French Conjugations
Well, if you plan to learn any Latin-based languages such as French, Spanish, Italian, and so forth, you will have to face this issue: verb conjugation.
These languages and others rely heavily on changing the spelling of the verb to indicate who is doing that particular action. They will also use pronouns to complete the connection.
Here is a simple example of what you could encounter:
Chercher (to look for)
| PN | Present | Future | Imperfect | Present Participle |
| je | cherche | chercherai | cherchais | cherchant |
| tu | cherches | chercheras | cherchais | |
| il | cherche | cherchera | cherchait | Passé Composée |
| nous | cherchons | chercherons | cherchions | Auxiliary Verb: avoir |
| vous | cherchez | chercherez | cherchiez | Past Participle: cherché |
| ils | cherchent | chercheront | cherchaient | |
| PN | Subjunctive | Conditional | Passé Simple | Imperfect Subjunctive |
| je | cherche | chercherais | cherchai | cherchasse |
| tu | cherches | chercherais | cherchas | cherchasses |
| il | cherche | chercherait | chercha | cherchâ |
| nous | cherchions | chercherions | cherchâmes | cherchassions |
| vous | cherchiez | chercheriez | cherchâtes | cherchassiez |
| ils | cherchent | chercheraient | cherchèrent | cherchassent |
| PN | Imperative | |||
| (tu) | cherche | Verb Conjugation Pattern Chercher is a regular -ER verb Using chercher |
||
| (nous) | cherchons | |||
| (vous) | cherchez | |||
Now, for English speakers this is a lot to deal with and you will have to work on this as it is a new large layer that you have been fortunate enough to have dodged a bullet.
Well, all that fun and fancy free stuff stops once you decide to learn a language such as French.
You will find that there are Regular (-ER, -IR, -RE), Irregular, and Stem-Changing verbs. The good news is the regular verbs pretty much for the most part follow a nice neat little pattern. Once you learn the pattern then that will save you time.
In our example above, chercher is an ER verb.
| PN | Present | Future | Imperfect | Present Participle |
| je | cherche | chercherai | cherchais | cherchant |
| tu | cherches | chercheras | cherchais | |
| il | cherche | cherchera | cherchait | Passé Composée |
| nous | cherchons | chercherons | cherchions | Auxiliary Verb: avoir |
| vous | cherchez | chercherez | cherchiez | Past Participle: cherché |
| ils | cherchent | chercheront | cherchaient |
The pronoun (PN) works hand-in-hand with this concept.
Je (I)
Tu (You, informal use with friends)
Il (He or it)
Nous (We)
Vous (You, formal use with strangers, people that are older than you, etc.)
Ils (They)
The point of this post is just to give you an idea of a major component of this language that you will have to learn/memorize if you are going to be able to correspond with people especially.
Now, if you are face-to-face, and you indicate that you are a beginner, then the person you are trying to communicate may go lenient – but don’t expect too much. The French love to hear their own language and they don’t really want to hear tons of mistakes.
So, if you are in a panic, then you can do a little cheating. Use the infinitive version of the verb and try to indicate who you are referring to. If you recall, the infinitive is the full version of the verb with no conjugation, e.g. fermer (to close), finir (to finish), vendre (to sell), etc. This could be used in a pinch, but you will have to come up with a more permanent solution, and that is to memorize and have a good verb book available at all times.
You probably are familiar with the 501, 601, 901, verb books. Now, they do a good job at what they do – no problem there, but let’s face it, there are more than 501 verbs in most languages, so why stop there?
Instead of 501 puny verbs, why not go for 12,000? This way you have access to most of the known verbs. If you are trying to read books, you will not know beforehand what you may encounter. If your reference book is more comprehensive then you stand a better chance of dealing with even the most obscure verbs that may not be used much in modern usage.
We would recommend the highly-popular Bescherelle – Complete Guide to Conjugating 12,000 French Verbs (French and English Edition).
This is a comprehensive guide that is perfect for all levels: beginners to fluent speakers. No longer will you have to be embarrassed by not knowing proper French conjugations (verb conjugation rules).
Product Description
A Bescherelle is a French language grammar reference book best known for its verb conjugations volumes. It is named after the 19th century French lexicographer and grammarian Louis-Nicolas Bescherelle.
The series is made up of three volumes dealing with various aspects of French grammar.
