Tuesday 15 October 2013

Elocution lessons

This next post to help book your French vocabulary is about elocution.

In English we tend to think of elocution as being about how to speak posh or how to improve your pronunciation.

Since elocution ends in ~ion, it shouldn't therefore be a surprise that that it's the same word in French (élocution).

However  élocution in French has a slighter wider meaning which relates to the English word diction.

Again no surprise that the word diction ends in ~ion and is the same in English and French.

We can remove the "e" from elocution and we get the word locution.  The French word locution means phrase in a grammatical context whilst a saying type phrase would be an expression. We also use expression in English to say "that's a funny expression".

Finally if we change the ending on locution we can turn it into locuteur which is a speaker (someone speaking) or an orateur since if someone speaks it's oral.
  

Wednesday 9 October 2013

Sample chapter from Franglais deux, my second French vocabulary booster book

Here's a free sample from Franglais deux, my second book in the French vocabulary booster series.  The Franglais series does not teach you any French grammar or how to speak French.  The purpose is to rapidly boost your French vocabulary by showing you the vast number of French words you already know since they are common to the French and English languages.

Enjoy the sample chapter:

You want to learn yet more French words ?

Franglais deux is the follow on book to Franglais. Franglais boosted your French vocabulary by exploiting the fact that English contains many words which originated from French and if you already know the words in English it is easy to learn new French vocabulary. It's easy to learn when you build on something you already know.

This approach allowed you to learn over 2,000 French words in about 1 hour. It didn't require any special memorisation tricks, it was done through simple rules to allow you to identify French words and transform them into their English equivalents.

For your convenience, the rules which I introduced in Franglais are summarised below:

Words ending in ~able are often the same
Words ending in ~ible are often the same
Words ending in ~ion are often the same
Words ending in ~ence are often the same
Words ending in ~ance are often the same
Words ending in ~que are often the same
Words ending in ~ic can often be the same ending in ~ique
Words ending in ~ly are often be the same ending in ~ment
Words ending in ~ite are often be the same
Words ending in ~ise are often be the same
Words ending in ~ist can often be the same ending in ~iste
Words ending in ~ent can often be the same
Words ending in ~ant can often be the same
Words ending in ~my can often be the same ending in ~mie
Words ending in ~al can often be the same ending in ~ale
Words ending in ~al can often be the same ending in ~el(le)
Words ending in ~ous can often be the same ending in ~eux
Words ending in ~gy can often be the same ending in ~gie
Words ending in ~ary can often be the same ending in ~aire
Some words ending in ~ness can transformed into words ending ~esse
Words ending in ~ity can often be the same ending in ~ité
Words ending in ~ate are often the same
Some words ending in ~ude are the same
Words ending in ~ory can often be the same ending in ~oire
Words ending in ~ian can often be the same ending in ~ien
Some words ending in ~ple are the same
Words ending in ~tre are the same
Many words beginning with con~ are the same.
English words ending in ~our are the same ending in ~eur
Words ending in ~or can often be the same ending in ~eur

These 30 rules allow you to identify words of French origin and guess the French equivalent in many cases.

Sadly Franglais deux won't introduce another 2,000 words in 1 hour but it will introduce several hundred words in about 1 hour. Still a perfectly respectable 4 words per minute and considerably more than you're likely to absorb in a French lesson.

Again these will be words which have originated from French or have English derivatives which which will assist you to learn more French vocabulaire.

There are thought to be around 17,000 French words which have been absorbed into the English language and you probably already know many of them. This book enables you to rapidly learn so many French words because you have already learnt them in English and you simply need to coax them to be associated with your French vocabulary.

I'll show you yet more words which are common to both the English and French languages.

This book does not teach you French grammar so you will not finish this book and be able to speak or write French as a result. There is a bewildering array of books and resources to help you do that. Teaching you French grammar is not the purpose of this book. Its purpose is to give you, very quickly, a large working vocabulary of French words so you feel more confident about going on to learn French. This book is unique in that it teaches you words you already know, allowing you to learn a vast number of French words and as a result giving you the confidence in your ability to learn French.

