « solidarité territoriale » volontaire : jusqu'à deux jours par mois dans les zones prioritaires. Devant les sénateurs, la ministre Stéphanie Rist a opposé l'« innovation organisationnelle » à toute régulation coercitive. Ses adversaires y voient une réponse bien petite pour un problème qui a mis vingt ans à se former.
Personne ne promet d'effet rapide. Former un médecin prend une dizaine d'années, et le texte prévoit une première année d'études de santé dans chaque département seulement d'ici 2030. En attendant, dans les salles d'attente, la question reste la même : qui acceptera de prendre un nouveau patient ?
Key vocabulary
- un désert médical — pustynia medyczna, rejon bez dostępu do lekarzy
- un médecin traitant — lekarz prowadzący, odpowiednik lekarza rodzinnego
- un assuré — ubezpieczony
- l'offre de soins (f.) — dostępność opieki zdrowotnej
- la densité médicale — zagęszczenie lekarzy (liczba na mieszkańca)
- un médecin libéral — lekarz w praktyce prywatnej
- la liberté d'installation — swoboda wyboru miejsca praktyki
- s'installer — otworzyć praktykę, osiąść
- une zone sous-dotée — obszar z niedoborem lekarzy
- bien doté — dobrze zaopatrzony, z dużą liczbą lekarzy
- une agence régionale de santé — regionalna agencja zdrowia (ARS)
- un décret — rozporządzenie wykonawcze
- une proposition de loi — poselski projekt ustawy
- un confrère — kolega po fachu
- une pénurie — niedobór, brak
- contraindre — zmuszać, przymuszać
- une salle d'attente — poczekalnia
Check how much you understood. Click the answer.
Senat zdążył przegłosować tylko pierwszy artykuł (215:118); debatę przerwał koniec czasu przyznanego grupie broniącej projektu, a nie odrzucenie tekstu.
Izba Deputowanych chciała zasady „jedno wejście za jedno wyjście”. Senat zachował wymóg zgody, ale dopuścił zamiennik: część czasu pracy w rejonie deficytowym.
To argument o skali: jeśli lekarzy jest za mało w całym kraju, przesuwanie ich między regionami zmienia tylko miejsce problemu, a nie jego wielkość.
Senacka wersja nie mówi, ile dni i na jakich warunkach lekarz ma pracować w rejonie deficytowym — to ma określić dopiero rozporządzenie.
Rząd stawia na dobrowolną „solidarité territoriale” zapisaną w pakcie z kwietnia 2025 r.: najwyżej dwa dni miesięcznie w strefach priorytetowych. W Senacie ministra Stéphanie Rist przeciwstawiła „innowację organizacyjną” regulacji przymusowej.
Talk about it
- W Polsce nie ma limitu miejsca otwarcia prywatnego gabinetu, ale kontrakt z NFZ już takie ograniczenia wprowadza. Czy to bliżej pomysłu Garota, czy wersji senackiej?
- Francuskie gminy od lat dopłacają lekarzom, żeby przyjechali, i według krytyków niewiele to dało. Czy znasz podobne zachęty w polskich gminach i czy one działają?
- Co przekonałoby młodego polskiego lekarza do pracy w powiecie zamiast w dużym mieście: pieniądze, mieszkanie, sprzęt, zespół czy przymus po studiach?
Final task — Role-play at the doctor's + an email of advice to a friend
PART 1 — ROLE-PLAY (3–4 minutes, with a partner, or record both voices yourself). Act out a visit to a French GP. Person A is a patient who has been working twelve-hour days for a fortnight, sleeps badly, has dizzy spells and once nearly passed out on the metro. Person B is the doctor: asks questions, listens to the patient's chest, advises against antibiotics and offers a three-day arrêt de travail. The role-play must genuinely contain: • two polite requests in the conditionnel présent (e.g. “Pourriez-vous… ?”, “Est-ce que ça vous dérangerait de… ?”); • one sentence of regret in the conditionnel passé (“J'aurais dû…”, “Tu aurais pu…”); • one sentence of each of the three si-types (si + présent, si + imparfait, si + plus-que-parfait); • at least three items from the Expressions section (e.g. être au bout du rouleau, faire une nuit blanche, se remettre sur pied); • two French specifics: carte Vitale plus either médecin traitant or mutuelle. Keep vous throughout between doctor and patient — a slip into tu would sound startlingly familiar in a French surgery. Record yourself and listen back: check above all that no conditional has crept in after si, and that you can hear the difference between “je prendrai” and “je prendrais”. PART 2 — EMAIL (120–150 words). Your French friend Antoine has written to say that he has been exhausted for a month, has no médecin traitant and simply wants to buy an antibiotic at the pharmacy. Reply in French and: 1) show concern and ask specific questions about his symptoms; 2) give three pieces of advice in the conditionnel présent (“à ta place, je…”, “tu devrais…”, “il faudrait que…” — remember that “il faudrait que” is followed by the subjunctive; English has no living subjunctive to guide you, so check the form on paper instead of trusting your ear); 3) use one conditionnel passé sentence reminding him what he should have done earlier; 4) finish with one type-2 or type-3 conditional (“Si tu…, tu…”); 5) propose a concrete meeting once he is back on his feet. Register: informal — tu throughout, because he is a friend; vous here would read as though you had suddenly become his insurance company. Full sentences all the same. When you have finished, underline every conditional form in your text and write next to each one why you used it: politeness, advice, regret or hypothesis.