San Francisco

French Tutoring

Anne Elizabeth’s Novel French Workshops, currently featuring Harry Potter à l’école des sorciers, (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in French) is coming soon to San Francisco!

If you live in the San Francisco area and you’re interested in participating in this exciting workshop; if you’re an intermediate or advanced French student; if you studied French long ago and are afraid you are forgetting it – join the waiting list now!

Join us while we read and discuss Harry Potter in French and work through the associated workbook to develop fluency, expand vocabulary, and learn grammar and conjugation.

View page one of Harry Potter in French

If you want to receive an email when these workshops come to San Francisco, leave a comment below expressing your interest or contact me via:
Email:       anneelizabeth (at) aegtranslations (dot) com

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San Francisco French Resources

Alliance Française San Francisco
French American Chamber of Commerce
San Francisco Bay Acceuil

French Consulate – San Francisco

San Francisco Bay Area Francophile List

 

Sacramento

While most people think of San Francisco as California’s center for international affairs and francophone resources, Sacramento is an incredibly diverse city with large francophone and francophile communities as well as an active Alliance Française.

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Translation

 

For years I have worked out of Sacramento as French teacher and tutor. My translation business is also based out of Sacramento. If you are interested in translation, you can visit my translation site here:

AEG Translations

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French Lessons

If you are in the Sacramento area and are interested in French lessons, I am currently offering Novel French Workshops for motivated intermediate and advanced students. We will be reading book one in the Harry Potter series in French and will be working from an associated workbook as we work towards fluency, study vocabulary, and work on grammar and conjugation.

Come join us!

**A new workshop will be scheduled soon. Join the waiting list!**

Email:        anneelizabeth (at) aegtranslations (dot) com

  Wonder if this is the right workshop for you? Read page one of Harry Potter à l’école des sorciers in French and let me know what you think! (If you find it too difficult, try reading it again an hour or a day later. You’d be surprised how much this can help!)

View page one of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Want to join us but don’t know if you’ll be free for the next workshop? Interested in something a little easier or a little trickier? Send me an email or leave a comment below about your interest in future workshops and I will add your email address to the waiting list. (I never sell, rent, or give away email addresses.)

 

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French Resources in Sacramento

Alliance Française de Sacramento
Club Français de Sacramento

Sacramento French Film Festival

 

RE Verbs – The List

Attendre – does not mean “to attend.” Don’t even think it. Also, note that in English you wait “for” someone, but you do not add “pour” to the corresponding French phrase. “J’attends mon ami.”

Entendre = to hear. Écouter = to listen. These are not the same verb!

Prétendre – does not mean to “pretend.” It means to “claim” as in: “He claims that he’ll be on time.” (Which will make “attendre” unnecessary.)

 

Conjugating RE Verbs

Two weeks ago, we learned how to conjugate ER verbs in the present tense. Last week we learned how to conjugate IR verbs. This week it’s the last of the three main verb groups – RE verbs. RE verbs are the least common of the three regular verb groups, but they’re still important.

 Our pattern:

 

That’s it. Pretty simple, right? The second column is exactly like the second column in our ER verb pattern. Remember?

 And the first column is pretty simple too. Just remember – you drop the –re from the il/elle form and you add nothing.

 So, let’s take a common example verb:

 

If you know how to conjugate ER, IR, and RE verbs – you know a lot of the everyday (and a lot of the not-so-everyday) verbs.  See? Verb conjugation isn’t so tricky after all.

Online Verb Conjugator

Looking for a quick, easy way to check the conjugation of a verb?

I love this site for it's simplicity (and for the humor of the link). You can choose the "version polie:"

Allez vous faire conjuguer

Or the "version impolie:"

Va te faire conjuguer

Both links take you to the same page, and as far as I can tell, the pages are the same – except for the title.

It's unfortunate that they don't organize their verbs in the "boot" friendly pattern (I wouldn't recommend memorizing them the way they have them written out), but it is a great resource for looking up a verb quickly.

The Serious Store

Amazon.com Widgets

Amazon.com Widgets

Amazon.com Widgets

Conjugating IR Verbs

Last week we looked at conjugating the largest group of regular French verbs in this post about the basics of verb conjugation and -ER verbs. Today we'll take a quick look at conjugating the second most common group of regular verbs -IR verbs.

The pattern for -ir verbs is pretty simple, but the endings are a little longer than they are for -er verbs. It always makes me think a little of the spelling of Mississippi – M-I-SS-I-SS-I-PP-I!

