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Copyright

Published by Collins

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First edition 2017

© Paul Noble 2017

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Acknowledgements

Images from Shutterstock.

MANAGING EDITOR

Maree Airlie

CONTRIBUTORS

Alice Grandison

Jennifer Baird

Laurence Larroche

FOR THE PUBLISHER

Gerry Breslin

Holly Tarbet

Kevin Robbins

Vaila Donnachie

Find out more about HarperCollins and the environment at

www.harpercollins.co.uk/green

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

People who feel confused by the way languages are normally taught

People who are amazed by just how closely grammar books resemble furniture assembly instructions

People who studied French at school

People coming back to the language after a break

People who’ve listened to one of Paul Noble’s audio courses

People who haven’t listened to one of Paul Noble’s audio courses

Who is this book for?

People curious about whether they can learn a language

People who didn’t study French at school

People who didn’t like how languages were taught at school

People learning French for the first time

People who think they can’t learn a foreign language

People who know no French at all

People who know some French already

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Footnotes

About the Publisher

Did you know you already speak French?

Did you know you already speak French?

Did you know you already speak French? That you speak it every day? That you read and write it every day? That you use it with your friends, with your family, at work, down the post office – even in the shower when you read the label on the shampoo bottle?

Were you aware of that fact?

Well, even if you weren’t, it’s nevertheless true.

Of course, you might not have realised at the time that what you were reading / saying / writing was actually French but I can prove to you that it was. Just take a look at these words below:

Have you read through them? Yes? Good.

Now, answer me this, are they:

A: English words

B: French words

C: Both

Well, if you’re reading this book then you’re clearly already a highly intelligent person with good judgement, so you will have correctly chosen “C”.

Yes, these are words that we have in English but they have come into English from French and they are, of course, still in use in French today. And these are by no means isolated examples of French words in English but rather they are merely the tip of a truly enormous iceberg.

In fact, around half of all English words have come into our language via French. Yes, that’s right, half!

If we begin using these words, together with an extremely subtle method that shows you how to put them into sentences in a way that’s almost effortless, then becoming a competent French speaker becomes really quite easy.

The only thing that you will need to do to make this happen is to follow the three simple rules printed on the following pages. These rules will explain to you how to use this book so that you can begin unlocking the French language for yourself in a matter of hours.

Well, what are you waiting for? Turn the page!

Rule Number 1:

Don’t skip anything!

Using this book is extremely simple – and highly effective – if you follow its three simple rules.

If you don’t want to follow them, then I recommend that, instead of reading the book, you use it to prop up a wobbly coffee table, as it won’t work if you don’t follow the rules. Now get ready – because here’s the first one!

Each and every little thing in this book has been put where it is, in a very particular order, for a very particular reason. So, if the book asks you to read or do something, then do it! Who’s the teacher after all, you or me, eh?

Also, each part of the book builds on and reinforces what came before it. If you start skipping sections, you will end up confused and lost. Instead, you should just take your time and gently work your way through the book at your own pace – but without skipping anything!

Step by Step

Rule Number 2:

Don’t try to memorise anything!

Trying to jam things into your head is boring and it doesn’t work. People often cram for tests and then forget everything the moment they walk out of the exam. Clearly, we don’t want that happening here.

Instead, I have designed this book so that any word or idea taught in it will come up multiple times. You don’t need to worry about trying to remember or memorise anything because the necessary repetition is actually already built in. In fact, trying to memorise what you’re learning is likely to hinder rather than help your progress.

So, just work your way through the book in a relaxed way and, if you happen to forget something, don’t worry because, as I say, you will be reminded of it again, multiple times, later on.

Rule Number 3:

Cover up!

No, I’m not being a puritan grandmother and telling you to put on a long-sleeved cardigan. Instead, I’m asking you to take a bookmark or piece of paper and use it to cover up any blue text that you come across as you work your way through the book.

These blue bits are the answers to the various riddles, challenges and questions that I will pose as I lead you into the French language. If you read these answers without at least trying to work out the solutions first, then the book simply won’t work for you.

So, make sure to use something to cover up the bits of blue text in the book while you have a go at trying to work out the answers. It doesn’t matter if you sometimes get them wrong because it is by trying to think out the answers that you will learn how to use the language.

Trust me on this, you will see that it works from the very first page!

