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The French phrase "Il était une fois" explained

Are you ready to discover all the things you ever wanted to know about the basic sentence "Il était une fois"? Including a full definition of what it is and how to use it in a dialogue with an audio example. As well as the useful stuff we sprinkled like dialogue example, slow pronunciation audio and more!


English translation

  • Translation : Once upon a time

  • Register : Neutral - Basic

How to pronounce it?

Slow

Normal

  • IPA : / il‿ etɛ yn fwa /

aesthetic french quote il etait une fois

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↓ Example in a story with slow audio ↓

Finally, let's see an example in a parallel story with slow audio.

Un conte de fées

A fairy tale

Karine et Rémi finissent de regarder un film d'horreur.
Karine and Rémi finish watching a horror movie.
RémiWow ! C'était super !
Wow! It was great!
KarineOuais, mais vraiment effrayant !
Yeah, but really scary!
RémiC'est un film d'horreur ! Tu t'attendais à quoi ?
It's a horror movie! What did you expect?
KarineJe sais. Mais c'était plus effrayant que ce que je pensais.
I know. But it was scarier than I thought.
RémiC'est juste un film, rien de plus.
It's just a movie, nothing more.
KarineOui, tu as raison.
Yes, you're right.
Plus tard cette nuit...
Later that night...
KarineRémi, je ne peux pas dormir. J'ai peur.
Rémi, I can't sleep. I am scared.
RémiC'était juste un film... Les fantômes n'existent pas dans la vraie vie.
It was just a movie... Ghosts don't exist in real life.

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