CoPC French for Beginners - Autumn 2026
This is the blog page for the French beginners' evening class at the City of Portsmouth College - Highbury Campus. Tuesday evenings, 6:00 to 7:30 pm.
A shortened link to this page is: ajstarr.short.gy/cpcfrb QR Code
Classes are timetabled from 6 to 7:30 pm on:
Tuesday, September 22nd & 29th; October 6th, 13th and 20th; November 3rd, 10th, 17th and 24th; and December 1st is the final class. October 27th is during half-term.
Outside of class
To improve your listening and speaking skills in a social setting, why not come to the evening or afternoon events I organise in the city?
We have a twin city in Caen. I am the Chair of the Twinning Association for France and Germany. To find out more about our twin cities, visit this website.
Tips for tuning your ear to French
Listen to French music.
Watch French TV series and films (or at least videos/news in French).
There is a lot of stuff online for learning French (not all of it, correct!).
You can find some resources online to help you study French by yourself on a Padlet here.
Find some Francophone music you like – there's an extraordinary amount out there, and all can be seen on YouTube whenever you like. I have written much more about French music here.
I will use some materials from the course book Entre Nous 1, aimed at the European Language Standards A1 (beginners). You may find it helpful to get a copy for home use and self-study.
This blog page will help you learn how to get all those accents on your various devices.
We will likely have a visit from Caen in December.
En1Ch1ppt VO Livre pp25-31
On this link are beginners' videos from the 1990s BBC—Quinze Minutes Plus First 4—covering much of what we have and will cover in this 10-week course.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
mardi, 1er décembre
Spoken presentations tonight.
Noël – La Réveillon de Noël et le Nouvelan, y compris l'Ephiphanie.
Celebratory food and drink.
How to talk about the time.
mardi, 24 novembre
La Saint-Nicolas.
Countries and nationalities
Some common food and drink?
mardi, 17 novembre
The weather (holidays) clothing
Voyage Voyage?
mardi, 10 novembre
Demain, c'est l'armisitice.
Present tense of verbs and La Francophonie
mardi, 3 novembre
Les emplois – jeudi au Royaume-Uni, c'est la nuit des feux d'artifices.
(La nuit des feux de joie)
Virelangues
Vérène en vair va vers le ver vert et le verre vert à l'envers.
Le jour de l'armistice
Tonight, with Remembrance Day coming up this weekend, we will look a little at what the French and French Canadians do to mark the Armistice of 1918.
Jeudi sera le 5 novembre ... (Ce soir à Southsea Common). - La nuit des feux de joie/la nuit des feux d'artifices au Royaume-Uni... Kinder Exchange PPT
We can also look at talking/writing about jobs in basic detail. We will look at some French-speaking people and their jobs from Entre Nous. Piste 21
We may get time to revise the theme of family and descriptions in French.
The model document can serve as a model for you to choose things from to keep and adapt for your own versions.
Le jour du souvenir – In France, it will be celebrated on the actual day, November 11th, rather than on the nearest Sunday.
Adjectives. Negative sentences.
We looked at adjectives before the half-term break, and the (now correct in English as well) table below serves as a basic reminder, but there are always exceptions to the rules...
How to turn a sentence into a negative sentence.
You need to make a verb sandwich.
Putting the word 'ne' before the verb and the other negative word after the verb...
For example, "Je suis français, je ne suis pas anglais."
Je mange des pommes, je ne mange jamais de tomates.
J'ai deux frères, mais je n'ai pas de sœurs.