Take a look at the page on the right to see how to use your bookmark or piece of paper to cover up correctly.

CHAPTER 1

I spent the weekend in Paris… and it was lovely

“I spent the weekend in Paris… and it was lovely.” Not such a complicated sentence in English, is it? Or is it…?

I have taught many people over the years, ranging from those who know no French at all, through to those who may have studied French for several years at school. Yet whether they have studied the language before or not, almost none of them tend to be able to construct a basic sentence like this when I first meet them.

Admittedly, they might know how to say other far less useful things, like: “I’m 37 years old and have two sisters and a goldfish” – an unusual conversation opener from my perspective – but they can’t say what they did at the weekend.

Well, in just a few minutes’ time, you will be able to do this – even if you’ve never learnt any French before.

Just remember though: don’t skip anything, don’t waste your time trying to memorise anything but do use your book mark to cover up anything blue you find on each page.

Okay now, let’s begin!

“I have” in French is:

J’ai

(pronounced “zhay” ¹ )

And the word for “visited” in French is:

visité

(pronounced “visit-ay”)

With this in mind, how would you say “I have visited”?

J’ai visité (zhay visit-ay)

Did you remember to cover up the blue words while you worked out the answer?

You will almost certainly have heard of the famous cathedral “Notre-Dame” in Paris. So, how do you think you would say “I have visited Notre-Dame”?

J’ai visité Notre-Dame.

(zhay visit-ay not-ruh darm)

The word “Paris” in French is pronounced “pa-ree”.

Bearing this pronunciation in mind, how would you say “I have visited Paris”?

J’ai visité Paris.

(zhay visit-ay pa-ree)

Now, if I were to ask you how you would say simply “I visited Paris” rather than “I have visited Paris” you might not think you knew how to say that yet. However, you will be glad to hear that I disagree with you because, in French, talking about what has happened in the past is far easier than it is in English. This is because “I visited Paris” and “I have visited Paris” are said in exactly the same way in French. I’ll show you what I mean.

Again, how do you say “I have visited Paris”?

J’ai visité Paris.

(zhay visit-ay pa-ree)

I want you to try to say “I visited Paris”, bearing in mind that what you’re going to say is exactly the same as what you just said for “I have visited Paris”. So, “I visited Paris” will be:

J’ai visité Paris.

(zhay visit-ay pa-ree)

As you can see, it is exactly the same. The French do not make a distinction between the two. Effectively, you have got two English past tenses for the price of one. And actually it is even better than that.

You can now already correctly say “I have visited Paris” and “I visited Paris” because they are exactly the same in French. With this in mind, do you think you can make a lucky guess about how you might say “I did visit Paris”? Just take a wild guess!

J’ai visité Paris.

(zhay visit-ay pa-ree)

Once again, it is exactly the same in French. “I have visited Paris”, “I visited Paris” and “I did visit Paris” are all said in precisely the same way. In fact this is one of the many wonderful things about French. You get three English past tenses for the price of one in French. “I have visited Paris”, “I visited Paris” and “I did visit Paris” are all simply:

J’ai visité Paris.

(zhay visit-ay pa-ree)

Let’s try this 3 for the price of 1 Special Offer again now but this time with a different example.

To say “I have spent” in French, you will literally say “I have passed”, which in French is:

J’ai passé

(zhay pass-ay)

“The weekend” in French is:

le week-end

(luh weekend)

So how would you say “I have spent the weekend” (literally “I have passed the weekend”)?

J’ai passé le week-end

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend)

And how would you say simply “I spent the weekend” / “I passed the weekend”?

J’ai passé le week-end

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend)

Just as “I visited Paris” and “I have visited Paris” are no different from one another in French, so “I spent the weekend” and “I have spent the weekend” are also no different from one another.

How do you think you would you say “I did spend the weekend”?

J’ai passé le week-end

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend)

Again, you have three English past tenses for the price of one in French.

“I spent the weekend”, “I have spent the weekend”,

“I did spend the weekend” – it’s all the same in French:

“J’ai passé le week-end”.

“In Paris” in French is:

à Paris

(a pa-ree)

So how would you say “I have spent the weekend in Paris”?

J’ai passé le week-end à Paris.

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree)

And how would you say “I spent the weekend in Paris”?

J’ai passé le week-end à Paris.

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree)

And “I did spend the weekend in Paris”?

