French in Action: A Beginning Course in Language and Culture: The Capretz Method, Part 1 (English and French Edition) - Hardcover

Capretz, Pierre J.; Lydgate, Barry; Abetti, Béatrice; Germain, Marie-Odile

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300176104 ISBN 13: 9780300176100

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2012

Synopsis

Since it was first published, French in Action: A Beginning Course in Language and Culture―The Capretz Method has been widely recognized in the field as a model for video-based foreign-language instructional materials. The third edition has been revised by Pierre Capretz and Barry Lydgate and includes new, contemporary illustrations throughout and more-relevant information for today's students in the Documents sections of each lesson. A completely new feature is a journal by the popular character Marie-Laure, who observes and humorously comments on the political, cultural, and technological changes in the world between 1985 and today. The new edition also incorporates more content about the entire Francophone world. In use by hundreds of colleges, universities, and high schools, French in Action remains a powerful educational resource, and the third edition updates the course for a new generation of learners.

About this title

About the Author

Pierre Capretz is the creator of French in Action and a pioneer in video-based foreign-language instruction. He taught French at Yale University from 1956 to 2003 and was director of the Yale Language Laboratory from 1963 to 2000. Barry Lydgate is professor of French at Wellesley College.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

French in Action

A Beginning Course in Language and Culture The Capretz Method

By Pierre J. Capretz, Béatrice Abetti, Marie-Odile Germain, Barry Lydgate, Tim Shea

Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2013 Pierre Capretz and Barry Lydgate
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-300-17610-0

Contents

Preface to the Third Edition...............................................
vii
Acknowledgments............................................................
ix
1 Introduction.............................................................
1
2 Genèse I.................................................................
9
3 Genèse II................................................................
18
4 Genèse III...............................................................
26
5 Familles.................................................................
34
6 Portraits I..............................................................
42
7 Portraits II.............................................................
50
8 Généalogie...............................................................
58
9 Vacances en Bretagne I...................................................
68
10 Vacances en Bretagne II.................................................
80
11 Rencontres I............................................................
89
12 Rencontres II...........................................................
100
13 Rencontres III..........................................................
113
14 Entrée en matière I.....................................................
129
15 Entrée en matière II....................................................
141
16 Entrée en matière III...................................................
156
17 Il n'y a pas de sot métier I............................................
168
18 Il n'y a pas de sot métier II...........................................
180
19 Attention: Ecoles I.....................................................
194
20 Attention: Ecoles II....................................................
208
21 Attention: Ecoles III...................................................
220
22 A la recherche d'une invitation I.......................................
230
23 A la recherche d'une invitation II......................................
242
24 Nourritures terrestres I................................................
256
25 Nourritures terrestres II...............................................
273
26 Nourritures terrestres III..............................................
285
Abréviations...............................................................
A-1
Lexique....................................................................
A-3
Credits....................................................................
A-61

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Welcome to French in Action!Before you enter the world ofFrench language and culture andmeet the French-speaking men andwomen whose activities form theplot of our story, before you watchthe video programs, listen to theaudio recordings, and plunge intothe workbook and this textbook,take a moment to read the remarksthat follow. They explain the goalsof the course, its methods andcomponents, and what we believeits value will be to you as a learner.

WHY FRENCH?

There are more than four thousandlanguages spoken on this planet.You are lucky enough to be a speakerof English, the world's leadinglanguage. You already have accessto millions of speakers in hundredsof countries, to the thoughts anddeeds of thousands of writers overthe centuries. So why learn French?

The first and probably mostimportant reason is that in a fast-shrinkingworld, French gives youaccess to a wide variety of peoplesand cultures. More than 200 millionpeople speak French worldwide.The Francophone (French-speaking)world includes some fiftycountries across five continents; inthirty-two of them French is thefirst or second official language,and in many more it is widelyspoken in daily life. French is theprincipal language of France, ofcourse, but it is also one of the officiallanguages of Belgium, Switzerland,and Canada. It is the commonlanguage of several countries inthe Caribbean (Haiti, Guadeloupe,Martinique, Guyana) and in Africa(Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal,Mauritania, Chad, Togo, the DemocraticRepublic of Congo, and theIvory Coast, to name only a few),and it is spoken extensively in theMiddle East (Lebanon and Egypt).Along with English, French is oneof the world's international languages.If you have a United Statespassport, notice the two languagesin which it is written: English andFrench. Wherever you go in theworld, you will find educated menand women who speak French as asecond or third language. A personwho knows English and French isequipped to thrive in almost anycountry on earth.