If you already know something, it's very easy for your brain to apply that knowledge elsewhere.

If you have a basic grounding on French grammar, or indeed are a more experienced French language student, you can quickly use this new vocabulary to build and understand more complex sentences.

French pronunciation is different to English. As a generalisation, the last characters of the word are not pronounced for example juice (jus) is pronounced 'jew'. I would recommend using Google translate to assist you with learning the pronunciation.

Let's commence.


Foods

When you are in France you will need to eat so let's start to build your vocabulaire relating to foods.
If you don't eat you will be hungry or famished. The French word for hungry is faim. If there is no food to eat there would be a famine and everyone would be famished.

hungry = faim

Fortunately there are lots of foods in France which you can order using your English vocabulaire.
apricot = abricot
bacon (rashers) = bacon
beef = bœff
chocolate = chocolat
crab = crabe
juice = jus
mayonnaise = mayonnaise
menu = menu
mustard = moutard
omelette = omelette
onion = oignon
orange = orange
peach = pêche
pepper = poivre
pork = porc
pizza = pizza
quiche = quiche
restaurant = restaurant
salad = salade
salt = sel
sandwich = sandwich
sardine = sardine
sauce = sauce
souffle = soufflé
soup = soupe
spagetti = spagetti
vanilla = vanille
vinegar = vinaigre
vitamin = vitamine

The word for salt is sel which you may think is considerably different.

English words which will assist you to remember it is sel are saline and desalination.

Tuesday 8 October 2013

Sample chapter from my book Franglais

Franglais is a French vocabulary book with a difference. It teaches you approximately 2,000 words in 1 hour.  How can it teach you so many words so quickly?

Simple these words are common to English and French.

Below is a sample chapter from Franglais.


Do you want to learn French?

Did you study French at school? I studied French for 5 years at senior school and yet I left school barely able to speak a single sentence in French, and yet somehow I still scored relatively highly in the exam. In fact I'm half tempted to re-write the previous sentence because it has the word “study” in it. It should really say “I failed to learn French for 5 years at senior school”.

Was it that I was a useless student? Hmmm. Most of my class must have been equally useless then.

Is it because French is a difficult language to learn?

Nope. French is one the easiest languages for native English speakers to learn.

So what went wrong? I firmly believe the reason I failed to learn French at school was that the teaching method didn't build upon what I already knew. By senior school I was fluent in English. French is after all just English badly pronounced!

The purpose of this short book is to help native English speakers studying the French language to quickly build their vocabulary. I'll achieve this by showing you the vast number of words which are common to both the English and French languages.

If you already know something, it's very easy for your brain to apply that knowledge elsewhere.

In the many years since I left school I have become fascinated with etymology – the origin of words. The English language has very little English in it. It's full of French, Germanic and Scandinavian words. By pointing out the French words and just as importantly showing where the meaning has deviated over time, I will rapidly build your French vocabulary. There are also lots of English words which have found their way into French.

My goal is to teach you more French vocabulary in the one hour it takes to read this book, than I learnt in the 5 years (400 hours) of French lessons I had at school.

This book does not teach you French grammar so you will not finish this book and be able to speak or write French as a result. That is not the purpose of this book. Its purpose is to give you, very quickly, a large working vocabulary of French words so you feel more confident about going on to learn French.

If you have a basic grounding on French grammar, or indeed are a more experienced French language student, you can quickly use this new vocabulary to build and understand more complex sentences.

Let's commence.

Are you comfortable?

A large number of English words ending in ~able are the same in French.

All of these ~able words have French origins so you have now instantly increased your vocabulary allowing you to recognise them in French as well as use them in sentences you're constructing.

