NZ Scholarship French flashcards

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

Liaison obligatoire

In spoken French, a normally silent final consonant is pronounced before a vowel-initial word. Obligatory after determiners and pronouns: les_amis, nous_avons, quand_il arrive. Missing it sounds laboured; adding it where forbidden sounds wrong.

Registre familier markers

Features of informal spoken French: dropped ne (je sais pas), on for nous, contractions (t'as, y a), and vocabulary like du coup, bosser, bouffer. Scholarship listening items often test whether you notice a shift into this register.

Il paraît que

Means 'it is said that' or 'apparently', marking hearsay rather than the speaker's own assertion. Contrast with il est certain que or je soutiens que, which commit the speaker. Questions often ask what the speaker actually claims.

Certes... mais

Concessive pair meaning 'admittedly... but'. The speaker grants a point in the certes clause, then states their real position after mais. In listening and reading, the tested thesis is what follows the concession.

Passé simple versus imparfait

In literary narrative, the passé simple marks completed foreground events that advance the plot, while the imparfait sets background, description, or repeated states. Their alternation signals which information is event and which is setting.

Nominalisation in formal prose

Turning verbs or adjectives into nouns: mettre en œuvre becomes la mise en œuvre; développer becomes le développement. Frequent in journalism and academic French; unpacking it to a verb helps identify who did what.

Faux ami: actuellement

Actuellement means 'currently' or 'at present', not 'actually'. The English 'actually' is usually en fait or en réalité. This is one of the most frequently tested false friends in French-English comprehension.

Pronoun reference chain

Forms like celui-ci, celle-là, ce dernier, en, and y point back to earlier nouns. Resolve them by finding the nearest grammatically compatible antecedent, since the closest noun is not always the right referent.

Problématique

The central question an essay answers, stated in the introduction after a brief hook. It must be arguable and narrow enough to structure the whole response; a vague topic is not a problématique.

Malgré versus bien que

Malgré is a preposition followed by a noun: malgré la pluie. Bien que is a conjunction followed by the subjunctive: bien qu'il pleuve. Même si takes the indicative. Mixing these is a common accuracy error.

Connecteurs logiques by function

Addition: de plus, par ailleurs. Cause: en raison de, étant donné que. Consequence: par conséquent, d'où. Concession: toutefois, néanmoins. Illustration: ainsi, notamment. Choosing the right function matters more than using rare connectors.

Past participle with avoir

With avoir, the past participle agrees only with a direct object placed before it: les lettres que j'ai écrites. No agreement occurs when the object follows: j'ai écrit les lettres. With être, it agrees with the subject.

Annonce du plan

The sentence in an introduction that states the order of the parts to come, for example 'après avoir examiné X, nous verrons Y'. It signals structural control to the examiner and should match the actual paragraph order.

Conditionnel de politesse

The conditional softens requests and opinions: je voudrais, je dirais que, on pourrait soutenir que. It also expresses hypothesis. Using it appropriately signals control of register in spoken and written tasks.

Hedging expressions

Phrases that qualify a claim: il me semble que, dans une certaine mesure, j'aurais tendance à dire que, sans doute. They express nuance and are valued in discussion tasks where absolute assertions sound unsupported.

Paraphrase strategy

When a word is missing, describe it instead of switching language: c'est-à-dire, en d'autres termes, une sorte de, ce que je veux dire, c'est que. This keeps fluency and demonstrates resourcefulness to the examiner.

Silent -ent verb ending

Third-person plural verb endings in -ent are pronounced without the consonant: ils parlent sounds like 'il parl'. Only a liaison before a vowel reveals it. Mispronouncing it is a marked error in oral tasks.

Plus: pronounced or silent

Plus is pronounced /plys/ when it means 'more' or is positive, but /ply/ when it means 'no more' in negation: je n'en veux plus. Context, not spelling, determines the pronunciation.

On and English subjects

French on can mean we, one, they, or people in general. English needs a chosen subject, often we or a passive. Translating on mechanically as 'one' produces stilted, unidiomatic English in most contexts.

Poser un lapin

An idiom meaning to stand someone up by failing to appear for a meeting. It cannot be translated literally. Other common idioms: tomber dans les pommes (faint), avoir le coup de foudre (fall in love instantly).

French and English punctuation spacing

French inserts a space before ; : ! ? and inside guillemets: « texte ». It uses a decimal comma, as in 3,5. English uses a decimal point and no space before those marks. Translators must convert both.

Mediation versus literal translation

Mediation conveys the source's purpose and register to a new audience, summarising or restructuring as needed. Literal translation preserves word order. Mediation tasks are judged on communicative effect, not lexical equivalence.

Laïcité

The French principle of state neutrality toward religion, grounded in the 1905 law separating church and state. It restricts religious symbols in public institutions and underpins debates on schooling, veiling, and public space.

DROM-COM

Overseas départements and regions (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane, La Réunion, Mayotte) plus overseas collectivities and special-status territories such as Polynésie française and Nouvelle-Calédonie. Each has a distinct legal relationship with metropolitan France.

Loi 101, Quebec

Quebec's Charter of the French Language, adopted in 1977, making French the official language of government, commerce, and education. It remains central to Quebec language politics and to Canadian francophone identity debates.

Négritude movement

A literary and political movement of the 1930s associated with Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor, and Léon-Gontran Damas, asserting Black cultural identity against colonial assimilation. Foundational to francophone postcolonial literature.

Exception culturelle

The French position that cultural goods are not ordinary commodities and should be protected from free-market rules in trade negotiations. It justifies subsidies, quotas, and support for French-language cinema and music.

Si-clause tense pairing

Si plus present gives future; si plus imperfect gives present conditional; si plus plus-que-parfait gives past conditional. A conditional is never used directly after si. These pairings are tested heavily in accuracy items.

Subjunctive conjunction triggers

Conjunctions requiring the subjunctive include bien que, quoique, pour que, avant que, à moins que, à condition que, and jusqu'à ce que. Parce que, puisque, and tandis que take the indicative. Memorising the trigger list prevents agreement errors.

Relative pronoun dont

Dont replaces de plus a noun: le livre dont je parle (the book I am talking about). It covers possession, origin, and verbs constructed with de. Using que or lequel instead is a common structural error.

Greek -ma nouns are masculine

Nouns ending in -ma from Greek are masculine despite the final a: un problème, un système, un programme, un thème, un diplôme. This rule resolves many gender errors quickly in formal writing.

Verbs with à versus de

Some verbs take à: réussir à, penser à, s'attendre à, renoncer à. Others take de: essayer de, décider de, oublier de, refuser de. Others take no preposition: aider quelqu'un, regarder quelque chose. The choice is lexical, not logical.