Knowing French brings withit a new way of seeing, of listening,and of thinking. Much of thecreative thinking that has shapedthe Western tradition has beendone in French. French opensthe doors to the works and wordsof many of the world's greatestphilosophers, scientists, musicians,painters, and writers. To read themin their own language is to graspsubtleties and beauties that toooften disappear in translation. Anumber of great French writersare represented in French in Action:Jean de La Fontaine, Victor Hugo,Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-PaulSartre, Marguerite Yourcenar, andmany others. To encounter themand other French-speaking authorsin their own language is to entersympathetically into different waysof constructing and understandingthe world, since the language itselfmirrors perspectives on reality thatare specific to the cultures that useit.

Some people are interested inlearning French because of the longand close historical ties that existbetween France and the UnitedStates. In fact, no nation other thanEngland has played a more decisiverole in the making of America.(Were you aware that the first Europeansto settle in North Americawere French Huguenots who foundeda colony in Florida in 1564?)French explorers like Cartier,Champlain, Marquette, and La Salleled expeditions through Canadaand the Great Lakes region, anddown the Mississippi River; andFrench colonists settled vast areasof the North American continent.You might be one of the 9 millionAmericans of French descent, orlive in one of the cities founded byFrench people: Detroit, Michigan;Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; TerreHaute, Indiana; St. Louis, Missouri;Baton Rouge, Louisiana; or Paris,Texas, among many others. Frenchsoldiers fought alongside the colonistsin the Revolutionary War, andthe treaty that ended that war wassigned in Paris. Alexis de Tocquevillewas one of the first and mostperspicacious commentators on thenew nation; his Democracy in Americais central to the study of Americanpolitical history and one of thewisest books ever written about theUnited States. A French architect,Pierre L'Enfant, designed the layoutof Washington, D.C. The Statueof Liberty, perhaps the foremostsymbol of the United States, was agift from France. And the Frenchand Americans fought, and died,side by side in World Wars I and II.(More Americans are buried inFrance than in any country exceptthe United States.)

Many people have practical orprofessional reasons for wanting tolearn French. They may be preparingfor a career in internationallaw or commerce (a French word),in the diplomatic corps (anotherFrench word), or in the worldof fashion. France is the world'ssixth-largest economy, and it is atthe geographical heart of Europe,which is the world's largest market.Careers in business, science, technology,aerospace, and medicineroutinely involve research, communication,and international collaborationin French. The smart card,fiber optics, HDTV, and touch-tonetechnology are all French inventions.And France's TGV (train àgrande vitesse) is the fastest train inthe world.

FROM FRENCHTO ENGLISH(AND BACK)

It has been said that a person whodoes not know a foreign languagecan never truly know his or herown. Whatever your purpose,studying French will enhance yourknowledge and control of English.The two languages, in fact, havemuch in common, and you may besurprised by the amount of Frenchyou already speak. If you haveever said "Very chic!" to a friendwhose new clothes you admire, youwere speaking French. If you haveever been on the receiving endof a barbed criticism and retortedwith a gallant "Touché!" that, too,is French. How often have youwished someone "Bon voyage!" or"Bon appétit!"? (With French, youalways have le mot juste at the ready.)Every aspect of English has felt theFrench influence, from soldiery("curfew" = couvre-feu) to square-dancing("do-si-do" = dos-à-dos).Your native English is full of Frenchwords and expressions; indeed, ithas been claimed, not entirely injest, that 60 percent of the Englishlanguage is nothing but mispronouncedFrench. It is a fact thatever since the Norman Conquestof Britain in 1066, which led to afusion of an earlier form of Englishwith an earlier form of French,the two languages have sharedthousands of cognate words, suchas "curious" and curieux, "marriage"and mariage, not to mention"French" and français. Somewords even returned to Frenchafter having migrated to English:the French command form tenez!used to announce a serve in a ballgame involving nets and racketsappeared in English as "tennis" inthe fifteenth century; the Frenchrepossessed the word in the early1800s and have been playing le tennisever since.

