Talk:French/Archive 2

I can help you

 * I correct some (small) grammar errors (french grammar is horrible and so complicated). I can help you if you want me to verify the french. Sorry i can not speak english very well. I am french. Merrheim 16:25, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
 * et si vous voulez parler français écrivez des phrases et je les corrigerais. Merrheim 16:50, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Merci de votre aide. La majeure partie de ce livre est des tables de grammaire et de vocabulaire. On doit créer "une voix unique" pour ce livre. La chose la plus importante que vous pouvez faire est écrire un introduction and un lecture pour chaque leçon, particulièrement si vous avez la connaissance de la vie et la culture en France. Par le niveau trois de ce livre, je crois qu'on pourrait parler normalement (sans simplification) dans ces lectures. (exemples de lectures: comment le système bancaire en France fonctionne, des entrevues d'emploi, école, description des parties politiques, pas simplement listes) C'est une tâche longue et difficile, et il serait compréhensible si vous choisissez de ne pas le faire. Si c'est le cas, j'écrirai les lectures et vous pouvez les corriger. Deuxièmement, quand vous corrigez la grammaire et le vocabulaire dans les tables, ajoutez une apostille avec le détail au sujet de pourquoi un certain mot est employé au lieu des autres. Si vous voudriez, vous pourriez écrire les apostilles en français, et je les traduirais. Répondez à ma page de discussion. Merci encore. --Hagindaz 00:26, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Parallèles (Pearson Prentice Hall)
Something I would recommend is taking a look at the staging and format of some popular French textbooks. The one I'm currently using is Parallèles. It's March of my second college semester and we're just now getting to lui and leur, yet they're stuck right in the first lesson section, before you've even hit a different tense! I've posted below the chapter contents for the first three chapters in my current book to give an idea of how they do it. (Please excuse me for not using accents, it's hard to do in Firefox!)


 * Prèliminaire - Entrée en scène
 * Introductions (Bonjour, comment vous appelez-vous, je m'appelle, au revoir, etc.)
 * Identification (Qu'est ce que c'est? C'est... Voila... Voici...)
 * Le jour, la date, et les nombres cardinaux
 * Phonetique: Alphabet, accents et consonnes
 * 1. Premiers contacts
 * People, origin, and profession
 * Les pronom sujets; le verbe etre; la negation ne...pas
 * Le genre et le nombre a trente, articles definis et indefinis, contractions
 * Les verbes en -er; changements orthographiques de quelques verbes en -er (-ger, -cer, -érer)
 * Expressions de fréquence (ne...jamais, parfois, etc.) et de quantité (assez, beaucoup, peu, plus)
 * Questions oui/non (intonation, est-ce que, n'est-ce pas)
 * 2. On rejoint la communaute francophone
 * Le verbe avoir; l'expression il y a
 * Les mots de la famille
 * Les adjectifs reguliers: accord et place
 * Les nombres cardinaux de 31 a un millard
 * Questions d'information (Combien, Comment, Pourquoi, etc.); inversion

As you can see, they take it rather slowly. I think that if we're going to create a dynamite wikibook, we'll want to follow a similar pattern. In between all of that, they add tons of culture, stories, etc.

I am a writer by nature, but very, very limited in my French ability. I would be more than willing to work with someone or different people to add flavor text to the wikibook (such as conversations, stories, characters, etc) if they could translate for me? (Granted, I'm certain there are people who could do that themselves without having to go through English to get there.) I would guess it might help, though, to produce French from an Anglophone learner's perspective. --Averykrouse 04:49, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I don't really like the organization of the first four lessons (1. Intorductions, 2. Gender, Subject pronouns, 3.Date and Time, 4. Description). Your book has the alphabet and pronunciation, which we have in our introduction, as part of a general preliminary lesson. Maybe we should combine the "reading French" lesson with lesson 1. We defintately need to reorganize from the introduction to lesson 1.4.

Right now level one covers the present tense, etre, avoir, and faire, and basic pronouns. Could you make a list of all the grammar your book covers other than tenses and irregular verbs?

