11 Summary of Week 2

This week, your language notebook will probably contain notes about how to say your name and nationality, and you may also have started building up some useful vocabulary with all the new words you’ve been learning for the different nationalities. Remember the tip about ‘target vocabulary’ and start to be a bit selective, so that you don’t feel you need to remember every word you come across but concentrate on the ones that will be important to you.

Think about the way you might group the words you learn, too. In a dictionary they appear in alphabetical order but in your notebook you may prefer to keep ‘verbs’ (you learned parts of the verb ‘to be’ this week), nouns (naming words) and adjectives (like ‘French’ for example) in separate sections. Or you might have a section for useful phrases (‘je m’appelle Bob’).

So it’s a very good idea to take some time to reflect on how you’ll remember vocabulary. You read some tips in the ‘How to memorise vocabulary’ box which gave a couple of suggestions, but you’ll find your own preferred way of doing this which is effective for you. Learning a language takes time, and in order to get that vocabulary to stick in your mind you need to go over it frequently and regularly.

How did you get on with the listening activities this week? Can you see how these can be a good way for you to remember vocabulary? When you listen to, and repeat a phrase such as ‘je suis anglaise,’ not only are you remembering the vocabulary but you’re also practising the pronunciation, and this is a very good way of building vocabulary. When you read a word in French on a page or the screen, you’re tempted to read it in the accent of your own language. By practising the tips on pronunciation (this week, it was about the pronunciation of the final consonant in French words), you’re learning more about the language but also contributing to your bank of vocabulary and expressions. Try not to rely solely on writing everything down, but record yourself speaking and build your listening skills as you do the activities in this course.

Take some time to check that your language notebook is up-to-date, and reflect a little on what you’ve been doing this week.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University badged course LXF001 Beginners French 1: eh oui! [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .