This blog post is for the French Improvers' Evening Class at the City of Portsmouth College, Highbury Campus.
A shortened link to this blog page is rebrand.ly/cfri
The classes are due to run on Tuesday evenings from 7:30 to 9 pm on:
September 17th
September 24th
October 1st
October 8th
October 15th
October 22nd
(October 29th - Half term - no class this week)
November 5th
November 12th
November 19th
November 26th
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 the French language (not all of it, correct!)
You can find some resources online to help you study French by yourselves 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.
To check verb conjugation - particularly while you are learning all those irregular verbs - this tool could be of use to you.
During this course, we shall also be looking at grammar, particularly verb formation.
I have a blog here that will take you step by step through verb formation.
If you are serious about mastering French Grammar a good place to start is the verb formation and this book will certainly help. (see here for an older version)
This improvers' class runs from 7:30 to 9 pm again in January on Tuesdays. The classes are due to run on:
Tuesday: 14th, 21st & 28th January, 4th, 11th, 25th February, 4th, 11th, 18th & 25th March.
(provided the minimum number of attendees is reached).
Some grammar will likely be covered again; however, the themes and topics will differ.
You can register your interest in classes in January by emailing Jennifer Parr, the Adult Ed courses administrator. Alternatively, use the links above to register via the college website.
See here for the latest Adult Education Newsletter from the College.
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mardi, 26 novembre
Classes for next term are now live to be booked on to.
Click Here to be taken to further information.
The French Exchange...
There is also a visit from Caen on December 5th from about 8:30 to 9:45 at the Sovereigns Pub opposite the Ferry terminal.
Would anyone like to go with a view to hosting here in 2026, the year of Caen's 1000th Birthday? The French Exchange visit to Caen going there in June 2025. (20th to 23rd).
The 12 verbs of Christmas... How could you put the same verbs into the 'imperfect'?
Chansons de noël
mardi, 19 novembre
Classes for next term are now live to be booked on to.
Click Here to be taken to further information.
Grammar
The conditional tense is the final tense for GCSE-level knowledge. Fichiers
It usually translates as 'would' for most verbs. Using the modal 'pouvoir', it is 'could', and the modal 'devoir' is 'should' or 'ought to'. It can be interpreted as would, should, or could for all verbs, depending on the context.
In journalism, it is used to infer that the information is 'alleged' or 'said to have happened'. It is often used in reports about ongoing crime stories. It is also used to tell stories about historical figures, where the information is more folkloric than ever proven.
(A Level requires the final two, although recognising the subjunctive is a good idea for higher GCSE). We will look at a very similar construction of the conditional tense and how it is used. The endings are the same as those used in another tense you have looked at.
All these tenses are introduced over three years in a school curriculum. You have done them in about six weeks.
Au, à la, à l', aux Du, de la, de l', des - how these work according to gender and number.
at/in/to/by/upon (some)/of/about/from
The partitives (du, etc.) and the prepositions (à, etc.) are quite broad. I will cover the essential points of their use, how they work, and the many meanings they can have.
le/un la/une les/des l'/un/une *negative statement
au à la aux à l'
du de la des de l' de/d'
E.g. - Je n'ai pas de stylo. Elle ne veut pas d'argent* Le supermarché n'a plus de pommes.
Laura K. Lawless has written here about which ones are used with which verbs. Again, these have to be learned and may eventually come naturally by collocation in your brain if you use French often enough.
One of the wonders of French vocabulary.
This text is from this website. It is an authentic undoctored text. - Although you will not understand all - finding texts about subjects that interest you and using them to mine for phrases and vocabulary is a sure way to improve your French and its use.
A little Canadian song for the winter... *tuque - (bobble hat) (*galipette - somersaults)
mardi, 12 novembre
Tonight, a look at the formation of the Simple Future and Near Future Tenses and their uses from the verb formation blog. (You can then adapt your daily routine to discuss a future day.)
« Quels sont vos projets pour la fête de noël? »
« Qu'allez vous faire ce weekend? »
Generally, the most informal one is the near future (le futur proche).
mardi, 5 novembre
Tonight, with Remembrance Day this weekend, we will examine what the French and French Canadians do each year to mark the Armistice of 1918. (French document from TF1 in non doctored language).