J’ai passé le week-end à Paris.

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree)

Time to steal some words!

Word Robbery Number 1

Let’s forget our weekend in Paris for just one moment now and start stealing some words. Around half the words in modern English have come into our language via French. Once you can identify them, you will have a large, instant, usable vocabulary in French. After all, why bother learning French vocabulary when you can simply steal it?

The first group of words we are going to steal are words that end in “ic” and “ical” in English.

Words like “romantic”, “exotic”, “illogical”, “typical” and so on.

There are around 750 of these in English and they are the same in French, except that in French they end in “ique” (pronounced “eek”), becoming “romantique”, “exotique”, “illogique”, “typique” and so on.

Let’s now see how we can work these into our weekend in Paris and expand our range of expressions in French!

Words stolen so far 750

Bearing in mind what we’ve just learnt in the Word Robbery above, let’s try changing the “ic” on the end of the English word “romantic” into “ique”.

Doing this, what will “romantic” be in French?

romantique

(roe-mon-teek)

And so what will “fantastic” be in French?

fantastique

(fon-tass-teek)

Let’s now try doing the same with “ical”. Change the “ical” on the end of “typical” into “ique”.

Doing this, what will “typical” be in French?

typique

(tip-eek)

And what will “political” be?

politique

(po-lee-teek)

Let’s now try using these “ique” words to expand our range of expressions and to make some more complex sentences in French.

“It was” in French is:

C’était

(set-ay)

So, how would you say “it was political”?

C’était politique.

(set-ay po-lee-teek)

And how would you say “it was typical”?

C’était typique.

(set-ay tip-eek)

How about “it was romantic”?

C’était romantique.

(set-ay roe-mon-teek)

Finally, how would you say “it was fantastic”?

C’était fantastique.

(set-ay fon-tass-teek)

Now, do you remember how to say “I have visited” in French?

J’ai visité

(zhay visit-ay)

And what about “I visited”?

J’ai visité

(zhay visit-ay)

And “I did visit”?

J’ai visité

(zhay visit-ay)

Do you remember how to say “I have spent”, “I did spend”, “I spent” (literally “I have passed”)?

J’ai passé

(zhay pass-ay)

And how would you say “I spent the weekend”?

J’ai passé le week-end

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend)

And how do you say “in Paris” in French?

à Paris

(a pa-ree)

So how would you say “I spent the weekend in Paris”?

J’ai passé le week-end à Paris.

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree)

And once more, what was “fantastic” in French?

fantastique

(fon-tass-teek)

And do you remember how to say “it was”?

c’était

(set-ay)

So, how would you say “it was fantastic”?

C’était fantastique.

(set-ay fon-tass-teek)

The word for “and” in French is:

et

(ay)

So, how would you say “…and it was fantastic”?

…et c’était fantastique

(ay set-ay fon-tass-teek)

Putting what you’ve learnt together, say “I spent the weekend in Paris and it was fantastic.” Take your time to work this out, bit by bit, there’s no rush.

J’ai passé le week-end à Paris… et c’était fantastique.

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree… ay set-ay fon-tass-teek)

Of course, perhaps you would prefer to describe your weekend in a different way. Perhaps it was more “lovely” than it was “fantastic”, so let’s try that. The French might express the idea that such a weekend was “lovely” by saying that it had been “very agreeable”.

“Very agreeable” in French is:

très agréable

(trez ag-ray-arb-luh)

So, how would you say “it was very agreeable” / “it was lovely” in French?

C’était très agréable.

(set-ay trez ag-ray-arb-luh)

Finally, how would you say “I spent the weekend in Paris… and it was lovely”?

J’ai passé le week-end à Paris… et c’était très agréable.

(zhay pass-ay luh weekend a pa-ree… ay set-ay trez ag-ray-arb-luh)

You can now construct the sentence with which we started the chapter – and, as you will soon discover, this is just the very beginning of your journey into French!

Building Blocks

You just learnt how to say (amongst other things) “I spent the weekend in Paris… and it was lovely”.

Now that you can do this, you are going to move on to expanding what you can say through the use of additional “building blocks”.

The new building blocks you are going to learn will allow you to begin instantly expanding your range of expressions in the French language.

So far, some of the building blocks you have already learnt include:

You already know how to use these building blocks to construct a sentence. Once again, how would you say “I have spent the weekend in Paris”?