Avoiding common French Immersion mistakes!

Please enjoy this guest post by one of our lovely tutors, Mme Grace! 

A common mistake many students make in French is confusing "et" (meaning “and”) with est (meaning “is”). Because they sound exactly the same, it's easy to mix them up especially when writing in French. For example, students might write “Il et très gentil” instead of “Il est très gentil,” which completely changes the meaning of the sentence. To fix this, a helpful tip is to remember that "et" is always used to link two things together, like in “J'aime le chocolat et la vanille” (I like chocolate and vanilla), while "est" is a form of the verb être (to be) and should be used when talking about someone or something's state like in this sentence “Elle est fatiguée” (She is tired).

A good strategy is to pause and ask yourself if you are linking two things (use "et") or describing something (use "est"). Another common mistake made by our French Immersion students is mixing up the pronunciation of [e] (as in é, er, ez etc.) and [ɛ] (as in è, ê, ait etc.) especially when they change the meaning of words. For example, “été” (summer) and “était”(was) end in two different sounds but are often pronounced as the same sound by students. It's important to note that these words have different meanings as well. To fix this, I suggest focusing on the pronunciation of the accents: é similar to the English “ay” (as in “say”) without the diphtongue, while è has a more open sound, like the “eh” in “bet”. Practicing listening to these sounds and paying close attention to the accents while writing will help students avoid these mistakes.

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