My students are always looking for some “matériel d’appoint” to practice their new knowledge… Alice, for instance, is an avid researcher of any exercises that could help her improve her French. Therefore she spends lots of time researching the net in order to find some top notch sites that will provide her with good exercises. Thank God! Alice is advanced enough in French to be able to judge the content quality of the sites she explores. Unfortunately, beginners (Seema for instance) cannot tell the difference between right and wrong!… and they could land on some horrific site without knowing they are just learning how to make mistakes!
Earlier this week, Alice sent me a link to a site saying she had never seen something like this before! At first she thought it would be excellent since it was providing many exercises on verb conjugation (her weak spot)… Alice is someone who is organized and she usually reviews her rules before she starts doing exercises. On that particular site, she did the exercise on the verb “prendre”, which is considered to be a relatively easy irregular verb. When she clicked on the button to check her answers, she was horrified to see how many mistakes she had done! Of course, she was pretty confused since she knows that verb fairly well… Then, in the answers, she saw “prit” for the past participle! Even Seema knows that it is “pris”! Consequently she ruled out that site for good…
Of course, I decided to take a look at that site myself… Alice was right! If it is not the worst French grammar site on the net, then I can just imagine what some others are like!… A real nightmare!!!…
I was literally shocked!… This site offers 569 free French courses on video: I did watch only one, yet it was enough for me to state it is pure crap! It looks like just anyone can decide to be experts and build a web site, claiming they will teach you French! And it is not because it is free that it is harmless… teaching how to make mistakes is unethical and, afterwards, real experts like myself have to undo the damages… I simply do not get it! What are these people thinking of? What is their goal? Since they are not making any money with their sites, would it be that they sincerely believe they are right?…
I had to dig a bit deeper because, after all, perhaps the past participle of “prendre” was only a typo (although I was not convinced of this excuse!). Therefore, I did an exercise which was supposed to help me understand the use of indicative versus subjunctive… Gawd! It was anything, except what it was supposed to be about! I do not know if the owner of this site is also the author of the sentences used in the exercises (mon petit doigt me dit que si!), but even the parts that do not need to be conjugated by me (or you) are wrong! For instance “Le fait qu’il a obtenu…” should in fact be as the following “Le fait qu’il ait obtenu…” Right there, something is utterly wrong and this should raise a red flag (given the person doing the exercise is advanced enough in French to spot such a huge mistake)!…
Another nonsense is providing sentences with no context, as if they were coming from out of the blue!… Take this one for instance “Il m’a dit qu’il (faire) ses devoirs”… Is it “Il m’a dit qu’il ferait ses devoirs”, “(…) qu’il a fait ses devoirs”, “(…) qu’il avait fait ses devoirs”, “(…) qu’il faisait ses devoirs” ou “(…) qu’il fera ses devoirs”? Because all of these answers are good, depending on the events’ sequence. Yet, in the anwers provided by the author, there is only one good answer! Let’s say you picked one of the others, will you think you made mistake? Probably!… when, indeed, you did not!
Any type of exercises on verbs needs a timeline, otherwise there is not only one good answer!… When they are providing isolated sentences, those sentences must have time indicators so you can figure out which tense you have to use… The best, in my opinion, are exercises with texts. Because they are telling a story, those texts necessarily have time indicators and it is much easier to find the right answers.
My advice to you is to be careful when choosing grammar exercises on the net. Make sure you pick a validated site (such as the OFLQ or the University of Austin)… If your knowledge of French does not allow you to decide on the quality of a site, ask a Francophone to assess it. And… do not be impressed with a site only based upon the fact it is made in France (written French over there is on a dangerous descending slope, as well as everywhere else)!… Actually the site I do recommend for exercises with accurate answers and exhaustive explanations is the Office québécois de la langue française (OFLQ). For those who do not know, the OFLQ is the language police/keeper in Québec and, because of that, it is a reliable source (and it accepts the fact that French is in constant evolution). The key phrase here is: Be vigilant!!!