Here, the 'de' serves a bit like the word 'any' in English.
ne ... pas – Not
Example: Je ne sais pas. (I don’t know.)
ne ... jamais – Never
Example: Il ne fume jamais. (He never smokes.)
ne ... rien – Nothing
Example: Je ne vois rien. (I see nothing / I don't see anything.)
ne ... plus – No longer / Not anymore
Example: Nous ne habitons plus ici. (We no longer live here.)
ne ... personne – No one / Nobody
Example: Je ne connais personne. (I know no one.)
ne ... pas encore – Not yet
Example: Elle n'est pas encore arrivée. (She has not arrived yet.)
ne ... que – Only (restrictive, not a true double negation)
Example: Il n'a que cinq euros. (He only has five euros.)
ne ... ni ... ni – Neither ... nor
Example: Je n'aime ni le thé ni le café. (I like neither tea nor coffee.)
ne ... aucun(e) – No / Not any (negative adjective agreeing with a noun)
Example: Je n'ai aucun problème. (I have no problems.)
French Adjectives
In French, the general rule is that adjectives are placed after the noun they modify. This is the opposite of English word order.
However, a specific group of common, short adjectives must be placed before the noun.
The General Rule vs. The Exception
Adjective Placement | Rule Details | Examples |
After the Noun (General Rule) | Used for the vast majority of French adjectives. This includes colours, shapes, nationalities, religion, and longer or more descriptive words. | Un livre bleu (A blue book) Une table ronde (A round table) La cuisine française (French cuisine) |
Before the Noun (The Exception) | Used for a specific set of short, high-frequency adjectives. You can easily remember these using the acronym BANGS. | Un beau jardin (A beautiful garden) Une petite voiture (A small car) Un jeune homme (A young man) |
The BANGS Acronym (Adjectives placed BEFORE the noun)
Category | Adjectives | Examples |
Beauty | beau (beautiful), joli (pretty) | Un joli chat (A pretty cat) |
Age | jeune (young), vieux (old), nouveau (new) | Un vieux film (An old movie) |
Number / Rank | premier (first), dernier (last), deuxième (second) | La première fois (The first time) |
Goodness | bon (good), mauvais (bad), gentil (kind) | Une bonne idée (A good idea) |
Size | grand (tall/big), petit (small), gros (fat/large) | Un grand chien (A big dog) |
Special Case: Adjectives that Change Meaning
Some adjectives can be placed either before or after the noun, but their meaning changes depending on their position.
Adjective | Meaning BEFORE the noun | Meaning AFTER the noun |
Propre | Mon propre lit (My own bed) | Un lit propre (A clean bed) |
Grand | Un grand homme (A great man) | Un homme grand (A tall man) |
Cher | Cher ami (Dear friend) | Un livre cher (An expensive book) |
Ancien | Mon ancien prof (My former teacher) | Un meuble ancien (An ancient/antique piece of furniture) |
mardi, 20 octobre
Next week is Halloween.
We will look into the theme of the upcoming holiday in France. Halloween is not very French, but la Toussaint is. PPT La maison hantée IMAGES
Then a bit more about where we live, such as room revision and furniture inside those rooms.
Adjectives to describe people too.
The issue with many adjectives, as we have touched upon, is that they agree with number and gender. They also generally go after the noun, but those dealing with age, size and beauty often go before. Others change their meaning if they go before the noun to after too... We can focus more on this grammar point after the half-term break if we do not cover this tonight.
Regular colour adjective agreement
Noun Type | Example (English) | Example (French) | Explanation |
Masculine singular | The blue pen | Le stylo bleu | Bleu remains the same. |
Feminine singular | The green leaf | La feuille verte | Vert adds an -e to become verte. |
Masculine plural | The blue pens | Les stylos bleus | Bleu adds an -s to become bleus. |
Feminine plural | The green leaves | Les feuilles vertes | Verte adds an -s to become vertes. |
Invariable colour adjectives
Some colour adjectives do not change their spelling regardless of the noun's gender or number. These often come from nouns.
Orange: Une voiture orange (An orange car).
Marron: Un stylo marron (A brown pen).
Orange: Les voitures orange (The orange cars).
Marron: Les stylos marron (The brown pens).
Here is a model document We may well have completed the vocabulary therein by the end of this session. So, you can definitely start to prepare your version for the final session.
Extra:
Personality: This link lists the most commonly used positive and negative personality trait adjectives and the noun associated with the adjective (often in English, this is ~ness).
