My French Notes

Michel Thomas is ok to learn French with, but his idea that you don't have to remember anything is rubbish - you have to just go over this stuff again and again. It often isn't practical to do this just from the CD - usually I will be listening to it in the car, so you can't keep stopping it, starting it, going back over sections etc.

Anyway, to help me learn French I tried to write down what was on the CDs, so I could refer to the material again more easily. Here they are in Microsoft Word documents:

MichelThomasCD1.doc
MichelThomasCD2.doc
MichelThomasCD3.doc
MichelThomasCD4.doc
MichelThomasCD5.doc
MichelThomasCD6.doc
MichelThomasCD7.doc

I see transcripts are also available from geocities.com/joekane765, but these were done by someone else.

What I then did with the transcripts was to create a test out of them. To try the test, click below.
Take a French Test

Learning French

Grammar

Before learning a foreign language such as French it is very useful to have grasped some of the basics of English grammar. There has been some debate as to whether children should learn a foreign language at primary school - the important point to remember is that if children were taught grammar at primary school, then they would find learning another language after primary school much easier.

Most people know verbs, nouns and adjectives:

Verbs are doing words. In the course Michel Thomas defines verbs as any word which you can put "to" before, such as "to know", "to see", "to have".
Nouns are naming words. In the course Michel Thomas defines nouns as any word which you can put "the": such as "the bike", "the house", "the car".
Adjectives are describing words. In the course Michel Thomas defines adjectives as any words before which you put "is" or "am", such as "is tall", "is green" and "am beautiful".

Sometimes Michel Thomas talks about "the full verb", meaning the "-er" form. This is actually called the infinitive form.
A pronoun is a replacement for a noun. The pronouns we are most familiar with are likely the subject pronouns. In English, these are I, you, he, she, it, we, one, they They are used in place of a full noun. Instead of saying, "Steve went to the store. Steve did Steve's homework. Steve went to Steve's bed.", we say things like "I went to the store. I did my homework. I went to my bed."

Note that Michel's rule that "the" precedes a noun doesn't work for pronouns, you can't say "the I" or "the he" (they don't work for names either, "the Steve"), but they can function in sentences the same as nouns.

Adjectives actually modify nouns, for example:

Tom is an excellent singer.
I bought a comfortable chair.
She's thinking about buying a new house.

Adverbs Modify Verbs, Adjectives and Other Adverbs, and typically end in "-ly"

Jack drove carelessly.
Tom played the match effortlessly.
Jason complained about his classes constantly.

Modal verbs
Modal verbs are for example may, can, must, should, need. They express an ability, permission, wish etc. to do something. (I may, can, must swim.) On CD 3 Michel Thomas says when one verb follows another in a sentence, the second and third verbs are the "full verbs" (infinitive form), and he gives as examples "It can start now" (Ça peut commencer maintenant) and "It must start now" (Ça doit commencer maintenant). Note that modal verbs don't follow his rule of any word we can put a "to" before is a verb - we can't say "to can" or "to must", however they are still verbs.

Rules of Language

Michel Thomas will often say you have to say things a certain way in French, or explain certain French rules. A living language is actually very complex and changing and it is actually very difficult to say that something is never said a certain way.

For example I came across a web site for teaching English, http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-m_infinitive-ing.htm. This contains the following interesting discussion:
For example, only one of the following sentences is correct. Which one?

* I dislike working late. (???)
* I dislike to work late. (???)

Most people who speak English would be surprised that only one of these sentences is correct. We would very easily understand either sentence. The same applies to French "rules". Even if you broke some of the "rules" discussed by Michel Thomas, French people would still understand you. Here are some examples:

When asking a question, Michel says it is important to invert the word order. So for example "Vous parlez" (You speak) has to change to "Parlez-vous" (do you speak") to form a question. While this is true for written French, in spoken French it is much more common to not invert the word order, and instead simply inflect the voice to indicate a question, as we do in English. So "do you speak French" should be spoken as "vous parlez Français?" rather than the more usually taught "parlez-vous Français".
On CD 2 Michel explains that "autre" (other) should not be used when ordering more of the same thing, instead "encore" should be used. However when asking for more drink in a bar the French may say "autre", meaning another drink.
On CD 3 Michel often repeats "In French there is no 'am-ing' no 'is-ing' no 'are-ing'” - in other words in French you don't say "I am going to speak" you would simply say "I speak", however it is perfectly possible to do this in French, using the phrase "En train de", meaning "in the process of", followed by the infinitive form of the verb - so "I am going to speak" in French would be "je suis en train de parler".

So to conclude: while it is useful to keep things simple when learning something, don't forget that many "rules" are ignored in real life!

John Mann
Last updated 29th April 2007
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