If you have bought a French-English dictionary, you will be keen to use it. It is a powerful tool. Like any tool, you have to learn to use it… and of course, using it wrongly can be dangerous.
Warnings:
1. The first half of the dictionary is the French half. The second half is the English half. Make sure you are looking in the right part.
2. If you find lots of odd symbols like [ǐΏφξ] then that’s not the French word. That is to show how to pronounce the word using phonetic symbols.
3. If you find most French words seem to be things like prep nm vb prep vb nf prep nm vb… that’s because it’s not the French either. The dictionary is telling you what kind of word (noun, verb, preposition) you are looking at.
4. If you are looking for a verb, only the infinitive will be there. So if you want to look up “I found” then you need to look up the verb “find”. If you want to look up “I saw”, then you need to look up the verb “see”.
5. Some English words mean lots of different things. Your dictionary will try to help you get the right one. Make sure you read and use your brain. For example:
make up: stuff you put on your face
make up: invent a story
make up: be friends with someone again after an argument
The dictionary will tell you all of them so YOU can choose the right one.
6. French is not the same as English but with French words. If it was this easy, I would just give you a dictionary and we wouldn’t need all the lessons. For example:
“Je m’appelle”. If you think this means “My name is” then you will be very confused to find it doesn’t have the words “my” or “name” or “is”. It means “I call myself”. You wouldn’t work that out by using the dictionary.
If you look up “get” you will find lots of English expressions – to get dressed, to get washed, to get ready, to get lost. French will probably say it a different way: To dress yourself, to wash yourself…
English often uses two words to say one thing: To go in, to go out, to come back. French will use one word for these: To enter, to leave, to return.
So what can you use the dictionary for?
1. Checking words – does it mean what you think? How do you spell it? Is it masculine or feminine?
2. Looking up words when you are reading something in French.
3. Finding out single words that you can put into a sentence you have already learnt. You can’t make a sentence using the dictionary, but you could change a couple of words.
Northgate High School, Dereham