Vocabulaire d'Halloween
La Toussaint
Halloween
mardi, 13 octobre
Tonight, we will first look at family in French. Then a bit more about where we live, such as homes, rooms and furniture. I imagine that we will not get much further today...
Next week we will begin to prepare a spoken presentation about our lives...
Here is a model document We have completed the vocabulary now up to paragraph (section) 5 – if we have completed the house & home bit, then that is paragraph 6.
Extra:
Personality: This link lists the most commonly used positive and negative personality trait adjectives and the noun associated with the adjective (often in English, this is ~ness).
Following today's class, you should be able to understand much of what is contained in these rather old videos, from BBC Schools and Colleges Collection.
mardi, 6 octobre
Building on the last couple of weeks, including the introduction to the city of Caen and what there is to see in a town (housing and locations), we will look at what the course book Entre Nous 1 wants to introduce us to this week along with some tasks for reinforcement and revision.
They are using the city of Nantes in the west of France, south of Brittany, which was once in Brittany before France annexed it.
You can see the course book here online.
We may then examine why people are learning French, some personal details and how to form the present tense of regular '-er' verbs... (the joy, the bliss!) and mention the reflexives (more joy!!).
Lille is also used in the course book.
Pour rire
mardi, 29 septembre
Today, by the end of this lesson, you should be ready to introduce yourself in French, giving your name and saying where you're from and when your birthday is (including the year).
You may be able to name some places in an average town.
(Ls FdT - La ville et les magasins)
For this lesson you might like to be ready to introduce yourself in French, giving your name, spelling it, saying where you're from and when your birthday is...
Quelle est la date de ton anniversaire? Quelle est la date de votre anniversaire?
We will look at the days of the week and the months of the year, along with some basic places found in the majority of towns and villages in France and the UK.
Revisions l'alphabet et épeler vos noms, les noms de vos villes et lieux de naissance.
Revisons les chiffres entre 1 et 20. Rajoutons comment fonctionne les autres chiffres. (Voir les clips vidéos ci-dessous).
Travel to France from Portsmouth; we are twinned with Caen, so we will look at what can be seen in Caen (basic vocabulary initially based on the course book Voilà).
Caen is linked by ferry to Portsmouth, and it is our twin city, for which I am the committee chair...
La Gastronomie de Caen
Revision
This very young French teacher made these vlogs for his French beginners during the coronavirus lockdown. However, he covers many of the things we covered in class today and last week, which can serve as a reminder!
In teacher training, they say if you do something at least 6 times, you might remember them!
He certainly seems to use that method... Here is his video for the places you might find in a town - if you need it...
Un peu d'humour français... Une réponse à la question brûlante...
mardi, 22 septembre
Today, we will begin learning to speak, read, and write in French and to listen to French being spoken.
In the first class, we will introduce ourselves and find our reasons for learning French, as we do not all know each other yet.
- Comment vous appelez-vous?
- Quel âge avez-vous?
- Où habitez-vous? / Vous êtes d'où?
Je m'appelle... (Je suis...)
J'ai ... ans
J'habite à ... en Angleterre/ en Grande-Bretagne/ au Royaume-Uni
Je suis de...
Tonight, we will answer the French questions for:
Who are you? Why are you learning French? What does France mean for you?
Qui êtes-vous? Pourquoi apprenez-vous le français? Que signifie la France pour vous?
By the end of this session, you should be able to:
Introduce yourselves and spell your name (possibly the name of your street, city, or place of birth).
Can you give me your age? Your nationality? What about your occupation (i.e., student)?
What else?
What can you tell someone a little about French grammar?
Gender, adjectives...?
Feuilles à télécharger
An earworm which will teach you the alphabet.
Another earworm for the months of the year... Quelle est la date de ton anniversaire?
This guy does a lot of beginner's videos... Now there's enthusiasm, and then there's ~Thomas!
He can, at least, serve as a reminder of the correct pronunciation, should you need one...
Comments