Short Course in Reading French by Brickman, Celia -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Half title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Introduction

A. Guide to pronunciation B. Cognates

1. Nouns, Articles, and Prepositions, and the Principle of Agreement

1.1. Nouns, Gender, and the Principle of Agreement 1.2. Articles 1.3. Gendered Nouns 1.4. The Plural of Nouns 1.5. Prepositions 1.6. Contraction of Prepositions with Definite Articles 1.7. The Partitive and Negative Uses of DE 1.8. The Multiple Meanings of DES

2. Verbs, Subject Pronouns, and the Present Tense/Présent De l’Indicatif

2.1. Infinitives and Verb Families 2.2. Subject Pronouns 2.3. The Present Tense/Présent de l’Indicatif of -ER Verbs 2.4. Translation of the Present Tense/Présent de l’Indicatif 2.5. The Negative Form of the Present Tense 2.6. Two Important Irregular Verbs: AVOIR, to Have, and ÊTRE, to Be 2.7. A Third Irregular Verb: ALLER, to Go 2.8. Formation of Simple Questions 2.9. Present Tense/Présent de l’Indicatif of –RE and –IR Verbs 2.10. Another Important Irregular Verb: FAIRE, to Do, to Make 2.11. The Historic Present in French

3. Adjectives and Adverbs

3.1. Adjectives 3.2. Adverbs 3.3. Comparative and Superlative Forms of Adjectives and Adverbs 3.4. Translation Passage: Le Corbeau et le Renard

4. Reflexive Verbs

4.1. Reflexive Pronouns and the Formation of Reflexive Verbs 4.2. The Negative Form of Reflexive Verbs 4.3. Various Ways in Which to Translate Reflexive Verbs

5. The Imperfect/l’Imparfait

5.1. Explanation of the Tense 5.2. Formation of the Imparfait 5.3. Translations of the Imparfait 5.4. AVOIR and ÊTRE in the Imparfait 5.5. The Negative Form of the Imparfait 5.6. Reflexive Verbs in the Imparfait 5.7. Translation Passage: La Charte de Médecins Sans Frontières

6. Past Participles/Les Participes Passés

6.1. Formation of Past Participles 6.2. Past Participles as Adjectives 6.3. Past Participles as Predicate Adjectives

7. Le Passé Composé/The Compound Past

7.1. Explanation of the Tense 7.2. Rules Governing the Formation and Translation of the Passé Composé 7.3. The Passé Composé in the Negative Form 7.4. AVOIR and ÊTRE in the Passé Composé 7.5. The Passé Composé Used Together with the Imparfait 7.6. The Passé Composé with Adverbs 7.7. Past Participles Used As Predicate Adjectives in the Present Tense Compared with Past Participles Used in the Passé Composé to Form the Past Tense 7.8. Translation Passage: Le Petit Chaperon rouge

8. Direct and Indirect Object Pronouns

8.1. Recognizing Objects in Transitive Sentences 8.2. Direct Object Pronouns: Meaning and Placement 8.3. LE, LA, and LES As Direct Object Pronouns 8.4. Direct Object Pronouns in the Passé Composé: Placement and Agreement 8.5. Indirect Object Pronouns: Meaning and Placement 8.6. The Partitive Pronoun EN 8.7. The Pronoun Y 8.8. The Order of Object Pronouns When There Are More Than One of Them 8.9. Translation Passage: La Belle au bois dormant

9. Additional Forms of the Negative

9.1. General Pattern 9.2. Irregularities in Various Forms of the Negative 9.3. Translation Passage: Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen de 1789

10. More Irregular Yet Common Verbs

10.1. Venir (to come) and Tenir (to hold) 10.2. -OIR Verbs

11. Impersonal Pronouns, Demonstrative Pronouns, Impersonal Verbs, and an Introduction to the Word QUE

11.1. Demonstrative Pronoun CE 11.2. Demonstrative Pronouns CECI and CELA 11.3. Demonstrative Pronoun CELUI 11.4. The Impersonal Pronoun IL 11.5. Impersonal Verbs 11.6. The Various Uses of QUE 11.7. Translation Passage: Senghor, Négritude et humanisme

12. The Future and Conditional Tenses/Le Futur Simple et le Conditionnel

12.1. The Future and Conditional Stem 12.2. The Future Tense/Le Futur Simple: Endings 12.3. The Near Future/Le Futur Proche 12.4. The Conditional Tense/Le Conditionnel 12.5. Translation Passage: Aimé Césaire, Cahier d’un retour au pays natal

13. Present Participles and Imperatives

13.1. Present Participles 13.2. Imperatives 13.3. Negative Imperatives 13.4. Imperatives with Disjunctive Pronouns and Object Pronouns; and Reflexive Imperatives 13.5. Translation Passage: Louis Riel, Journaux de guerre et de prison