Despite these many similarities,it can sometimes be difficultto recognize a French word thathas been adopted by English. Onereason this is true is that Englishspeakers have habits of pronunciationthat are quite different fromthose of the French. For instance,speakers of French tend to say eachsyllable of a word with the sameintensity. Speakers of English, onthe other hand, tend to stress onesyllable—often the first one—andto skip over the others. So whenFrench speakers say the wordcapitaine, they stress all three syllablesequally: ca-pi-taine. But whenEnglish speakers appropriated thisword they pronounced it in theirown way, stressing the first syllableso much that the second syllabledisappeared altogether: captain. Thesame thing happened to the Frenchwords cabestan ("capstan"), compartiment,and gouvernement, among manyothers.

French words that have crossedover to English can also be difficultto recognize because they arespelled differently. Differences inspelling often reflect differing habitsof pronunciation, but they aredue as well to the fact that manyFrench words passed into Englishcenturies ago and kept their originalspelling in the new language,while the spelling of the Frenchoriginals evolved over time. This istrue, for example, of many wordsthat now have a circumflex accent(ˆ). In modern French, the circumflexreplaces an s that appeared inolder forms of these words; in theirEnglish equivalents, that s is stillpresent:

forest (forêt), haste (hâte), host(hôte), mast (mât), coast (côte),beast (bête), feast (fête)....

French words ending in -é and -ieoften correspond to English wordsending in y:

cité, éternité, bébé; biologie, calorie,envie....

Many French words ending in-eux correspond to English wordsending in -ous:

spacieux, envieux, cérémonieux, curieux,dangereux....

French words ending in -ier oftencorrespond to English words endingin -ar or -iar (familier, particulier)or to words in -er (papier).

Numerous French words endingin -e correspond to English wordshaving no final -e:

soupe, classe, adresse, Arabe, architecte,artiste, cabine, calme, carotte, crabe....

Other analogues:

-iel often corresponds to English

-ial (artificiel, partiel)

-aque to English -ack (attaque)

-ait to English -act or -ect (abstrait,parfait)

-ice to English -ess (actrice)

-aire to English -ary (anniversaire,ordinaire, culinaire, contraire, élémentaire)or -arian (autoritaire)

-ique to English -ic (fantastique,exotique)

-ret to English -rete (discret, concret)

-ant to English -ating (fascinant)

-re to American English -er (ordre,théâtre)

-ant to English -ing (amusant,intéressant)

-eur to English -er (boxeur)

-ment to English -ly (certainement,complètement, essentiellement, évidemment,exactement, finalement,généreusement)

-eur to English -or (conducteur, erreur,couleur, horreur, honneur)

-é to English -ed (décidé, équipé, fixé,forcé)

All in all, then, there are manythousands of French words thatare similar to English words, andthis will streamline to some extentthe process of learning French.Unfortunately, however, the factthat a French word and an Englishword are similar does not meanthey are the same word; they aren't.Nor does it mean they refer to thesame thing; they don't necessarily.When you come across a Frenchword that sounds or looks likea word in English, you can for amoment entertain the possibilitythat the two are connected and thatthe things they refer to have somefeature in common. But beware:although some English-Frenchcognates do have essentially thesame meaning ("rapid" and rapide,for instance), the resemblance ofothers may be quite distant, merelysuperficial, even purely coincidental.In fact, the majority of Frenchwords that resemble English wordsdiffer in meaning. "An injury"is a wound, for instance, but uneinjure is an insult. The French verbprétendre refers to making a claimor an assertion, not indulging inmake-believe. (The English words"pretense" and "pretentious" arecloser to the French original; apretender to the throne is onewho lays a claim, not someonewho's play-acting.) The patron of anestablishment is its owner, never itscustomer. The verb demander is usedto make a simple request, not justissue an ultimatum. Your anniversairefalls on the date of your birth, notthe date of your marriage. And soon and so forth.

The result of all this is that youmust not assume that a Frenchword means the same thing as anEnglish word because they happento resemble each other. You mayhypothesize—very cautiously—thatthere might be some relationshipbetween their meanings, but youmust then check your hypothesisby studying the context in whichthe word is used. Only the contextcan give you a valid insight intothe function of a word in a givensituation. In this course we willconcentrate a great deal on thesituations and contexts in whichwords appear; they are the real keysto meaning.

