Textual KnowledgeAs you have seen, your General Knowledge is essential when trying to decipher texts in French. However, you also possess a great deal of textual knowledge, knowledge about how words typically fit together and about how texts are constructed. This knowledge can be helpful in understanding a text in another language. Following are just a few of the ways you can use this knowledge.Lexical PairsLots of things come in pairs, and words are no exception. If you know one of the elements of a pair, you are a long way towards guessing the meaning of the other:
Grammatical PairsMany expressions and links come in pairs. But they are often separated from each other in the sentence. If you find one item, look for the other.Some examples: Plus cette longueur d'onde est faible, plus ils sont dangereux. (the more ... the more) Les réponses du gouvernement n'ont satisfait ni les marins-pêcheurs ni les habitants des îles Anglo-Normandes. (neither ... nor) Ce qui a provoqué la naissance de tous ces termes, c'est la connaissance qu'on a acquise du fonctionnement d'un système. (what ... is) ...ce qui subsiste de cette théorie, soit sous la forme dégradée de la superstition, soit en tant que fonds vivant de notre langage. (either... or) Nous retrouvons d'une part dans la nature
même du névrosé une bonne partie de cette attitude
primitive; d'autre part, nous constatons que
la répression sexuelle a déterminé une nouvelle sexualisation
de ses processus intellectuels.
Here is a list of some common grammatical pairs. Notice that in most
cases, the words are also used in other expressions, so you may not always
be dealing with a pair when you find the first one. It is useful to be
alert to grammatical pairs, however, because their separation often makes
them unnoticeable at first.
ListsTo organize material in a text, we often use special words. Picking them out can help you divide a text up into manageable chunks and see the main lines of the argumentation.
Notice that quant à (as for) usually introduces the last term in a series (here a series of three terms): (1) Shell Allemagne avait envisagé un plan de licenciement.The German Shell company had considered a layoff plan.(2) De son côté, Shell International a réorganisé sa direction général et repris en main ses filiales.For its part, the International Division reorganised its head office and took charge of its subsidiaries.(3) Quant aux autres pétroliers, ils ne pavoisent pas.As for the other gas companies, they’re not rejoicing.
PunctuationFrench punctuation is very similar to English. Commas are used, for example, to separate out elements in a list or to surround elements that are not grammatically connected to the rest of the sentence.The colon often indicates that what follows is a quotation or an example: Freud wrote: “Magic must be used for the most varied things.” More usefully for the interpretation of texts, it announces an explanation, a cause, a consequence or a synthesis of what went before: it is a little bit like an equals sign which tells us that the two parts, before and after the colon, are in some ways covering the same ground, though the second part is more detailed, an explicitation of the first. L'animisme est un système intellectuel: il n'explique pas seulement tel ou tel phénomène particulier, mais permet de concevoir le monde comme un vaste ensemble.Animism is an intellectual system: it doesn’t simply explain a particular phenomenon but allows us to conceive of the world as a vast whole.The colon can also introduce a list of examples: On prépare les étudiants à des carrières où la connaissance de deux langues de même niveau est requise : Secrétaire de direction d'entreprise, attaché aux services commerciaux pour les problèmes d’import-export, cadre moyen ou supérieur des organismes du marché commun, poste de responsabilités en qualité d’interprète de liaison ou de contact, traducteur, etc.Students are prepared for careers where equal knowledge of two languages is necessary: Executive secretary in a company, assistant in a commercial department..., middle or upper manager..., interpreting or translating job with wide responsibilities, etc.Notice how the commas separate the list elements here. You have to take Secrétaire de direction d'entreprise as a single unit.
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