We're horribly lacking in stories and conversations. Luckily, Merrheim, a native French speaker, has agreed to write stories for each lesson, so the book would improve at least a little in that regard. --Hagindaz 16:14, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

ps. Remeber alt + 1 3 0 on the numpad for é, which is where most accents are used. For the others, use the "insert" box below the editor. The first set is accent aigu, the second accent grave, and the third the carot marks.

As far as grammar specifically is concerned, here is the rundown by chapter. (I went ahead and listed the tenses and verbs as well because that is one area that I'd like to address in our organization styles. I've also given the general topic used in each chapter to exemplify the vocab used as it relates to the grammar.)

P. L'alphabet, accents et consonnes, le jour et la date (avec les nombres cardinaux de 1 à 30)

1. (Indentifying people, objects, and daily activities) Les pronoms sujets, le verbe être, la négation ne...pas; le genre et le nombre, articles définis et indéfinis; contractions; les verbes en -er, changements orthographiques de quelquesverbes en -er; Questions oui / non (intonation, est-ce que, n'est-ce pas); syllabation et liason

2. (Describing personality, tastes, family, friends) Le verbe avoir, l'expression il y a; Les adjectifs réguliers: accord et place; Les nombres cardinaux de 31 à un milliard; Questions d'information; inversion

3. (A tour of France, weather, seasons) Les adjectifs qui précèdent le nom; Le verbe faire; Le verbe aller et le futur proche; L'adjectif interrogatif quel; l'adjectif démonstratif ce

4. (City life, directions, and shops) Les adjectifs possessifs (ma, tes, notre, etc); L'impératif et le conditionnel de politesse (je voudrais, je pourrais only); Les verbes réguliers en -re, le verbe prendre;

5. (A person's physical features, personality, and character) Les verbes réguliers en -ir, les verbes comme ouvrir; Adjectifs irréguliers, les pronoms toniques, c'est vs. il est/elle et; Le passé composé avec avoir; Le comparatif et le superlatif de l'adjectif

6. (House, furnishings, chores, and daily routines) Les verbes partir, sortir, dormir; Le verbe venir, le passé récent; Les verbes pronominaux au présent et à l'impératif

(This point is where first semester college French ends and second begins in this book.)

7. (Food, shopping, and table manners) L'article partitif, révision de l'article défini et indéfini (le café vs. du café, etc); Les verbes mettre, boire, et recevoir; Expressions de quantité; Les verbes pronominaux au passé composé

8. (Holidays, events, memories) Les pronoms relatifs qui et que; L'imparfait (description); L'imparfait (habitudes); Les verbes vouloire, pouvoire, et devoir

9. (de lycée) Les verbes connaître, savoir, et suivre; Les pronoms compléments d'objet direct; La narration au passé: l'imparfait vs. le passé composé; Les expressions de temps depuis, il y a, pendent

10. (la fac, university life) Les verbes dire, lire, et écrire; Les pronoms compléments d'objet indirect; Les pronoms y et en; Le conditionnel

11. (careers, clothes) Les pronoms interrogatifs; Le pronom interrogatif lequel; Les verbes croire et voir; Le présent du subjonctif: verbes réguliers, les expressions impersonnelles d'obligation

12. (travel and leisure) Les noms géographiques et les prépositions; Le subjonctif d'être et d'avoir, l'emploi du subjonctif après les expressions de volonté; Le sobjonctif des verbes irréguliers; Le subjonctif après les expressions d'émotion

13. (heath and the environment) Les adverbes, le comparatif et le superlatif de l'adverbe; Les pronoms indéfinis; L'emploi du subjonctif après certaines conjonctions; Le futur

Voilà! --Avery W. Krouse 21:12, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the list. Sections we could have:


 * contractions - in French? what kind of contractions?
 * L'adjectif interrogatif quel; l'adjectif démonstratif ce
 * changements orthographiques de quel
 * Les pronoms compléments d'objet direct - what are these?
 * L'impératif et le conditionnel de politesse (je voudrais, je pourrais only) - Basic introductions to tenses might be a very good idea.
 * Les expressions de temps depuis, il y a, pendent - definately add to level two
 * Questions d'information; inversion

I think that level one is way too early for the subjunctive and the more difficult pronouns like lequel. I also don't view lui and leur as anything special that takes more than five minutes to learn.

