French for Success

FRENCH FOR SUCCESS is conceived to facilitate rapid mastery of rules governing French grammar. It is the fruit of reflections on simple, but reliable methods that will enable the non-Francophone to acquire a mindset similar to that of the Francophone. To do that, we strive to simplify the conjugation of verbs, which is what makes the French language appear to be difficult. Accordingly, verbs are placed into categories, instead of groups, depending on their patterns of conjugation. Each category has a conjugation formula. A category is a group of verbs that share similar conjugation patterns in all tenses. While, traditionally, the radical of a verb is repeated six times in a conjugation, the concept exposed in these manuals seeks to use a radical once (unless it is impossible to do so, as in irregular verbs), and replace it with other radicals of the same category. As you will discover, verbs in the same categories share the same six endings which remain unchanged. Examples of radicals are: aim- from aimer; parl- from parler, écout- from écouter or donn- from donner.

The groupings and their distinctive features are explained. Understanding that conjugation is just a matter of arrangement of verb endings, and knowing which verbs that belong together makes learning French much easier. Category A comprises over 4000 verbs, and one can learn their conjugation in less than 10 minutes.

The curious might wonder why we prefer categories to groups. Currently, there are three main groups - namely the first group which comprises verbs ending in er; the second group which is composed of verbs ending in ir; and the third group composed of verbs ending in re. The first group alone (the er-group) comprises about 13 different groups of verbs, the radicals of which cannot mutually replace one another. We reduce them to 8. For instance, donn-, aim-, parl- and écout- can replace one another but cannot replace céd-or cèd- from céder; or jett and jet- from jeter, etc, although they all end in er and belong to the first group.

In the second group, while fini- (finir), agi- (agir), and béni- (bénir) are mutually replaceable, they cannot replace sor-(sortir), par-(partir), men-(mentir); cour-(courir), secour- (secourir); or vien- and ven-(venir). We think that placing in the same group verbs whose patterns of conjugation have nothing to do with one another can lead to confusion.

Similarly, in group 3, which comprises verbs ending in re, while attendre, vendre, rendre, perdre can replace one another in a conjugation, they cannot replace prendre, comprendre; and moudre, dissoudre and coudre do not even share common patterns of conjugation.

Themes are selected to facilitate visual recognition. Where possible, nouns, adjectives and adverbs are grouped in a manner that help the learner distinguish the gender and number, or show them how those parts of speech are formed.

The manuals are divided into four volumes for