Just like Alice does, do your homework and evaluate the grammatical content of a site before you decide to use it for practice… Also, visit Instant French for some info on educational resources: in her blog, Nic reviewed several French sites and she listed the best ones… in other words, be suspicious and do not take all French learning sites for granted, otherwise you could regret it bitterly! If some are good, many more are pure crap…
“Pour devenir habile en quelque profession que ce soit, il faut le concours de la nature, de l’étude et de l’exercice”
Aristote
Beware of “looking too good to be true” sites!
My students are always looking for some “matériel d’appoint” to practice their new knowledge… Alice, for instance, is an avid researcher of any exercises that could help her improve her French. Therefore she spends lots of time researching the net in order to find some top notch sites that will provide her with good exercises. Thank God! Alice is advanced enough in French to be able to judge the content quality of the sites she explores. Unfortunately, beginners (Seema for instance) cannot tell the difference between right and wrong!… and they could land on some horrific site without knowing they are just learning how to make mistakes!
Earlier this week, Alice sent me a link to a site saying she had never seen something like this before! At first she thought it would be excellent since it was providing many exercises on verb conjugation (her weak spot)… Alice is someone who is organized and she usually reviews her rules before she starts doing exercises. On that particular site, she did the exercise on the verb “prendre”, which is considered to be a relatively easy irregular verb. When she clicked on the button to check her answers, she was horrified to see how many mistakes she had done! Of course, she was pretty confused since she knows that verb fairly well… Then, in the answers, she saw “prit” for the past participle! Even Seema knows that it is “pris”! Consequently she ruled out that site for good…
Of course, I decided to take a look at that site myself… Alice was right! If it is not the worst French grammar site on the net, then I can just imagine what some others are like!… A real nightmare!!!…
I had to dig a bit deeper because, after all, perhaps the past participle of “prendre” was only a typo (although I was not convinced of this excuse!). Therefore, I did an exercise which was supposed to help me understand the use of indicative versus subjunctive… Gawd! It was anything, except what it was supposed to be about! I do not know if the owner of this site is also the author of the sentences used in the exercises (mon petit doigt me dit que si!), but even the parts that do not need to be conjugated by me (or you) are wrong! For instance “Le fait qu’il a obtenu…” should in fact be as the following “Le fait qu’il ait obtenu…” Right there, something is utterly wrong and this should raise a red flag (given the person doing the exercise is advanced enough in French to spot such a huge mistake)!…
Another nonsense is providing sentences with no context, as if they were coming from out of the blue!… Take this one for instance “Il m’a dit qu’il (faire) ses devoirs”… Is it “Il m’a dit qu’il ferait ses devoirs”, “(…) qu’il a fait ses devoirs”, “(…) qu’il avait fait ses devoirs”, “(…) qu’il faisait ses devoirs” ou “(…) qu’il fera ses devoirs”? Because all of these answers are good, depending on the events’ sequence. Yet, in the anwers provided by the author, there is only one good answer! Let’s say you picked one of the others, will you think you made mistake? Probably!… when, indeed, you did not!
Any type of exercises on verbs needs a timeline, otherwise there is not only one good answer!… When they are providing isolated sentences, those sentences must have time indicators so you can figure out which tense you have to use… The best, in my opinion, are exercises with texts. Because they are telling a story, those texts necessarily have time indicators and it is much easier to find the right answers.
My advice to you is to be careful when choosing grammar exercises on the net. Make sure you pick a validated site (such as the OFLQ or the University of Austin)… If your knowledge of French does not allow you to decide on the quality of a site, ask a Francophone to assess it. And… do not be impressed with a site only based upon the fact it is made in France (written French over there is on a dangerous descending slope, as well as everywhere else)!… Actually the site I do recommend for exercises with accurate answers and exhaustive explanations is the Office québécois de la langue française (OFLQ). For those who do not know, the OFLQ is the language police/keeper in Québec and, because of that, it is a reliable source (and it accepts the fact that French is in constant evolution). The key phrase here is: Be vigilant!!!
Just like Alice does, do your homework and evaluate the grammatical content of a site before you decide to use it for practice… Also, visit Instant French for some info on educational resources: in her blog, Nic reviewed several French sites and she listed the best ones… in other words, be suspicious and do not take all French learning sites for granted, otherwise you could regret it bitterly! If some are good, many more are pure crap…
“Pour devenir habile en quelque profession que ce soit, il faut le concours de la nature, de l’étude et de l’exercice”
Aristote