Take a look at the last sentence. You'll notice I've underlined some words or parts of words. Why have I done this? Well these words or parts of words are the same word or same stem as in French.
You can see in just one sentence that there are several words that are the same or similar. You already have a large working vocabulaire.

The convention I will utilise is a single underline ( ) for words that have the same meaning or common word origins. I will explain if the meaning has changed significantly.

I will occassionally change words into their French spelling too!

Words ending in ~able may have the same spelling but the pronunciation is different.

Take comfortable. Cum-fort-bl The French pronunciation is Cum-for-taar-b-le

The ending is ~aar-b-le with a real emphasis on the “aa” sound.


I would recommend using Google Translate - it does a reasonable job of showing the different pronunciation.



Your First 72 Words

Acceptable
Admirable
Actionable
Adorable
Agreeable
Amiable
Applicable
Appréciable
Arable
Biodégradable
Câble
Capable
Charitable
Comfortable
Comparable
Concevable (conceivable)
Considerable
Delectable
Enjoyable
Fable
Habitable
Honorable
Impeccable
Impénétrable
Impressionable
Improbable
Incapable
Incomparable
Incompréhensible
Inconceivable
Inconsolable
Incurable
Indescribable
Indispensable
Inévitable
Inexcusable
Inexplicable
Inextricable
Inflammable
Inimitable
Innombrable (innumerable)
Insatiable
Inséperable
Insoluble
Inséperable
Insurmountable
Interchangeable
Intolérable
Invariable
Irréconciliable
Irréparable
Justifiable
Navigable
Négociable
Notable
Portable
Préférable
Probable
Remarqable
Respectable
Sociable
Stable
Table
Tolérable
Inacceptable
Incomfortable
Indésirable
Inimaginable
Insociable
Instable
Viable
Vulnérable
The meaning of these words in the same and the spelling is similar.

Words in English beginning with un~ are in~ instead so “insociable” is “unsociable”. There is only one exception which unanimous (unanime). This rule does not apply to words starting uni~.

If you are stuck, use the rule that all words finishing in ~able are the same will help you get talking, but be aware that there are lots of exceptions. For example uninhabitable is inhabitable in French. Completely the opposite meaning!

Your decision

There is a large group of words ending in ~ion. As a simple rule to help you, all words ending in ~ion are the same. There are a few exceptions, but not many.

Now we have your first tranche of 46 words ending in ~ion.

The pronounciation is a little different

For example: Addition in English = Ad-dish-on but in French = Add-issh-ee-on

Abréviation
Absolution
Absorption
Abstention
Abstraction
Accélération
Accession
Accumulation
Accusation
Acquisition
Adaptation
Addition
Administration
Admiration
Admission
Adoration
Adulation
Affection
Affiliation
Aggravation
Agitation
Aggession
Aliénation
Allégation
Allocation
Altercation
Ambition
Amplification
Amputation
Application
Appréciation
Appréhension
Approximation
Argumentation
Articulation
Aspiration
Assertion
Association
Assomption (assumption)
Attention
Attraction
Attribution
Audition
Automation
Aversion
Autorisation (authorisation)



OK you have now learnt 118 words in a few minutes.

Some of these words you may think you rarely use in English. That may be true but these words often have other derivatives that are also the same or similar in French and are used more frequently. For example Adoration → Adore. We will cover these derivatives later.

Now for some fun. Let's learn some English words that have found their way into French. These are all nouns (things).

Le Jogging
Le Weekend
Le Shopping
Le Gadget
Le Snack
Le Fast Food
Les Teenagers
Le Parking


Total = 126 words.

OK. Let's quickly learn another 71 words ending in ~ion.