The first volume, L’art de conjuguer (The art of conjugation) presents the conjugation of every type of verb in the French language in every verb tense. Each verb type is numbered, so that multiple verbs with identical conjugation (such as chanter and enchanter) can be grouped under one basic verb of that type. L’art de conjuguer also offers all of the rules concerning grammar within verb conjugation as well as a detailed guide on the purpose of each verb tense. The most recent versions contain 12,000 verbs.
The second volume, L’orthographe pour tous (Spelling for everyone) explains how to convert spoken sounds in French into writing.
The third volume, Grammaire pour tous (Grammar for everyone) is a guide on French syntax, sentence structure, the application of proper grammar to sentences, and punctuation.
Each of the three volumes use example sentences to demonstrate proper French grammar. The term Bescherelle is usually used to refer to the first book, L’art de conjuguer.
Bescherelles (L’art de conjugeur in particular) are commonly used in French immersion schools and it is often required that students purchase one for class.
Bescherelles also exist for German, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic and Latin, although they do not have the popularity of the original French.
The other question you may ask yourself is, how is it possible to memorize large volumes of info? Yep, that is something to contend with. Well, perhaps in the future we will have a post on the various memory techniques.
If you’re in a hurry, then check this out: MoonWalking with Einstein, The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. This book will help you to learn fun techniques to memorize large quantities of stuff.
Now, if you are looking to really open your mind and unleash a powerful *#%& storm of knowledge, i.e. tap into that elusive 90% brain power that most people dream of, then at your earliest check out our other site on how to have an Eidetic Memory.
Review Of Transparent French Complete Edition
Transparent French Complete Edition claims to be an entire comprehensive language course, but does it love up to this claim?
This review reveals the pros and cons of this particular software package.
Review PC
The computer on which I installed this software is an Alienware M7700 laptop, with the following specifications:
- Pentium 4 3.8 GHZ processor
- 2.75 GB of RAM
- Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3
Software Download
After you’ve completed the payment process, you are taken to a rather sparse screen that contains three separate download links.
The three files are somewhat large, ranging from 58 MB all the way up to 605 MB, which for us is a problem, as our so-called broadband/DSL connection rarely achieves speeds of more than 1 Mbps. Consequently, it took several hours to download the largest of these three files.
Other than that, my only other comment would be that there is little information to tell you what these three files are, or how to install them, but more of that in a moment.
Installation
In the absence of specific installation instructions, I tried installing the largest file, called Complete-French.exe, first, on the basis that it was probably the main program.
Installation went smoothly, but it does consist of multiple phases, as it tries to install what appears to be several pieces of related software.
Once this was complete, I tried to install the other two files I’d downloaded, but it turned out that these were not necessary as they’d already been installed.
The process was therefore somewhat confusing, but at the end of it all, the software seemed to be ready to run.
TIP: We always believe in creating a System Restore Point before installing any software, just in case, as you never know when a program might cause problems.
Running The Transparent French Complete Edition Software
Double-clicking the Transparent Language icon on my desktop opened up the software, and almost at once, it asks you to enter your name, as more than one person can use this software on the computer.
You are also asked if you want to register, but you can defer that until later if you want, or even tell it that you don’t ever want to register.
Once that’s out of the way, then you’re into the main program interface, which looks like this:
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TIP: Before you do anything else, make sure that you click the View Guided Tour button at the top left. This brief presentation on how to use the software will make your life so much easier!
This Guided Tour is fairly fast-paced, but you can always pause it, or go back and re-watch the bits you need.
The next thing you’ll notice is the books that are displayed in the centre of the interface, and there are a total of four:
- Beginner Lessons
- Fundamentals
- Conversation Lessons
- A Surprise Birthday Party
You are obviously meant to start with the first one, so all you need to do is to click the image of the cover, and the book will open and show you the Table Of Contents:
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TIP: It’s easily missed, but it’s worth clicking the Learn The Alphabet button at the bottom of the left page, as this gives you a quick overview of the letters in the French alphabet, and how they are pronounced.
You can also see various indicators that show you how far through the course you have progressed, which is handy for keeping track of how you’re doing.
But I was keen to get cracking, so I clicked the Lesson 01 link on the right page, and the software will turn the page for you, showing you the contents of that first lesson:
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The left page will then show you what the lesson is all about, while the right side will contain a number of links to the various activities in that lesson.