Anyway, I'm interested in hearing your views on the progression. I think having the difficulty level increase is the best course. If you haven't done so already, check the structure lesson on the planning page. If you have a better structure, we should reorganize as soon as possible. On a related note, would copying the organization straight out of a book be any kind of legal infringement? --Hagindaz 00:56, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I would say that just the organization structure itself wouldn't be an infringement on copyright. If we're dividing those fourteen chapters into three sections (perhaps Étages or Étapes), the chapter numbering wouldn't even match up. And for the flavor text, I would highly recommend a theme per chapter, but we could probably use different themes than the ones they use. (They also focus a lot on French / American parallels (hence the name) and connections to other Francophone places.)

In general, it's important to give things one at a time. One tense at a time, one irregular at a time, one regular set at a time, one pronoun at a time, etc, especially considering that if a student gets lost in the first chapter, they wouldn't carry anything over to build with in the second chapter, and so forth.

To make it more presentable as a textbook, I would definitely like to see more dialogues, character profiles, etc. (Wow, I just had a great idea!) Let's introduce a character. Luc Beauchamp, let's say. And we see him start in a new college (introductions, basic vocabs, etc.) to lycée (friends, interactions, after school stuff), to the bac (testing, adjectives, careers), to the fac (college life), to graduation (reminiscing about old times = l'imparfait!), to choosing a career (the conditional), to starting a family, and so forth. It gives us clear story lines, something the reader can relate to, and a format to work towards when adding the meat of the chapter. The bones are the bones one way or the other, grammar is grammar, but vocabulary and comprehension is the meat.

What do you think? Something we could flesh out, maybe using the above grammar outline to format around? --Avery W. Krouse 07:18, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem with giving tenses and verbs one at a time is that later on you can't. For example, ~4 verbs are conjugated irregularly in the subjunctive, and ~10 more have irregular stems. 40 verbs have irregular passé simple stems. (See the section). The verbs that were irregular in the present indicative will for the most part be irregular in all the other tenses, and you can't devote a chapter to each verb. The book has to get more rigorous as it progresses.

But I wholeheartedly agree to starting off as simply as possible. Level one has one regular set/irregular verb section and one misc grammar section in each lesson. Level two has 3-4 irregular verbs per lesson. After level two, we're done with introducing new irregular verbs.

I also agree with guiding the reader and explaining things rather than simply showing vocabulary charts. The problem is that we need to introduce the grammar and vocabulary first. Level one should be mostly vocabulary, and four mostly prose French. There should also be just as many practice exercises as sections and a test for each lesson. Things like dialogues should be included to force the reader to go back and reread vocabulary and grammar.

As for Luc, I think that's a great idea and will make the course a lot more interesting. If we follow the current structure, level one could be the summer before he goes to university, where Luc describes himself, we meet his family and see his house, watch him play with his friends, take trips to the science and art museum, etc. Level two could be Luc in university, where we learn about his daily life. Level three could be Luc taking a vacation before going to an interview and getting a job, and later having a kid of his own.

Finally, I'm for whatever book organization you feel is best. To see another French book as an example, go here and enter user: BONVL105 and pass: w6pUtRux for level 1 and user: BONVL205 pass: yaN6pRef  for level two. --Hagindaz 09:06, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

During the next few days I should have all the grammar sections completed and expanded, so we won't have to worry about that anymore, or at least until level four. I've pretty much given all the vocabulary I have so either someone else will have to finish what's left or we'll just use basic Google translations. Whatever book organization we choose, we'll still have the same grammar and vocabulary, so that will be taken care of. --Hagindaz 09:37, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

One of the comments I would make is that it's not necessary to devote a chapter to each verb, just make sure that the basic verbs are covered well, and as we get to harder tenses and different irregulars, group them in simple sets. Partir/sortir/dormir, vouloir/pouvoir, etc. With tenses, I don't see it that necessary to place every single irregular stem in the page, just a good selection of frequently used ones. Then, we should have a chart of verbs (one each for er, re, and ir, then for each orthographic group like cer and ger, then for each of the irregular verbs we've presented (and a handful extra)). After all, this is just a textbook designed to take the reader through approximately three semesters worth of French, correct?

