QCAA French Extension cheat sheet

Text types carry conventions: a fait divers answers who/what/where/when in the first paragraph; an éditorial states a thesis in the opening lines and closes with an appeal.

Register markers: passé simple and imparfait dominate literary narrative; passé composé and present dominate journalism and correspondence.

Connectors signal argument structure: cependant, néanmoins, en revanche mark concession or contrast; donc, par conséquent, ainsi mark consequence.

The pronoun y replaces a place or an à + noun complement; en replaces a quantity or a de + noun complement.

Logical connectors of cause and consequence: parce que, puisque, comme, étant donné que (cause); si bien que, de sorte que, tellement... que (consequence).

Distinguish fact from stance: modal verbs (pouvoir, devoir), conditional forms and evaluative adjectives (inquiétant, remarquable) carry the writer's position.

Subjunctive triggers to scan for: il faut que, bien que, quoique, avant que, pour que, à condition que, douter que, il est possible que.

Anaphora and cataphora: ce dernier/celle-ci point backward; the following ceci/cela or a colon can announce what comes next.

A thesis in French argumentation typically follows the plan thèse–antithèse–synthèse; the synthèse must transcend rather than repeat the two positions.

Concession formulas: certes... mais, il est vrai que... toutefois, bien que + subjunctive, même si + indicative.

Hedging expressions: sans doute, probablement, il semblerait que + subjunctive, d'après certains, on peut supposer que.

Refutation moves: opposer une objection (objection), concéder puis retourner (certes... or), recadrer le débat (il ne s'agit pas de... mais de...).

Rhetorical devices: anaphore (repetition at clause start), question oratoire, hyperbole, antithèse, ironie; naming the device is stronger than paraphrasing it.

Counterfactual and hypothetical reasoning uses si + imperfect + conditional present (si j'avais le choix, je partirais) and the plus-que-parfait + conditionnel passé for the past.

Evaluative stance can be built with impersonal constructions: il est essentiel de, il serait absurde de, il convient de nuancer.

Creative transformation: shifting narration from third to first person requires adjusting tense (passé simple to passé composé), pronouns and register.

Cohesion toolkit: reprise pronominale, nominalisation (les jeunes se révoltent → la révolte des jeunes), connecteurs, and progression thème–rhème.

Punctuation norms: French uses a space before ; : ! ? and guillemets « » for quotation; no Oxford comma before et in a list.

Agreement of the past participle with avoir occurs only when the direct object precedes the verb (les lettres qu'il a écrites).

With pronominal verbs, the participle agrees with the subject unless a direct object follows (elle s'est lavée; elle s'est lavé les mains).

Formal letter structure: formule d'appel (Monsieur le Directeur,), objet, corps, formule de politesse (Je vous prie d'agréer, Madame, l'expression de...).

Avoid calques: réaliser means to accomplish, not to realise (se rendre compte); supporter means to endure, not to support (soutenir).

Word count discipline: contractions count as one word (du, au, des), and hyphenated forms (peut-être, c'est-à-dire) count as one.

Paragraph architecture: a topic sentence, evidence or example, then an interpretive link (ainsi, ce qui montre que) before the next claim.

Laïcité is enshrined by the 1905 law separating Church and State; the 2004 law banned conspicuous religious symbols in state schools.

France's overseas départements include la Guadeloupe, la Martinique, la Guyane, La Réunion and Mayotte; they use the euro and vote in national elections.

Belgium has three official languages (Dutch, French, German) and three communities; Brussels is officially bilingual.

Senegal's official language is French, but Wolof is the main lingua franca; la négritude was articulated by Senghor and Césaire.

Quebec's Charter of the French Language (Bill 101, 1977) makes French the official language of the province.

Switzerland has four national languages (German, French, Italian, Romansh); French is official in Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel and Jura.

La Francophonie (OIF) counts over 80 member and observer states; French is an official language of the UN, EU and African Union.

French education divides secondary schooling into the collège (sixième to troisième) and the lycée (seconde to terminale), culminating in the baccalauréat.

Cultural comparison is stronger when framed as contrast, not deficit: use alors que, tandis que, contrairement à rather than mieux que.

Forms of address: tu/vous encodes social distance; vous is the default with strangers and superiors, tu with peers, family and children.

Politeness conventions: French requests prefer the conditional (pourriez-vous, je voudrais) and negative interrogation (ne pourriez-vous pas); direct imperatives read as brusque.

Stereotype versus generalisation: a stereotype is fixed and totalising; a cultural generalisation is provisional and hedged (souvent, en général, tend à).

Non-verbal norms differ: la bise count and placement vary by region; handshakes are standard in professional settings.

Reflective writing uses the structure observation → interpretation → nuance → relevance, avoiding both exoticism and ethnocentrism.

Laïcité versus multiculturalism: French public space tends to neutrality of appearance; anglophone models often accommodate visible difference.

Code-switching and regional languages (breton, occitan, corse, créole) reveal that French identity is plural, not monolithic.