Most lessons in all four books will have a very similar format, usually including Vocabulary, Reading and Speaking. Some, however, may have a Video option, as well as an Online Quiz, but these are mainly in the more advanced books.
So, the next thing you should do is click the Vocabulary button, and you may be presented with a small dialogue box asking which part of the lesson you want to load. In this case, there is a Part 1 and a Part 2, so I selected Part 1 and then clicked the Open List button.
It’s at this point when it’s possible you might get confused, as it opens up another program called Byki, which is where you’ll be spending a lot of your time.
My concern is that at first, at least, there is no way of knowing what will happen when you click something in the Transparent Language program. Sometimes, it will take you to another page in the same application, sometimes it opens up Byki, sometimes it will load a Flash video, and sometimes it will take you to a page on the Internet, using your web browser.
To people new to this software, I think it’s quite disconcerting, but the more you use it, the more familiar it will become, and it will therefore be less of an issue.
The Byki component consists of a large number of panels and activities.
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The one shown above is the one you need to work through first, and it is basically a form of flash card system: you are shown both English and French words, on opposite sites of a virtual flash card, and then you are taken through a series of steps where you have to recognize and then type in the various words (in both English and French) from the lesson.
You are scored, and it does keep track of your progress too, so that you can see where you need more practice.
One word of warning: with this being French, you will have to input accented characters (e.g. e acute, which looks like this: é), and there is a small but easily-missed link that tells you how to do this, so make sure you click this before starting the tests, as some of them are timed as well.
I am a big fan of flash card systems, especially “adaptive” ones that remember the words you had problems with and re-present them to you more frequently than the ones you know better, as it has been proven that repetition is a key factor in successfully learning new material.
While this interface does take a bit of getting used to, it will soon become second nature to you.
There is one area where inconsistencies can throw you: in some cases the article (e.g. the) will be included with the word you’re learning, whereas in others, it’s missing.
For example, in one lesson, you are taught that “girl” in French is “fille”, and that “sister” is “la soeur”. Why does one have the article (i.e. “la”) when the other one doesn’t?
It would be better, in my opinion, if the software was consistent all the time in this matter, and as gender is important in French, show the article for every noun.
Once you’ve completed the basic vocabulary exercise, you then have the option to take part in a number of activities and tests.
The Activities tab includes the following: Multiple Choice, Fill In The Blank, Pronunciation Practice, Word Whirl, Concentration and Four Square.
These are all different ways of helping to reinforce the words you have just learned, and they are fun too.
Now, with regard to the Pronunciation Practice activity, the aim here is that you hear a word or phrase spoken, and then you talk into your microphone and try to repeat what you heard.
The software shows various graphs (e.g. sound waves), so that you can try to match the sounds you make with the ones that you hear.
The only problem was that I could not get the microphone on my laptop to work. I suspect this is a problem with the laptop and not with the software, but I feel sure that if I had been able to use this feature, it would have been very helpful in fine-tuning your pronunciation skills.
Moving on, the Test Tab includes four main options: Self-Reporting Test, Written Test, Listening Comprehension Test and Dictation Test.
Again, these offer different ways to test your reading, writing and comprehension skills.
The other tabs (i.e. My Learned Items, Look and Edit) provide ways to keep track of your progress, see what words you’ve learned so far, and even to add your own words to the flash card system.
Somewhere in there (and I can’t remember where, as there are a lot of options, but it was probably on the Activities tab), there is a game called Grafitti, which is a bit like a Wheel Of Fortune, but the only problem was that the interface was far from intuitive, making it hard to play.
Other than that, I found Byki to be fun and very useful.
As I said earlier, there is some video in later lessons, and these are very good.
They show life-like conversations, and the speech is split into small segments, so that you can play one or two sentences at a time. The French and English words are also shown, so you can really get a feel for how it should sound, without getting lost along the way.
Lastly, I stumbled across some Online Quizzes, which seem to come at the end of some of the books. The ones that I tried were mainly some form of multiple choice, but they did demand that you had paid attention during the lessons, and were therefore a good indicator of how much you’d really learned.
Other Components
I noticed another icon on my desktop after the installation: Lingua Match.
I have to say that I’ve no idea what this does, because when I clicked it, the program crashed, and I can’t say whether this is a problem with my PC (e.g. a conflict with other software I have loaded) or the application itself.
