OSAT French flashcards

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

Liaison

Linking a normally silent final consonant to a following vowel-initial word, as in les amis pronounced with a [z] sound. It is obligatory in some contexts, optional in others.

Nasal vowels

French vowels produced with air passing through the nose, written an/en, in/ain, on, and un. They distinguish words such as pain, pas, and pont.

Dropped ne

In informal spoken French the negative particle ne is usually omitted, so je sais pas replaces je ne sais pas. Listening items treat this as normal informal register.

Vingt and cent agreement

Quatre-vingts and deux cents take a final s when multiplied and not followed by another number. Quatre-vingt-un and deux cent trois drop it.

Telling time: et quart

Huit heures et quart means 8:15, and neuf heures moins le quart means 8:45. Midi and minuit replace douze heures for noon and midnight.

Discourse marker donc

A connector signaling conclusion or consequence, roughly so or therefore. It differs from pourtant, which marks contrast or concession.

Passé composé function

Expresses completed, bounded past events and actions viewed as single wholes. It contrasts with the imparfait, which supplies background and habitual states.

Imparfait function

Expresses ongoing past states, habitual actions, and background description. It sets the scene against which passé composé events occur.

Passé simple

A literary past tense marking completed events in formal narrative. It is common in novels and news prose but rare in everyday speech.

Pronoun y

Replaces a phrase with à plus a thing or a place, as in j'y vais for je vais à Paris. It never refers to people in this construction.

Pronoun en

Replaces a de-phrase or a partitive quantity, as in j'en ai deux for j'ai deux frères. It precedes the conjugated verb.

Relative pronoun dont

Replaces de plus its antecedent, as in le livre dont je parle. Choosing among qui, que, dont, and où depends on the pronoun's grammatical role.

False friend actuellement

Actuellement means currently or at present, not actually. The English actually corresponds to en fait or en réalité.

Partitive article

Du, de la, de l', and des express an unspecified quantity of a mass noun. After negation the partitive usually becomes de, as in pas de pain.

Negation ne…personne

Personne replaces the object or acts as subject with ne, as in je ne vois personne or personne n'est venu. The meaning is nobody.

Subjunctive after il faut que

Il faut que requires the subjunctive in the dependent clause, as in il faut que tu viennes. Other triggers include bien que and avant que.

Past participle agreement

With avoir, the participle agrees with a preceding direct object, as in les lettres que j'ai écrites. With être verbs it agrees with the subject.

Adjective before noun

Short, frequent adjectives such as grand, petit, beau, jeune, and bon normally precede the noun. Most other adjectives follow it.

Meaning-shifting adjectives

Ancien, propre, and cher change meaning with position: un ancien professeur is a former teacher, un professeur ancien a long-serving one.

Register pairs

Formal and colloquial synonyms differ by setting: travail versus boulot, voiture versus bagnole. Formal writing and speech avoid the colloquial term.

Laïcité

The French principle of state secularism, grounded in the 1905 separation of church and state. Public institutions remain neutral toward religion.

Francophonie scope

The French-speaking world spans Europe, Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania, with over 300 million speakers and OIF member states on five continents.

Regional languages of France

Breton, Occitan, Basque, Catalan, Corsican, and Alsatian are spoken in France. They hold no official status under the constitution.

French national symbols

Marianne personifies the Republic, the motto is liberté-égalité-fraternité, the anthem is la Marseillaise, and 14 July is the national holiday.

Bill 101 Québec

The 1977 Charter of the French Language makes French the official language of Québec's public life, including commerce, education, and signage.

Belgian and Swiss numbers

Septante and nonante replace soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix in Belgium and Switzerland. Swiss French also uses huitante for quatre-vingts.

ACTFL proficiency scale

Ranks unrehearsed language performance from Novice through Intermediate, Advanced, Superior, and Distinguished, with Low, Mid, and High sublevels.

Comprehensible input i+1

Krashen's claim that acquisition occurs when learners understand input slightly beyond their current level. The i is current competence; +1 is the next step.

Three communication modes

Interpretive mode is receptive understanding, interpersonal mode is negotiated two-way interaction, and presentational mode is one-way production for an audience.

The 5 Cs

World-language standards organized as Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities. Communication is the central goal around which the others cluster.

Backward design

Wiggins and McTighe's planning sequence: identify desired results, determine acceptable evidence, then design learning experiences. Assessment planning precedes activity design.

Formative versus summative

Formative assessment monitors learning during instruction to adjust teaching. Summative assessment certifies achievement at the end of a unit or course.

Reliability and validity

Reliability is consistency of scores across occasions and raters. Validity is the degree to which a test measures the construct it intends to measure.