Billion
Célébration
Cessation (suspension)
Champion
Circulation
Clarification
Cohabitation
Cohésion
Collaboration
Collection
Collision
Collusion
Colonisation
Combinaison (combination)
Commission
Communication
Comparaison
Compassion
Compensation
Compétition
Complication
Compréhension
Compression
Concentration
Conception
Concession
Conciliation
Conclusion
Combustion
Condensation
Condition
Confédération
Configuration
Confirmation
Confiscation
Confrontation
Confusion
Congestion
Congrégation
Connotation
Conscription
Consécration
Consolation
Consolidation
Constellation
Consternation
Constipation
Constitution
Construction
Consultation
Contamination
Contemplation
Continuation
Contorsion (contortion)
Contraception
Contraction
Contravention
Contribution
Convention
Conversation
Conversion
Conviction
Convulsion
Coopération
Coordination
Copulation
Corporation
Correction
Corrélation
Corrosion
Crémation


Total = 197 words.

Time for something else. We'll come back to some more ~ion words later.

As a general rule all words beginning with con~ are the same. We will cover the majority of words starting with con~ with other rules eg condition is covered by the ~ion rules. We'll cover the remainder of the con~ words at the end of the book.


French is formidable

The word formidable is found in both the English and French language but it is one of those words where things have diverged. It is rarely used in English and when it is used, it is most likely to appear in a sentence like “He was a formidable opponent”.

Formidable is frequently used in French as a statement of surprise. Think of it being used as “Wow that is amazing”. “Tremendous!” “Marvellous!”.

Total = 198 words

No difference

Let's take a break from ~ion words as there are lots more to come. Let's do words that end in ~ence

The pronounciation is a little different

For example: Difference in English = Diff-ehrr-ence but in French = Diff-eerr-on-cse

Expérience
Différence
Influence
Défense
Science
Conférence
Référence
Présence
Existence
Silence
Absence
Violence
Séquence
Licence
Préférence
Indépendance
Essence
Résidence
Incidence
Compétence
Conscience
Interférences
Négligence
Occurrence
Émergence
Prévalence
Coïncidence
Excellence
Inférence
Patience
Adolescence
Innocence
Convergence
Turbulence
Incompétence
Cohérence
Indifférence
Indulgence
Divergence
Résurgence
Équivalence
Révérence
Diligence
Déférence
Impatience
Persistance
Affluence
Ambiance

I've stuck in some examples where the spelling has changed from ~ence to ~ance.

Total = 246 words

We've got a lot of ~ion words to learn so here's another 44

Damnation
Décision
Déclaration
Décompression
Délégation
Délibération
Démarcation
Démolition
Démonstration
Démoralisation
Dépréciation
Dépression
Description
Désignation
Destruction
Détection
Détérioration
Détermination
Détonation
Dévaluation
Dévastation
Déviation
Dévotion
Diction
Digestion
Dilution
Dimension
Direction
Discrétion
Discrimination
Discussion
Disproportion
Disqualification
Dissection
Dissémination
Distillation
Distinction
Distortion
Distraction
Diversion
Division
Documentation
Donation
Duplication


Total = 290 words

Dead Bodies

The word corpse in English refers to a dead body. The English medical term is a cadavre.

There's plenty of room for confusion if you heard a Frenchman talking about a corps. In France the body (corps) is not dead and still very much alive! Corps means body in French. In the unlikely event you really do need to talk about a dead body then in French it is a cadavre.

Total = 292 words

End of the sample

Want to learn the remaining 1,800 words and have a French vocabulary of 2,000 words in 1 hour?


Monday 7 October 2013

French etiquette

The English word etiquette is about how to behave and accepted protocol.

Not surprisingly etiquette is also a French word with the same meaning.  However lets look in a little more detail into this word.

The ~ette ending is frequently used in French to show a smaller version of something. For example a courgette (zuchini) is a small marrow which is a courge in French.

So why does etiquette have an ~ette ending?

The origin of the word etiquette is from small cards which were written or printed  instructions for how to behave properly at court.

So etiquette are small cards and we can modify this word to create a new verb which is etiqueter which is the verb "to label" which of course a card is a kind of label.