HOW TO LEARNFRENCH

Think for a moment about how aperson learns a second language.One means—the oldest known tohistory—is total immersion. Thisis the "sink or swim" process,whereby immigrants, explorers, orstudents in a foreign country pickup the language. Without grammarbooks, textbooks, audio CDs,dictionaries, language laboratories,drill sessions, tutors, or teachers,people have learned second, third,or fourth languages from the bookof life and the school of experience.The incentive is survival—strongmotivation indeed—andthe classroom is the world. That isone method, but it is neither theeasiest nor the most efficient. In thesink or swim method, you wouldlearn what you needed in order toaccomplish the chores of daily life,catch the drift of conversations,and make yourself understood. Butyou might never pronounce wordsproperly, or progress beyond thespeech level of a four-year-old, andyou might never learn how to readanything other than street signsand labels.

Another method, one you mayhave already encountered in school,is the grammar-translation method,where you learn endless rules,memorize verb and noun forms inspecific orders, and translate wordfor word from one language toanother. Although this method hasproven useful for languages that areno longer spoken (Sanskrit, Latin,classical Greek), it is next to worthlessfor learning a living languagein which you must communicatewith other people. When you meetsomeone on the street, for instance,in Paris, Dakar, or Montreal, andwant to carry on a conversation,you don't have the time to runthrough your verb forms: "Shall Ihave lunch? Will you have lunch?Will he or she have lunch? Shallwe have lunch?" By the time youfind the phrase you are looking for,your acquaintance will long sincehave left—to go to lunch. In actualconversations, the grammar bookand the dictionary aren't much use.

French in Action employs a methodthat is almost certainly quitedifferent from that of any otherlanguage course you may know.It gives you the advantages of theimmersion method without itschaos by presenting native speakersin vivid situations and realsettings. At the same time, thiscourse structures the way you learnthe language, so that you can learnefficiently. We are going to plungeyou into the French language. Youare going to hear more French thanyou can possibly remember. At firstyou may think you are about todrown. Relax! You won't. If in thebeginning you feel confused, thatfeeling is perfectly normal and willpass. Rest assured that thousandshave done what you are setting outto do. You will learn slowly at first,and you are not expected to understandeverything. Little by little,things will become clearer, andthen suddenly your knowledge ofFrench will expand exponentially.

The method of this course isto begin with a flood of authenticFrench in authentic circumstances.The lessons are carefully constructedso that your knowledgeof words, phrases, sentences, andsituations will gradually build andyou will assimilate the language.For example, in lesson 2, you willsee and hear our heroine meetingdifferent people on her way toher Italian class at the Sorbonne.You will see and hear her greet anewspaper vendor, several friends,a professor, and one of her aunts,and you will learn different greetings.By the end of the lesson, youwill know how to greet people,how to ask how they are, how tosay how you are, and how to takeyour leave—all in French. Fromlesson 2 on, everything you see andhear in the course will be entirelyin French.

THE STORY,THE DIARY,THE TWEETS

French in Action is more than a traditionaltextbook providing grammar,exercises, and explanations. It isalso a story, a tale of suspense infact, and we invite you to followthe characters as they movethrough Paris, other cities, and theFrench countryside. Like all goodstories, this one has a heroine, aParisian university student whosename is Mireille Belleau. It has ahero, an American named RobertTaylor. The story has sketchycharacters, such as Jean-Pierre, thepick-up artist, and eccentrics, suchas Hubert de Pinot-Chambrun, theyoung nobleman who plays hisaristocratic role to the hilt. It hasrivals in romance. It has chases. Ithas escapes. And it has a dark, shadowycharacter, the Man in Black,a man of mystery who lurks behindthe scenes, silently and relentlesslyfollowing Mireille and Robert.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from French in Action by Pierre J. Capretz, Béatrice Abetti, Marie-Odile Germain, Barry Lydgate, Tim Shea. Copyright © 2013 Pierre Capretz and Barry Lydgate. Excerpted by permission of Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0300176104
• ISBN 13: 9780300176100
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 376