An online, self-guided course for a person wishing to learn how to read French. Chapter 00 (see below) will tell you everything you need to get started. You will be directing yourself through this course, but if you have any questions, encounter any problems, or simply want to introduce yourself, feel free to contact the Professor.
Chapter 00
Introduction to doing this course online. Go here before doing anything else.
Chapter 01
Cognates, Faux amis, Gender, Definite Articles, Indefinite Articles (and Partitive), Regular Plurals of Nouns, Irregular Plurals of Nouns, Prepositions.
Chapter 02
Adjectives: Agreement, Position, Endings; Prepositions, Normally Preceding Adjectives, Expressions of Quantity, Possessive Adjectives, Numbers, Contractions.
Chapter 03
Infinitives and Past Participles of Regular Verbs, Adverbs, Comparison of Adverbs, À and De phrases, En and De phrases, Third-Person Present of Regular Verbs.
Chapter 04
Subject Pronouns, Reflexive Verbs, Dont, Adjectives, Infinitives, Il faut, Impersonal Verbs. Readings: Light, Sound, The Air, Psychologists At Work, Oxygen, Nitrogen, A Mathematical Mystery.
Chapter 05
The Negative (Negative Adverbs, Pronouns, Adjectives, Donjunctions); The Ne…que Construction; The Irregular Verb tenir. Readings: Gravity, Mathematics, the Practical Mind of the Americans.
Chapter 06
Subject Pronouns, Present Tense of Regular Verbs, Future & Conditional Tenses of Regular Verbs. Readings: The Calculation of Probabilities, Critique of Rousseau’s Ideas about the Education of Children (Mme de Staël).
Chapter 07
Special future and conditional stems, Past tenses, Translation of the imperfect tense. Readings: The Solitary Walker (Rousseau), the Solar System, A Lively Mind.
Chapter 08
Direct and indirect object pronouns, Irregular verb être, Compound tenses, “House-of-Being” verbs. Readings: Atomic Submarines, The Sea, The Stranger (Albert Camus). Essential Word Review II.
Chapter 09
Present participles, Comparison of adjectives, The definite demonstrative pronoun (celui), The verb prendre, The verb faire. Readings: In Switzerland (Mme de Staël), Political Authority (Diderot), Dolphins (Cousteau-Diolé)
Chapter 10
Inverted word order in French (the form “que” followed directly by the verb), Causative faire, The irregular verbs mettre, savoir, voir, and pouvoir. Readings: The New World: Impressions of a Frenchman (Tocqueville), Surfaces of Plane Figures, Proverb.
Chapter 11
Supplemental auxiliary verbs, The pronoun lequel, The pronominal adverb en, Irregular verbs vouloir, devoir, aller. Readings: Thorium and Uraniam 233, Sociology.
Chapter 12
Past definite (passé simple), Expressions of time (depuis, il y a), Irregular verb venir, The immediate past. Readings: The American War (1775-83), Sciences in the Seventeenth Century.
Chapter 13
Relative pronouns, Gender as it affects meaning, The adjective tout, The verb ouvrir. Readings: Generative linguistics, Candide, or Optimism (Voltaire).
Chapter 14
Short adjectives with variable meaning, Possessive adjectives, The pronominal adverb y, Conjunctions, The Author’s Irregular Stem Index. Readings: An Interview between the Pope and the Emperor (Alfred de Vigny), Professional Orientation and Selection.
Chapter 15
Disjunctive pronouns, Imperatives, The word aussi. Readings: A Critique of Tom Wolfe, Logic Circuits.
Chapter 16
Subjunctive mood, Possessive pronouns, The verbs partir and se servir de. Readings: Mass and Energy, Napoleon’s Entrance into Moscow (Chateaubriand).
Chapter 17
Pronominal verbs (again!), Interrogatives, Inversion, Ne without pas. Readings: Islam, Le Passe-muraille (Marcel Aymé), Biological Oceanography.
Chapter 18
A chapter beyond what is included in the original book, wherein the Professor completes what the Author has said about the subjunctive and conditional moods. Also, he provides a few more texts for reading practice.