If required,
A look at the formation of the Simple Future and Near Future Tenses and their uses from the verb formation blog. (You can then adapt your daily routine to discuss a future day.)
Le jour du souvenir
Et vous? Vous vous souvenez des morts en temps de guerre?
L'Armistice 100 ans Caen (le 11 novembre 2018)
mardi, 22 octobre
Halloween Images Halloween et La Toussaint
Tonight, as Halloween is near, we will look at some French information on Halloween and the following day (the actual public holiday in France), Toussaint (All Saints Day). La plus grande peur
La Toussaint
Halloween - Radio France - Paimpol
mardi, 15 octobre
If you have prepared a text about your daily routine and added a recent past day, then you could also now attempt a past day describing what you used to do as a child...
Today, we will examine the pluperfect tense (the tense that takes things back further in time than the perfect tense).
Next time, we can add the future tenses...
Mots Manqués. - This one will be a challenge - it uses the Perfect Tense, the Pluperfect Tense and the Imperfect Tense.
Can you fill in all the constructions?
mardi, 8 octobre
You may have prepared a text about a day in the past. To make a contrasting presentation, you can add this to your daily routine. You may wish to record this as a spoken record, too. (Once I have checked it all for you, use the Pronunciation Practice website to help you with how it all sounds).
Using the step-by-step verb tense formation guide, we will look at how to form the Imperfect Tense in French.
This would be used for talking about what you used to do when you were a child for example.
« Quand j'avais cinq ans je me reveillais à 6 heures du matin... » - "When I was five, I used to get up at six in the morning."
It is also used to set the scene in the past when another event took place.
« Je me reveillais quand j'ai entendu la tonnere... » - "I was waking up when I heard the thunder."
Nostalgie
We may consult a few exercises from Entre Nous 1, which examines time, daily routine, and pastimes.
A song for the Perfect Tense (le passé composé in French - Daily Routine)
A revision clip about the formation of the Imperfect Tense in French
Pour rire! C'est compliqué...
mardi, 1er octobre
Using the step-by-step verb tense formation guide, we will look at how to form the Perfect Tense in French.
There are some complications in French, German, Italian and Spanish that English does not have.
We will look at this complication and the idea behind it.
This is a free course from the Open University about this tense. It also tries to cover irregular verbs.
Devoirs (printed for issue)
PPT of Perfect Tense including some irregular pp
A full video on the French Perfect Tense.
mardi, 24 septembre
Following last week's lesson, we will mainly work towards A2 with a few pieces working towards B1 Level. Sometimes, our themes require us to start at A1 and progress from there.
I have written a step-by-step verb tense formation guide. So tonight, we will begin with the regular formation of the present tense; I will point you to where you can find out all about the irregular verbs (which are numerous!)
Can you answer these questions?
What are the French verb families?
What is the regular verb conjugation pattern for each family?
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An excellent theme, to begin with, is time and daily routine, as this starts in the present tense and can then be manipulated to introduce a few past tenses and future, even the conditional.
So, we will (revise or) learn the time and daily routine phrases in French. Some verbs here also include reflexive verb formation.
We may consult a few exercises from Entre Nous 1, which examines time, daily routine, and pastimes.
For your self-learning exercises, you could start a Google Doc, Word Doc or similar where you present your daily routine, and this can be built upon with other timeframes when we have practised them.
Begin with the daily routine for an average day in your life.
Slow French - morning routines
A general overview of the whole day's routine
mardi, 17 septembre
Tonight is the first lesson. We will look at what motivates you to improve your French, why you have signed up, and what you want to get from the class (so I can best prepare for the next nine weeks). It is also how we can get to know each other (for any people who were not in this class before).
Voici quelques questions pour vous faire parler aujourd'hui:
Qui êtes vous?
Pourquoi voulez-vous améliorer votre français?
Parlez-nous d'une visite en France ou dans un pays francophone... (see below for information )
Que faites-vous dans la vie?
Quels sont vos passe-temps préférés?
Parlez nous de votre famille...
Parlez nous de votre ville...
... et vos passe-temps qu'est-ce que vous aimez faire dans votre temps libre?
La Francophonie
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