How to learn French verbs quickly? I’ve done some tests for you…
“Quelle que soit la chose qu’on veut dire, il n’y a qu’un mot pour l’exprimer, qu’un verbe pour l’animer et qu’un adjectif pour la qualifier”.
In these terms, Guy de Maupassant was showing us not only how WORDS are important, but the crucial role of VERBS. Because “What ever is what you want to say, there is only one word to express it, one verb to animate it and one adjective to qualify it”.
And when I speak with French learners, it’s quite clear: verbs activate language.
That’s a problem.
Because French verbs have a reputation. And not a good one. They are accused of being messy, strict, and mean. Which, when you compare them to English verbs, they could be found guilty of.
So how to learn French verbs quickly? And get it over with it as fast as possible? That’s a question I asked myself a lot.
Author : Marie Drouvin
Salut! Je suis Marie and I'm on a mission to make learning French simple. You can find me on Youtube, or here, on this blog. And if you want to know more about how to learn French, take a look at my book.
In reality, 80% of French verbs are perfectly regular guys.
Behaving according to the rules. You would have to investigate them pretty deeply to implicate them in any non-sense business. And even if you found something, it would probably be circumstantial.
Sure, they are a bunch of diverse individuals, but surely, that’s a good thing right?
No, where the true problem lies is when you need to remember them all.
And you DO need to remember. Because if you don’t, you will stay stuck on beginner French.
In fact, utilising the right verbs, and the right tenses, is the biggest difference between a beginner and an intermediate. Because when you do know how to use verbs to express yourself, you become more and more articulate.
You can talk about your dreams, your opinions, you can tell stories, and make predictions.
You escape what I call ‘interview French’, where it’s just questions and answers. And you enter a whole new world of possibilities.
Isn’t that what communication is all about?
How to learn French verbs quickly then?
When I started learning French, verbs were a difficult topic for me.
Mostly because, being a native, I relied on my extensive experience of spoken French to determine what tense and ending I should use.
I did not even think about it. It was just… the way it had always been. Which, you can imagine, was difficult to share with my students.
So I dived deep into the mechanics of French tenses, learned about my own language’s conjugation. Tenses, modes, groups, endings, and everything that could help me design a structure. Then, my plan was to simply share the structure.
1st group, verbs in ER.Passé composé = auxiliary and the past participle.…
It was seriously strict.
But I had my structure, and with a lot of repetition, my students were downloading it into their heads.
Where my plan fell short is when it came to using this structure to understand French, especially spoken French, and using the structure when speaking.
I could see my students painfully struggling to:
- Remember the structures
- Applying them to the right verbs
- Applying them in the right contexts
The result was often a mess.
I don’t mind messy. It’s a superb stepping stone, especially to find elements to improve. But this was not a joyful mess.
This was a discouraging mess. One that was costing me motivated students. Who, when lost in the jungle of conjugation, ran to the nearest emergency exit, and quit French all together. I could not allow this to happen.
Because it would mean restricting learning French to the few extremely courageous, and intensely academically-inclined students.
So, what do you do when you are looking for a solution? You define the problem.
What was the problem?
As usual with language learning, it was too much theory, and not enough practice.
Don’t get me wrong, theory itself is not the problem. But it needs to be digestible. Just like flour is nice, but you need some water, time, yeast and heat to stomach it.
The pure structure was simply not digestible on its own.
What could I do to make French conjugation eatable? I had several options.
- I could skip it all together.
And replace it with only practice of verbs.
Treating each form of the verb as a new word. I call this type of solution: an ORGANIC SOLUTION.
And it’s often a very good one. And one I use myself – for example with the Sentence Mining concept. The only issue was the sheer amount of extra words to learn.
- I could make my students do more exercises.
Go TRADITIONAL: teaching the rules, and then play.
But that was taking me directly into the trap of ‘being able to do exercises, but not using it in real-life’.
And then… I ran out of options.
