Mazet - Correct your French blunders: how to avoid 99% of the common mistakes made by learners of French

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who are willing to go the extra mile to learn
this beautiful but difficult language.
Especially my students here in Texas!

This book identifies the most common trouble spots for English speakers learning French. It provides a basis for understanding why these trouble spots cause difficulty, and offers guidance and practice for avoiding potential blunders.

In the process of learning a foreign language, most errors occur when the learner transfers the patterns of his or her native language directly to the target language. The most effective way to identify these trouble spots is to take the point of view of the learneryour point of viewand start like you would, from English. For instance, what potential blunders could we find in trying to express This is the woman I wanted to work with in French? We see three potential sources of error: how to express this is, where to place the preposition with in the French sentence, and which past tense to use for wanted. This book shows you the reasons behind many common blunders by emphasizing how patterns in French differ from those in English. You will learn potential trouble spots and how to break bad habits, as well as correct your own mistakes. The book is divided into three parts: Spelling, Grammar, and Vocabulary.

The units in each part explain and illustrate particular grammar points and provide many examples of the potential blunders to avoid in Avoid the Blunder boxes, printed in blue type and marked by . The words and sentences marked by are unacceptable in French. Because the individual words and phrases of a language are related to other words and phrases, you will find that most grammar topics are mentioned in more than one place. The book tries to avoid technical grammar terms, but some concepts cannot be explained without traditional terminology. If you are unfamiliar with these terms, it may help to go directly to the Avoid the Blunder box. Read the examples, then read the related explanation.

In this way, you will understand the idea even if you are not familiar with the grammar term. At the end of each unit are exercises to test your comprehension and help you avoid the mistakes encountered when translating word for word, or pattern for pattern, from English. A final Catch the Blunders unit includes exercises that round out your understanding of what you have learned from the book as a whole. This book should make you aware of the traps you may fall into when translating from English to French, and I hope that it puts you on the right track to being blunder-free in French. Happy French studies!

French uses the same alphabet as English. Many letters, however, are pronounced differently in the two languages.

The pronunciation material included in this unit is intended to give you a very basic guide to pronouncing French words. For more exact French pronunciation, consult a book on French phonetics that includes the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

The French letters b, d, f, k, m, n, p, r, v, x, y, and z are generally pronounced like their English counterparts. Other French consonants are pronounced as follows. c pronounced like the c in cup when it occurs before a, o, or u pronounced like the s in see when it occurs before e or i pronounced like the s in see when it is written with a cedilla (see the section on the cedilla in this unit) g pronounced like theNext page