Bulgaria DZI French flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Scanning for detail

A reading strategy in which the reader moves quickly through a text looking only for specific information such as names, dates, or numbers, ignoring unrelated content.

Global vs local questions

Global questions ask about the whole text's main idea, purpose, or tone; local questions ask about a specific detail, word, or sentence in the passage.

Inference in reading

A conclusion drawn from evidence in the text rather than stated directly. Correct inferences must be supported by the passage, not by general knowledge alone.

Not-stated option

In true/false/not-stated tasks, this choice applies when the passage neither confirms nor contradicts the proposition, even if the proposition seems plausible.

Connector: en revanche

A French discourse marker meaning 'on the other hand' or 'in contrast'. It signals that the following idea opposes or qualifies the previous one.

Pronoun reference tracking

Identifying which noun a pronoun such as il, elle, le, or en refers to, usually by checking gender, number, and the nearest preceding compatible noun.

Pre-listening prediction

Using the pause before audio to read the options and guess the topic, speaker roles, and vocabulary, which improves comprehension and reduces distractors.

Register cues in listening

Words like vous, tu, bonjour, or salut reveal whether the speakers are formal or informal, helping the listener interpret tone and relationship.

Correction markers

Phrases such as non, plutôt, en fait, or je me suis trompé signal that the speaker is revising earlier information, often a number or date.

Discourse markers in speech

Words like d'abord, ensuite, enfin, and par contre that organize spoken discourse into stages, contrasts, or conclusions, aiding note-taking.

Distractor elimination

A listening technique of rejecting multiple-choice options contradicted by a single word in the audio, such as a negation, tense, or quantity.

Gap-fill part of speech

Predicting whether a missing word is a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb from its position and surrounding words before hearing the recording.

Passé composé auxiliary choice

Most French verbs form the passé composé with avoir; motion verbs and pronominal verbs use être, and the past participle then agrees with the subject.

Imparfait vs passé composé

The imparfait describes background, habits, or ongoing states; the passé composé reports completed events that advance the narrative.

Futur simple endings

The future simple adds -ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez, -ont to the infinitive or to an irregular stem such as ser-, aur-, ir-, or fer-.

Conditionnel présent formation

The conditional is built from the future stem plus imparfait endings: -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient, as in je serais, tu aurais.

Subjonctif triggers

The French subjunctive follows expressions of necessity, doubt, emotion, and conjunctions like bien que, pour que, and avant que.

Object pronoun y and en

The pronoun y replaces à plus a place or thing; en replaces de plus a noun, often a quantity or partitive construction.

Adjective agreement

French adjectives add -e for feminine and -s or -es for plural, with irregular forms such as beau/belle and vieux/vieille.

Negative structures

Negation wraps the verb with ne ... pas, plus, jamais, rien, or personne; with an infinitive, both negative words precede the infinitive.

Formal letter closing

A standard French formal closing is 'Je vous prie d'agréer, Madame, Monsieur, mes salutations distinguées', used after the body of the letter.

Informal message closing

Friendly French messages often end with bises, à bientôt, or amitiés, and use salut and tu rather than formal address.

Cohesion connectors

Phrases such as d'une part... d'autre part, en effet, par conséquent, and cependant link ideas and make written production coherent.

Word-count convention

In writing tasks, count only the body of the text unless the rubric says otherwise; greetings and signatures are usually excluded.

French collocations

Fixed word partnerships such as prendre une décision or faire attention that sound natural in French and should replace literal translations.

Narrative tense pairing

In past narration, the imparfait sets the scene and describes background, while the passé composé advances the plot with completed actions.

Accent meaning pairs

Accents distinguish French words: a versus à, ou versus où, and e versus é; proofreading these prevents meaning errors in writing.

Bulgarian suffix article

Bulgarian marks definiteness with a suffix on the noun, whereas French uses separate articles such as le, la, les, du, and des.

Aspect in translation

Bulgarian perfective and imperfective verb pairs often correspond to French passé composé and imparfait choices, depending on context.

False friend: actuel

French actuel means 'current' or 'present-day', not 'actual'; the English 'actual' is usually translated as réel or effectif.

False friend: librairie

French librairie means 'bookshop', not 'library'; a library is une bibliothèque in French.

Mediation task

A task in which the learner summarizes a source's purpose and key points for a target reader, rather than translating sentence by sentence.