French (Québécois) Show - Passe Partout - and why it's such a great learning tool

[bedtime]

Passe-Partout is a children's show that aired in Québéc from 1977 to 1993 and was recently revived in 2019 with an all new cast and set. According to the wiki, in 1969, there was a consideration to translate Sesame Street into Canadian French (Québécois), but it was concluded that the children wouldn't identify with an American show, so Passe-Partout was made.

So, why is this show a good resource to learn from?

1. It's elementary: It's made for children to learn from, making it a great resource on which to build a speaking foundation on a variety of topics.

If you ask a Québécois if they watched Passe-Partout when they were a child, chances are they'll say 'yes.' This program could be thought of as the English equivalent of Sesame Street. Just the other day I heard someone saying that they used to watch this show in daycare every morning.

2. It's true Canadian, Québécois French. Made in Canada: There are groups on the forum that use cartoons as a learning resource. It's a great way to learn, but those cartoons are generally dubbed and based on English script. Passe-Partout is true Québécois French; the idioms, mannerisms, and slang will all be fitting with the language and customs.

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3. Lots of material: Aside from all the episodes from 1977 to 1993, there are already 40 episodes made in just 2019 alone.

4. Diversity of content: The show has very diverse content and presentation including puppetry, adults, children, animations, and songs (quality songs, that is; reference the YouTube video in reason #5, which uses a beautiful sounding guitar with a very catchy tune).

5. Cute puppets:

Here's a little skit which ends in a cute song:
https://youtu.be/l3ZfGCJx8FQ?t=139

« Toc, toc, toc, qui est là? Parle, parle, parle-moi!
Yeux ouverts, yeux fermés, des oreilles pour deviner »

6. Cool cast:

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Screenshot from 2020-06-05 09-50-06.jpeg

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One thing I wish that could be improved is subtitles. While there are auto-generated subtitles for all 40 of the 2019 videos, the subs can be quite off at times as Google Translate is not perfect in predicting speech via audio.

To make life a little easier, you can use this FireFox extension to allow for dual-subs: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/dualsub/

This will allow side-by-side subtitles, like so:

Screenshot from 2020-06-05 10-26-27.jpeg

I'd recommend this for anyone who has at least a partial foundation in the workings of French or for a false-beginner who has studied for a few months.

Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM_Fu2yrLZw&list=PLSRoOY5gdkbmF1Mrc2BO0MZq7LMxJouTe

https://coucou.telequebec.tv/heros/88/passe-partout

[RedBeardVII]

Thank you so much for this!

I wonder if I will be able to hear the difference in accent (compared to my other study materials). I was always curious, but at my basic level I am guessing that I won't hear it. Let's find out. . .

Still, I can't wait to watch some of these!