However, I did see this application running on my wife’s Windows 7 PC, although its functionality seems very restricted.
I also found that a screensaver was both installed and activated automatically (i.e. there was no warning message or prompts alerting me to this system configuration change), that displays random French sentences, with one word missing. The English equivalent is shown, in full, and you have a second or two to identify which French word is missing from the sentence before that missing word drops down from the top of the screen to fill in the blank.
It’s a bit of fun, but the same sentences do keep appearing over and over, albeit with different words missing.
What would be useful would be the ability to add your own sentences to this screensaver, but I have no idea whether this is possible or not.
Note too that this screensaver did not appear to be installed on my wife’s Windows 7 PC.
Background Information
Now, it’s only fair to mention that I studied French at school, between 1968 and 1976, which admittedly is a long time ago now, but the point is that most of the words and phrases presented in this software were not new to me.
I’ve also been to Paris many times (maybe 20 or so) on vacation, to the point where I spoke passable French – at least, enough to order food and drink (check out my all-time favourite restaurant in our guide, My Favourite Things To Do In Paris), get around the city on public transport, and buy stuff in the shops.
Most of the French I learned at school focused on reading and writing the language, and very little time was devoted to speaking it.
What I since found out, as a result of my many trips to France, was that what you learn at school and what people actually say in conversation can be very different.
One of the things I liked about the Transparent French course was, therefore, the videos, as they included almost-real conversations (they did seem a bit stilted, but not distractingly so), and if you compare what they say and the English translation, you will see how they don’t always follow the rules 100% (just as we don’t in English, of course).
The reason I chose to review their French course was not to learn French, therefore, but to asses the software itself, without matters being complicated by having to actually learn a language at the same time.
I have every intention of reviewing another of their language courses soon, and this one will be a language that I have no prior knowledge of. This way, I will already be used to the software and its interface, and can focus on how well it actually enables you to learn a new language.
Summary & Conclusion
Overall, in spite of a few quirks and areas where I think this software could be improved, it seems to me like as comprehensive a package as you will find.
The program covers reading, writing and spoken French, and although you may not think you’ll need to write very much, in my opinion, you need a grounding in writing a language before you can really speak it.
When I first learned French back in the late 1960s, I was part of a guinea pig class where we only heard French being spoken for the first year, using some primitive form of audio-visual teaching – no reading, no writing, to the point where we weren’t even allowed to see any French words at all.
The theory was that this is how French children learn their language, but that’s because they are truly immersed in it, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Trying to replicate that “immersion” in a few one-hour lessons per week is just not the same, and for me, this approach failed miserably. Part of the problem was that this audio-visual method was one-way only – we heard French being spoken, but there was little or no speaking during those lessons; the most I think we were taught to say was “good morning” and to tell people our names.
The minute we started learning French the “traditional” way – e.g. vocabulary, grammar, reading and writing, I did much better.
So if you’re looking to learn to speak French – at least, enough to get by on holiday and maybe more – then the Transparent French Complete Edition is definitely worth trying, but you will want to go through each lesson thoroughly, completing each different activity.
Review Of Transparent French Complete Edition
Installation Computer
- HP EliteBook 8740W Laptop running Windows 7 Professional SP1 8 GB of Ram
- 64 Bit OS
Download Time
Because we have a super slow-ass Internet connection, the downloads took a long time (several hours in fact). If your connection is fast then this may not be a factor for you.
Actual Installation
This step was fairly fast, there were no errors or warnings, and fortunately so far there have been no machine crashes or other anomalies that I’ve noticed. This is always a concern, because despite many software producers’ claims that their programs are rated to work on Windows 7, it does not always seem to be the case. I’ve had some issues with other software program and I’d rather avoid problems whenever I can.
Now, the one thing that I did not like about the installation is, since this is the Complete version, it contains a few products and each one has its own installation sequence. Once you install the main component, it then installs the other programs one by one. Now that, within itself seems to work OK, but one of the programs tries to install in the root of drive C – that is a no-no for me. I did the browse option and navigated to the place in the Program Files where it should have been installed and chose that option. That worked with no problems.
Working The Programs
The HINT here would be to start with the Guided Tour and it will explain how to use the programs. The video is not very long but it does a great job explaining the various parts of the system, the goals, and how best to use each one.