14. The Passive Voice

14.1. The Passive Voice Formed by the Past Participle as a Predicate Adjective 14.2. Use of Reflexive Verbs to Form the Passive Voice 14.3. The Translation of the Subject Pronoun ON and Its Use to Form the Passive Voice 14.4. Translation Passage: Marcel Mauss, Essai sur le don

15. Le Passé Simple/The simple Past, or the Past Historic

15.1. The Passé Simple of -ER Verbs 15.2. The Passé Simple of -RE and -IR Verbs 15.3. Translation Passage: Louis Hémon, Maria Chapdelaine

16. Relative and Interrogative Pronouns and Adjectives

16.1. Relative Pronouns QUI and QUE 16.2. Uses of the Adjective QUEL 16.3. The Relative and Prepositional Pronoun LEQUEL; the Prepositional Pronoun QUI 16.4. The Relative Pronoun DONT 16.5. The Interrogative Pronouns LEQUEL, QUI, and QUE 16.6. Questions Formed with Both Interrogative and Relative Pronouns QUI and QUE 16.7. Translation Exercise: Michel de Certeau, L’Invention du quotidien

17. More Compound Tenses

17.1. Le Plus-que-parfait/The Pluperfect 17.2. Le Futur Antérieur/The Future Perfect 17.3. Le Conditionnel Passé/The Conditional Perfect 17.4. Le Passé Antérieur 17.5. Translation Passage: Montesquieu, Essai sur le goût

18. The Causative FAIRE

18.1. The Causative FAIRE, an Idiomatic Construction 18.2. Translation Passage: Durkheim, Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse 18.3. Translation Passage: Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques

19. Le Subjonctif/The Subjunctive

19.1. When Is the Subjunctive Used in French? 19.2. The Four Tenses of the Subjunctive 19.3. Translation Passage: Molière, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme 19.4. Translation Passage: Pascal, Pensées

20. Modal Verbs and Other Common Idiomatic Verbal Constructions

20.1. Modal Verbs 20.2. Other Idiomatic Verbal Constructions 20.3. Translation Passage: de Tocqueville, De la Démocratie en Amérique 20.4. Translation Passage: Roland Barthes, Le Plaisir du texte

21. Changes of Tense with Idioms of Time

21.1. DEPUIS 21.2. IL Y A … QUE, ÇA FAIT… QUE, VOILÀ… QUE 21.3. Translation Passage: René Descartes, Méditations métaphysiques 21.4. Translation Passage: Marcel Proust, Du Côté de chez Swann

22. Common Idiomatic Expressions

22.1. TOUT—Grammatical Functions and Meanings 22.2. Idioms with TOUT 22.3. AUSSI; AUSSI BIEN QUE 22.4. Combinative Conjunctions ET… ET; OU… OU; SOIT… SOIT; NI… NI 22.5. Idioms with METTRE/MIS 22.6. The Several Meanings of MÊME 22.7. The Several Meanings of SI 22.8. The Several Meanings of ENCORE 22.9. Translation Passage: Pierre Bourdieu, Pour une Anthropologie réflexive 22.10. Translation Passage: Simone Weil, Les Besoins de l’âme

23. Configurations of the Infinitive

23.1. Verbs Followed by the Infinitive 23.2. The Infinitive After Prepositions 23.3. The Infinitive After the Preposition APRÈS 23.4. The Infinitive After Adjectives 23.5. The Infinitive After Nouns 23.6. Translation Passage: Mbembe, « Notes provisoires sur la postcolonie »

24. Some Verb Families

24.1. -OIR Verbs 24.2. Families of Verbs Whose Members Are All Conjugated in the Same Way

25. Further Translation Passages

25.1. Victor Hugo, Les Misérables 25.2. Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary 25.3. Gabrielle Roy, Bonheur d’occasion 25.4. Jean-Paul Sartre, L’Existentialisme est un humanisme 25.5. Simone de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe 25.6. Albert Camus, Le Mythe de Sisyphe 25.7. Paul Ricœur, Le Conflit des interprétations 25.8. Édouard Glissant, Philosophie de la relation 25.9. Roger-Pol Droit, Michel Foucault: Entretiens 25.10. Julia Kristeva, Pouvoirs de l’horreur 25.11. Nicolas Bourriaud, Radicant: Pour une esthétique de la globalisation 25.12. Michel Tremblay, Le Cahier bleu 25.13. Patrick Chamoiseau, Texaco 25.14. Abdourahman A. Waberi, Passage des larmes

Appendix

Pronoun Chart (Indicative) Verb Tense Chart I (Indicative) Irregular Verb Tense Chart I (Indicative) Verb Tense Chart II (Indicative) Irregular Verb Tense Chart II

Index

← Prev
Back
Next →

← Prev
Back
Next →