#french language study

la ville - city la maison - house l'appartement - apartment la rue - street l'aéroport - airport la gare - train station le pont - bridge l'hôtel - hotel le restaurant - restaurant la ferme - farm le tribunal - court l'école - school le bureau - office la pièce - room l'université - university le club - club le bar - bar le parc - park le camp - camp le store - store le théatre - theater la bibliothèque - library l'hôpital - hospital l'église - church le marché - market le pays - country le bâtiment - building la terre - ground l'espace - space la banque - bank

key: masculine feminine

le chien, la chienne - dog le chat, la chatte - cat le poisson - fish l'oiseau - bird la vache - cow le cochon - pig la souris - mouse le cheval - horse l'aile - wing l'animal - animal

key: masculine feminine

le train - train l'avion - plane la voiture - car le camion - truck la bicyclette - bicycle le bus - bus le bateau - boat le navire - ship la roue - tire l'essence - gasoline le moteur - engine le billet - ticket

key: masculine feminine

One thing my French tutor often told me was to ‘go fuzzy’ when translating.

What he meant by this was that there is sometimes no direct, word-for-word translation that works.  Therefore, understanding the meaning of a phrase or sentence requires you to accept a way of making meaning that one’s English language brain resists.

I think this might be more of a challenge for anyone whose favored mental mode is analysis with its attendant focus on definition, precision, syntax and clarity.  Suddenly, what seems like a necessity of thought, one’s familiar grammar and use of language, has an alternative that can’t be consistently reduced to it.  

This other tongue is as fully capable of functioning in the world as your own.  It can write poetry or talk about black holes.  It has equal efficacy in all the ways we communicate.

You’re immediately made aware of the space between world and its description, of the fluidity of saying.

According to one source on the language learning philosophy of comprehensible input, students who read 100-150 pages per week had the best results.

For beginning and early intermediate students that can be a brain-busting amount of work.  And then there’s the challenge of finding a text at the right level of difficulty.  Too easy, and you might get bored and not learn much, or as much.  Too difficult, and you might be deterred from studying.

So, one book that happens to work perfectly for me right now is the following collection of letters of Simone de Beauvoir to Nelson Algren.

It’s my understanding that she wrote most or all of these letters in English, only later were they translated into French.  Since she wasn’t highly proficient in English at the time the sentences are relatively simple in construction, and the number of new words (to me, and the language learning audience I’m directing this to) comes at a digestible pace.  At a little over 900 pages, this book will keep you profitably learning for a while.

Another useful book of this type is from Paul Verlaine, onetime lover of the probably better known Arthur Rimbaud: