French students on an intermediate level can benefit immensely from Laura K. Lawless' Intermediate French for Dummies (Wiley Publishing, Inc. 2008) as it offers helpful tips, exercises and advise on French grammar. One of the great aspects of this book is the fact that it can be used as a reference book helping students to find specific information without reading the book in a chronological order.
It also has a useful index as well as an English/French dictionary and visa versa. The book looks at the many components of the French language including its building blocks, different tenses as well as the most common mistakes made by anglophones.
The Building Blocks of French
In the first part of the book Lawless deconstructs the different parts of the English language and compare it to its French equivalents. Many practical examples are gives to indicate nouns, gender, different articles, adjectives and adverbs. Numbers, dates and time in French are also explained. This section of the book highlights linguistic concepts that many English speakers might have forgotten and also clarifies intimidating parts of the French language such as possessive pronouns.
For example, to illustrate the partitive article, the following sentence: Je veux du gâteau (I want some cake) is compared with another sentence: Je veux le gâteau (I want the cake) to indicate the difference. Lawless explains that partitive articles are used with uncountable things such as food that one only takes a part of and do not exist in English. Partitive articles in French can take one of three forms depending on the gender of the noun. With a masculine noun (du) is used, with a femine noun( de la) is used and for plural (des) is used.
The Different Tenses in French
Lawless provides helpful information regarding an entire range of French tenses including the past, the present, the conditional and the future and shows how to conjugate the different subject pronouns. French adjectives, idioms, pronouns and prepositions are also studied. Lawless explains the general rules that apply to the majority of verbs but also points out the exceptions to the rule in a way that is easy to understand and remember.
For example many students struggle to understand how to use être (to be) in French with and without direct objects, however she clearly explains the difference between the intransitive meaning with être and the transitive meaning with avoir (to have). Je suis descendu a midi (I went downstairs at noon) J'ai descendu le bébé (I took the baby downstairs).
The 10 Most Common Mistakes in French
By identifying the most common mistakes made by English speakers, Lawless provides a useful map of possible traps that French students can fall into. The mistakes range from misusing the auxiliary verbs in the passé composé and leaving out accents to not knowing the difference between tu and vous.
Another general mistake occurs when people attach the wrong meaning to French words that resemble English words, for example the verb blesser in French means to wound and not to bless as one might wrongly imagine. One of the most common verbs in French, avoir (to have) is often not used when it should be used or visa versa. Most Englsih speakers also struggle to remember that age in French is expressed differently than in English. In French one says: J'ai 28 ans (I have 28 years) but in English one says: I am 28 years old.
Lawless has a BA in International Studies and has studied French enthusiastically since the age of 10. She is the French Guide for About.com and has thereby established a valuable resource for French students. According to Lawless, French is a native language on 5 continents – millions of people in more than 30 countries speak it as a native language. Intermediate French for Dummies is simple enough to encourage students who are discouraged by the complexities of French but also detailed enough to keep motivated students focused.
Resource
Lawless, Laura K. Intermediate French for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing Inc. 2008, ISBN: 978-0-470-18768-5.
Nadine Visagie - I am a freelance journalist and full-time French student who currently live in the South of France with my fiancé. I graduated ...
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