So, make it a point to go through the Guided Tour tab which is located at the top left after you click on the Transparent Language icon on your desktop.
The programs have a variety of learning methods. Some will help you with reading others will help you learn vocabulary, and the ones that have speaking components will help you to get used to the way the words and phrases should be pronounced. In fact, when you see the turtle icon, click it to have the reader pronounce the word very slowly, syllable by syllable.
The accents of the readers are very good for the most part. I found the female had the best accent in terms of strength and clarity. The male seemed a little muted for me.
Well. I guess you may want to know about my knowledge (if any) of the French language. It started when I was in the 6th grade, I received a Berlitz French version of Little Red Riding Hood. It was great for me as it used phonics to translate the sound of the French words into their English equivalent. I grew up with phonics so this was perfect for me.
I saw things like:
la table
lah tahbl (this is the pronunciation guide)
the table
As an additional resource for those of you that like to read, want to improve your reading skills, need to carry around a book for quick study during breaks at work for example, then this oldie but goodie would certainly be worth checking out: Berlitz Self-Teacher: French.
Sadly, I was not able to do anything about this until high school. I then took French for four years. This was lo-tech – just books and other reading materials. The classes were based on the Grammar-Translation method. This program primarily stressed reading, writing, translation, and so forth. And yes, that meant that I could understand, I could read and write, but my spoken production was indeed behind.
This does bring up a common question, so, how do you teach adults additional languages without compromising one area for another?
Well, this is really hard to figure out since there are so many variables involved. What you want to do is to determine what area(s) are your priorities. If you need to do a lot of correspondence work, then you must absolutely get the grammar spot on as they say; since you won’t be able to look over the shoulder of the reader and tell them “this is actually what I meant…” On the other hand, if you will need to speak to people on a regular basis, then your spoken language production must be strong.
The Transparent French Complete Edition program does offer many modes and learning opportunities. You will have to play around with it to see what mode works best for you in order to get the most mileage for the time invested.
A couple issues that I had are there are some inconsistencies (I don’t want to spoil it for you, so perhaps you will find them on your own). The lessons are based on a vocabulary list. That is fine, but I would like to see more consistency within this list. For example, the first lesson talks about family members: mother, father, sister, brother, and university student.
Wait a minute, there’s something that doesn’t belong. This is annoying for me because my brain is hard-wired for structure and logic. And no, I cannot turn that off. I would have liked to see a group of folks doing or interacting in a specific place using related objects/people only.
A good lesson would be in the kitchen. This is very familiar to most of us, we understand the concept, we know the common objects, so as long as everyone and everything is clearly labeled, then this would work very well to develop a series of lessons going from easy to more difficult.
I liked some of the games in the Byki Activies tab (Vocabulary section): Whirl Wind, Concentration, and Four Square were engaging. In the Reading section, I liked the Unscramble (i.e. drag the words into the correct place of the sentence). These activities help reinforce the vocabulary list that you are working on, understanding grammar, common phrases, and so forth.
There is also a microphone section where you can record yourself saying the words and phrases from the current vocabulary list. This is useful to help you fine tune your pronunciations, now you will have to get past the issue of hearing your own voice…just don’t dwell on it and just try to see the benefits.
If you go through the lessons a few times, it will start to become more natural. There will come a time when you will not have to force yourself to understand the words and it will start to make sense.
I would say that overall this is a nice program. It tries to give students multiple learning opportunities using a variety of stimuli. Now, since learning is personal and each and everyone has different requirements, then you will have to play around with the software and see which techniques seem best for you. You may even find, for example, that this program is great for reading but it may not provide enough help in other areas like speaking or writing, etc.
This is a common problem, so you may have to employ a number of approaches to meet your objectives. In other words, you may have to go through this program a few times and perhaps you may need additional resources as well.
No matter what, French is a challenging language to learn if you are an adult (i.e. 18 or older), and you’ve only been speaking American English all of your life. There is no quick fix if you want to learn this language you will have to make an effort and put in the time.
If you are trying to answer the question: Why Learn French – there are all sorts of reasons; vacations, business, meeting with friends or relatives, etc.
The Transparent French Complete Edition would make an excellent gift for your college bound kids, or for yourself to prepare for a vacation or business trip. The program is pretty straight forward and simple to use. You just have to make a consistent effort and practice as much as you can. If you do, then you will see positive results.