So I asked my friends how they were learning their verbs in a new language.
Turns out, it was messy for them too. But one of them, who was actually learning French and was doing an amazing job at it, told me he had started by learning a few verbs by heart.
And that he then looked at the rules, which he was able to understand much faster than most.
Genius!
A PATTERN solution is how to learn French verbs quickly!
A pattern solution is how to learn French verbs quickly! Of course, it’s often the best solution there is.
Because it gives you all the advantages of traditional solution : which is a deep understanding of the rules, plus the advantages of the organic solution : an excellent way to be able to use what you learn as soon as you learn it.
So I tried his technique.
I tried it on a few of my students. And yes – it is much easier.
It did not solve every single mistakes they were making (even French people make mistakes), BUT it was a little revolution for them. And for me.
I had them memorise and get familiar with 8 verbs, in 6 tenses each.
And from there, they were able to use those verbs with fluency, PLUS when they looked at the rules of French conjugation, they already were able to use them in real life.
I decided it was time to share this with you.
So I compiled the 8 verbs in the 6 tenses, and made a workshop out of it.
This workshop is going to guide you through the memorisation of those verbs, so that you can use them with confidence when speaking but also so that learning French conjugation after that becomes easy.
I called it the French Verb Shortcut Workshop.
And that’s how my students learn French verbs quickly.
What is the French Verb Shortcut Workshop?
The French Verb Shortcut is a memorisation workshop for beginners who want to be able to understand and use French verbs faster.
It is NOT a textbook lesson. It is practical, to the point and easy to follow.
It is going to guide you through 8 crucial verbs of the French language, conjugated at the 6 most important tenses. Each verb has been selected because it is going to help you speak right away, AND understand other similar verbs as well.
You simply have to follow the workshop to memorise those verbs.
And for every rule of French conjugation you learn afterward, you will already have plenty of examples you already know.
During the workshop we will:
- Listen to French verbs to be able to recognise them when they are spoken
- Memorise their spelling and pronunciation
- Learn to recognise which tense they are conjugated at
- Learn to recognise which person they are conjugated at
- Look at how they can change according to gender or person
- …
Why should you take the workshop?
If you struggle with French conjugation, that you don’t know how verbs work, or find that there is too much to learn, this is the workshop for you.
Most teachers and programs will dive deep into the rules first.
Here, we are going to do the opposite and start with the verb. So that you can understand the rules later on.
To goal is not only to have you memorise important verbs you can use instantly, but also learn the patterns of French conjugation so you can understand other verbs, even the ones you might not know.
There is nothing complicated about this workshop, it’s simple memorisation.
Which means you don’t even have to take notes, rewind because you didn’t understand or procrastinate because it’s too difficult.
What’s included in the French Verb Shortcut?
The workshop is divided into 8 parts. One part per verb.
For each verb, we will learn to conjugate it at 6 tenses.
Each part comes with memorisation exercises, a transcript and audio.
Here is a list of what you get:
- 96 audios you can listen to online
- A master audio file that you can download and listen to where you want (if you don’t have a stable internet connection or want to listen to the files on the go)
- A PDF with the transcript and the memorisation exercises.
How much does it cost?
When I do those kinds of exercises with my students, I usually charge $50 per hour.
With this workshop, you have several advantages over my students. You can do the exercises as much as you want, you can take me with you anywhere, and you don’t need to book a lesson.
AND, I’m available by email if you have questions.
However, since it’s an important stepping stone for you, I’m offering the workshop to you for the price of a novel. And with $10 OFF until the 28th of November 2020 (only via the link below).
You’ll have access to the files for as long as you want, since it will be stored on your personal account.
To get the workshop, it’s simple:
- You click on the blue button below
- You click on buy
- You complete the forms (or if you already have an account you simply log in)
- The workshop will be added to your personal account on The School, and you’ll always have it there. (Check your emails for the link)
You can take all the time you want to go through it all. And you can come back to it as much as you want.