-IR verb pattern, present tense:

So, to conjugate -ir verbs in the present tense, just remove the ending (-ir) from the infinitive and add the appropriate conjugated ending. Let's take a common -ir verb as an example.

Pretty simple, right? And now you know how to conjugate the two biggest groups of French verbs in the present tense! Not bad!

While they follow this rule, regular -ir verbs which already have an "s" in them tend to throw off students. Verbs like "choisir".

Don't drop the 's' from the stem! Even in the second column.

 

TV5 Conjugating Verbs 2

Conjugating in neat little exercises and tables is helpful, but that's not really the goal. What counts is being able to conjugate verbs in real sentences – in the context of actually expressing something.

In this previous post we looked at a verb conjugating game at TV5 which offers drills in verb conjugation. There's another similar game at TV5 which is a harder, but also far closer to real-life use of the language.

TV5 Conjugaison en contexte

 

In this game you are given sentences with one verb left in the infinitive. It is up to you to determine the correct tense, mood, and subject and to conjugate the verb accordingly. At the end you'll get a printable scorecard like this:

A few things to know about this game:

– It's pretty hard; even at the easiest level you'll be expected to conjugate the conditional and the subjunctive. (At the harder levels, the verbs themselves get harder – more irregular.)

-As you can tell from my results, a missed accent will make your answer wrong. I just accepted this and personally count these answers as correct since it can be difficult to type the accents with an American keyboard.

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So, did you try it? How'd you do?

Ents and Entwives

A final word about conjugating regular ER verbs in the present tense.

Remember this post about modal verbs and the boot? ER verbs are not boot verbs, but I often think of them that way because everything inside the boot is pronounced the same way.

Yes, even the ils/elles conjugation. Never pronounce the "-ent" ending in a conjugated verb. The "-ent" might affect how the letters before it are pronounced, but the "-ent" itself is never pronounced.

 

Je parle        Nous parlons
Tu parles    Vous parlez
Elle parle    Ils parlent

Yes, that's right. "Parle", "parles", and "parlent" are all pronounced exactly the same way. Fight the urge to say "parl-ant." You can beat this – I know you can.

That said, not every "-ent" is silent. Only the "-ent" ending of a conjugated verb. If the "ent" is part of the stem (or "radical") of the verb, or if you find "-ent" at the end of a word that is not a verb – it's fair game. Go ahead and pronounce that sucker. (For example: un accident, un élément, un tempérament.)

And I'm sorry, but just like in the Lord of the Rings, there are no Entwives here. Only -ents.

 

What’s a kinnamon?

I’ve talked a lot about patterns this week, and guess what? I’m not done.  Take a look at these groups of English words:

Do you see any patterns? Look again. “C” and “g” – how are they pronounced and why are they pronounced that way?

 Now look at these English words:

What is the difference between this group and the first group? Come up with a rule and write it down. Seriously – don’t look online, don’t ask someone else, don’t scroll to the rest of the post until you have a rule.

 …

                            …

                                                            …

Now I’ve got some clumps of French words for you. How do you think each of these sets of words is pronounced?

 

This is a rare instance where French and English have the same rule. (Of course, there are plenty of exceptions to this rule, but it’s helpful nonetheless.)

Last chance! If you don’t have your own rule – come up with it now! The answer follows…

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When ‘c’ or ‘g’ are followed by ‘a’, ‘o’, or ‘u’ they are hard. When they are followed by “e” or “i" they are soft.

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Okay, now remember how we conjugate –ER verbs? What will happen when we conjugate "manger" – "to eat"? If we follow the rules for ER verbs without making any changes then the "nous" form will be "mangons". According to our new pronunciation rules, how will this word be pronounced? Does that sound good?

Nope.

This is fixed by simply adding an "e". "Nous mangeons."

Je mange             Nous mangeons

Tu manges          Vous mangez

Il mange               Elles mangent

 
Any regular –er verb with a 'g' at the end of the stem will follow this rule in the present tense (e.g.: nager = to swim, nous nageons.)

Commencer (to start) has the same problem, but it is not solved by adding an 'e'. Instead of adding an 'e', simply add une cedille. You've seen them plenty of times (ça, français).

Je commence                    Nous commençons

Tu commences                 Vous commencez

Il commence                      Ils commencent

 

Every regular -er verb with a stem that ends in "c" will work this way in the present tense (e.g. placer = to place, nous plaçons.)

What did I tell you? It's all about the patterns.

(Frustrated when you need to type a letter with an accent? To type a c with une cedille in Word, just hold down the Ctrl key while you hit the ' , ' key and then type ' c '. It will appear with the accent. Voilà !)