Also, for vocabulary, let's try and make a balance between pure vocab lists, contextually-learned vocab (vocab placed inside of stories and dialogues), and sets of examples (Luc se coucher. Il se leve. Il s'habille. Etc.) The way my book does it is to do the dialogues and stories and whatnot and at the end of each section, have a list of new vocab that was used in that section, so that you end up with a handful of vocab lists in each chapter. That way, anything the student didn't catch in context they can pick up manually. --Avery W. Krouse 01:55, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Also also, we need to consider the dialogues that are already in place. For example, the two at the end of the introductory lesson contain reflexive pronouns, imperfect tense, etc. This is way too far ahead for introductory. The general rule for staging this kind of thing ought be: 80% What they already have, 15% what they will get next, 5% other vocabulary (often with translated citations). Right now, the students should be able to learn both by rote and by context. The dialogues and stories become useless when they would require an outside source to translate them (if only because most people aren't going to go to that much trouble). We have to consider that right now, most of our readers will be learning on their own. We should be as explanatory as possible, at least throughout the first lesson, including lots of full sentence French examples with full sentence English translations. --Avery W. Krouse 02:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Ideally, this course should teach dedicated and hard-working readers to speak the language fluently. By the end of level four, all French grammar will be covered in depth. Five should be conducted in French. The Glencoe books I've linked to commonly have grammar that hasn't been formally taught, but that translates straightforwardly. Other grammar should be included, but with footnote translations. I completely agree with everything else you said. As for what we should do now, first we should get the core content (grammar and vocabulary) done, then we can build around that complete all-encompassing lessons. The student should never have to leave the book (or ideally the lesson) to look anything up.

The higher level Glencoe books have texts accompanying chapters structured as introduction/context, vocabulary for the text, the text, questions on the text. I have started one to accompany the Revolution lesson, found here. We should have many more of these in the later levels. Finally, I would like to ask you to write English introductions to the beginning lessons, since I know you can right a lot better than I can. We're making progress! --Hagindaz 03:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

One more thing: how do you think we should handle grammar review? The Glencoe books did this by combining lessons from the previous book. For example a tense learned in three lessons in the previous book would be reviewed in one lesson in the next. The new grammar lessons would also be the bigger size. The third Glencoe book is almost all grammar review. We could follow that example, which is what I did, or we could have a review lesson at the end of each level before the test, like the German Wikibook, since our levels aren't separate year courses. --Hagindaz 04:45, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Ma voie
Oui juste ma voie Merrheim 16:13, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
 * 
 * désolé le format est wav.
 * la qualité est-elle correcte ?
 * est-ce trop rapide ?
 * je peux lire ce que vous voulez. Dites moi juste ce qu'il faut lire.
 * en ogg
 * French/Lessons/Vacations vous trouvez ça bien ?


 * Je pense qu'elles sont parfaites. Et pour ce qu'il faut lire, lisez toutes les tables qui ont le mot "audio" en rouge, et qui sont complets, comme les verbes. Employez les noms de fichier que les liens produisent, et dites le titre de la section avant les mots.
 * Plus tard, je veux avoir des dialogues avec les expressions d'une personne fait par l'audio et des pauses après chaque expression pour parler l'élève (ma plus longue phrase française!).
 * Aussi, il y a une autre personne qui a dit qu'il ait la faire. Voyez là.
 * Aussi, est-ce que vous pouvez ajouter plus de textes particulièrement dans les sections intitulé "Adolescence", "History" and "Revolution", qui sont important mais que les Français ne savent que.
 * Vous savez pourquoi les tables "NavFrame" comme Template:Solution se rendent compacts s' il y a une autre table sur la page, mais ne le font s'il n'y a que une table sur la page? Merci. --Hagindaz 00:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Non étrange. On peut se dire tu non ?

Merrheim 18:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Si, mais il vaut mieux inclure des prononciations pour les premières leçons parce que si on apprend quelquechose incorrectement, on l'emploiera incorrectement jusqu'à on soit corrigé. Mais ce n'est pas important maintenant. Vous savez fixer les tables "NavFrame?" --Hagindaz 02:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

etre

ju      suis  (I am) tu      es    (you are) il,elle est    (he/she is) nous    sommes  (we are) vous    etes    (they all are) ils,elles sont   (they are)