How To Write In French
HOW TO WRITE IN FRENCH
If you want to do well in either junior or leaving cert french, you must learn how to write in french. Sentence building or construction is such an important skill to master in French. In junior level, the written section is very structured, in that you are given specific instructions in the letter, note or postcard. At leaving cert, it really does become more difficult, as you are generally just given a specific theme to write about, and then you must come up with a response in the form of a diary entry, narrative or opinion piece.
In leaving cert honours, there is sometimes a formal letter or an e-mail, but again, you cannot count on this. At ordinary level for the leaving cert, as well as a diary entry, a letter and a post-card or message, you are tested in the cloze test and the form filling. These writing tasks test your grammatical knowledge of how the French language is structured.
DRILL EXERCISES…HOW TO WRITE IN FRENCH
I find drill work in sentence building to be a very important part of language teaching, as it gives autonomy to students, when working within a particular topic.
Drill exercises are a very important way of instilling confidence in writing. In our drill exercises, French Notes have provided you with key expressions, which can be used in a variety of writing tasks. By taking the time to use the expression in a few different contexts, you will get to really understand how to use it, and it will add fluency to your written expression. We have provided the answers here, but we do hope that you have attempted the various exercises first.
TEST YOURSELF
This is an expression which takes the verb “avoir”. When you are using a verbal expression, remember that the verb changes according to the tense you are using. You will see this with the sample sentences below. Why not try these ones before looking at the answers underneath.
- I had difficulty in finding my jumper this morning.
- I will have difficulty in finishing my homework this evening because of the match.
- He had difficulty in accepting criticism.
- We are going to have difficulty in crossing the road with the traffic.
- I have difficulty in understanding the teacher when he speaks quickly.
CHECK YOUR ANSWERS HERE
Well, how did you do?
- J’ai eu ( I had) du mal à trouver mon pull ce matin
- J’aurai ( I will have) du mal à terminer mes devoirs ce soir à cause du match
- Il avait ( he had) du mal à accepter la critique
- Nous allons avoir (We are going to have) du mal à traverser la route avec la circulation.
- J’ai (I have) du mal à comprendre le professeur quand il parle vite.
The entire collection of drill exercises are available to members of our Leaving Cert Annual Plan or Teacher Annual Plan.