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200 hours of French

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FuroraCeltica
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6869 days ago

1187 posts - 1427 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French

 
 Message 9 of 176
15 February 2008 at 11:07am | IP Logged 
Start 17:16 Finish 17:46

Subjects irregular ER verbs

I studied the sub groups of irregular ER verbs, referencing between French Verb Drills, 501 French verbs and Barrons French Grammar. Basically, there are 6 groups

CER

These verbs take a ç before a, so easy if you know French spelling/sound rules

GER

These verbs keep the letter e from the verb ending, again, easy to understand if you know French spelling/sound rules

E-ER

These verbs become è-er in the present and future tenses

é-er

These verbs become è-er in the boot pattern (in the present tense only)

eter/eler

These verbs double the t/l consonant in the boot pattern in the present tense, and double in all cases in the future tense

The most interesting event in today's study came when I looked at YER verbs. At first, it seemed simple: just keep the i before e. However, I noticed one such verb (payer) didn't when I cross referenced it. It now seems that ayer verbs have an option of ie or ye spelling, whilst uyer and oyer verbs don't have this optional spelling.

Positives

* Very quickly understood the patterns
* I was pleased to be taking the French spelling/sound rules for granted now
* was happy to have cross referenced the ayer verbs to check, and identified important pattern with ayer verbs as opposed to uyer and oyer which at first are related to them (in that they are also in the yer ending group)

Room for improvement

* committing these rules to memory
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vanityx3
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6465 days ago

331 posts - 326 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 10 of 176
15 February 2008 at 12:23pm | IP Logged 
FuroraCeltica wrote:
Start 17:16 Finish 17:46


é-er

These verbs become è-er in the boot pattern (in the present tense only)


The most interesting event in today's study came when I looked at YER verbs. At first, it seemed simple: just keep the i before e. However, I noticed one such verb (payer) didn't when I cross referenced it. It now seems that ayer verbs have an option of ie or ye spelling, whilst uyer and oyer verbs don't have this optional spelling.

Positives

* Very quickly understood the patterns
* I was pleased to be taking the French spelling/sound rules for granted now
* was happy to have cross referenced the ayer verbs to check, and identified important pattern with ayer verbs as opposed to uyer and oyer which at first are related to them (in that they are also in the yer ending group)

Room for improvement

* committing these rules to memory



Bonne Chance.

The boot pattern (or shoe pattern) is a good way to learn, this is how I learned my French verbs when I was starting.

Your doing very well and on the right track. I sure you know this, but aller is the only true irregular ER verb, the other verbs following certain spelling changes for pronounciation purposes. Envoyer is irregular in it's futur simple form (don't know if you've learned this tense yet)

Some verbs to watch are mener and lever, because they require an è in present and future tense and present subjunctive using the boot pattern.
Je   lève
Tu   lèves     &nbs p;    
Il/Elle/On lève       
Nous levons
Vous levez
Ils/Ells lèvent

About verbs like payer, it's more common to see the i before the e way like you said. The other way is less common.

Edited by vanityx3 on 15 February 2008 at 12:27pm

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FuroraCeltica
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6869 days ago

1187 posts - 1427 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French

 
 Message 11 of 176
26 February 2008 at 3:33am | IP Logged 
Start Time: 21:11 Finish Time 21:41

I looked over the irregular ER verbs, and got 11 out of 20 correct on a unit test. Of the nine I got wrong, 6 were é-er verbs. So, I went over them ruthlessly, and managed to master them. Basically, the é becomes a è in the boot pattern. Once I'd understood this, things looked better.

Positives:

* Good grasp of most irregular ER patterns
* Quickly improved my é-er verbs when examined again

Room for improvement

* Initial difficulty with é-er verbs
1 person has voted this message useful



FuroraCeltica
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6869 days ago

1187 posts - 1427 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French

 
 Message 12 of 176
27 February 2008 at 2:36am | IP Logged 
Start 18:11 Finish 18:29

I looked at verbs which end in "oir", such as devoir, vouloir, savoir and pouvoir. I managed to see some patterns with them

pouvoir and vouloir have a boot type pattern

(v/p)eux   
(v/p)eux
(v/p)eut (v/p)eu(l/v)ent

devoir also has a boot type pattern

dois devons
dois devez
doit doivent

savoir has what I call a half-and-half pattern. That is, on side of the column, its pattern is different

sais savons
sais savez
sait savent

Positives

* Identified patterns well, and quickly
* Made good use of resources that covered this topic (esp. Hugo French 3 Months)

Negatives

* None really, although an interruption prevented me from getting a full 30 mins (not too big a deal)
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vanityx3
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6465 days ago

331 posts - 326 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 13 of 176
27 February 2008 at 8:50am | IP Logged 
FuroraCeltica wrote:
Start 18:11 Finish 18:29



savoir has what I call a half-and-half pattern. That is, on side of the column, its pattern is different

sais savons
sais savez
sait savent



Try not to look for many patterns with savoir, it is a pretty irregular verb throughout most tenses. The same for pouvoir, vouloir, and devoir, it's is probably better to actually not try to find patterns with these verbs because they are irregular throughout many tenses and patterns won't be helpful.

Here are somemore completly irregular IR verbs:
venir, mourir, tenir, recevoir, assesoir, courir, valoir.   

These verbs are best learned without trying to associate patterns with them.
Bonne Chance
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FuroraCeltica
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6869 days ago

1187 posts - 1427 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French

 
 Message 14 of 176
03 March 2008 at 10:20am | IP Logged 
10:14 - 10:45

I did an exercise 28 in Hugos French in 3 Months.

Positives

* remembered most of the rules, and spotted a pattern (le/la/les/l' 4 verb 4 number/gender agreement with the l's

Room for improvement

* confused lui/leur, though I did grasp the concept upon closer examination
1 person has voted this message useful



FuroraCeltica
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6869 days ago

1187 posts - 1427 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French

 
 Message 15 of 176
03 March 2008 at 10:23am | IP Logged 
11:05-11:30

I did the end of unit assesment in Hugos French in 3 Months. I felt it went pretty well.

Positives

* Good grasp of imperfect tense, and managed to distinguish between it and conditional tense (don't chop down the coulds/woulds/woods)
* managed to remember difference between avant/devant in prepositions

Room for improvement

* Some difficulty with irregular verbs esp faire
1 person has voted this message useful



FuroraCeltica
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6869 days ago

1187 posts - 1427 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French

 
 Message 16 of 176
08 April 2008 at 10:20am | IP Logged 
Well, things have been going well since I last blogged here. I have probably done about 7-8 more hours of learning. I have also had a number of very positive encounters where I have used French accurately and successfully.

The other day I met a French woman, and spoke to her for about 1 hour, and it went very well (linguistically that is!). I also had a problem with my PC at work, and whilst the IT support are English speaking as well, I decided I was going to make the effort, and had a 5-10 minute chat in French, explaining the problem I had, and it was successfully resolved. Made me feel very good about myself :)

So far, I have noticed my French is progressing strongly in self taught courses and review questions, my results hover around 70-75%, with occassional scores either side of that. I am still quite critical and hope to improve this.

Since I started this, I have around 15.5 hours of self taught time completed. This does not include time spent reading French for pleasure/work, or for speaking to real life speakers.

Edited by FuroraCeltica on 08 April 2008 at 10:25am



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