French Vocabulary - Looking for "le mot juste"

Sep 28, 2026

Analyzing why Irish university students struggle to acquire French vocabulary, the study draws on teaching experience with emphasis on French structural and stylistic traits. It contrasts frequent function words (e.g., le, la, de, que) with semantically “full” open-word classes versus semantically “empty” closed classes that carry grammatical information. The analysis argues vocabulary deficits reflect both word-visibility and meaning-in-words issues, suggesting clustered “obvious” starting terms and related vocabulary as a more effective approach than linear lists.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time22 min

AccessFree to download

Vocabulary difficulty in second-language French

Word frequency and the problem of measuring importance

Eight word types: open vs closed series

Teaching grammar vs vocabulary

A proposed vocabulary development technique

ED 414751 AUTHOR TITLE PUB DATE NOTE PUB TYPE JOURNAL CIT EDRS PRICE DESCRIPTORS IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT DOCUMENT RESUME Parris,David L. # French Vocabulary--Looking for "le mot juste." 1996-00-00 13p.;For serial publication in which this article appears,see FL 024940. Journal Articles(080)--Reports -Descriptive(141)TEANGA:The Irish Yearbook of Applied Linguistics;n16p73-831996 MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. College Students;Foreign Countries;*French;Higher Education;Language Patterns;*Language Processing;Second Language Learning;*Second Languages;*Semantics;Student Attitudes;*Vocabulary;*Vocabulary Development Ireland The apparent difficulty of students of French as a secondlanguage to acquire French vocabulary is examined,drawing on experience withteaching Irish university students and the structures and stylistic traitspeculiar to French.It is noted that while certain kinds of words (noun,verb,adjective,adverb)occupy little space in text,they take up the mostroom in a dictionary,and conversely,while others(pronoun,preposition,determiner,conjunction)use much space in text and relatively little indictionaries.Grammar(structure)and vocabulary are also often taughtseparately,with grammar raceiving more attention.It.is propnged thatvocabulary deficit has two causes:(1)the obvious word is not always obviousat all;and(2)meaning does not always reside within single words.Theseconcepts are expanded upon and illustrated.It is suggested that while havingstudents keep a list of vocabulary words is a classic technique and usingpicture dictionaries is handy for concrete vocabulary,a more usefultechnique is for students to begin with "obvious"words (e.g.,"ferme")andcluster around them related terms(e.g.,"exploitation,exploitation agricole,recolte,vendange,culture,"etc.).This more expansive system fordeveloping vocabulary may be more effective than the conventional linearapproach.(MSE) ★* from the original document. ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ ED 414751 b力207寸 # French vocabulary -looking for 'le mot juste' David L.ParrisTrinity College Dublin Much of what follows is specifically concerned with French.It is born ofteaching experience,which tends to demonstrate that Irish students enteruniversity with little vocabulary,and often leave with not much more.Although some of this may be applicable to other languages or other teachingsituations,much is concerned with structures and stylistic traits peculiar toFrench. The obvious way of measuring the importance of a word is to see howfrequent it is in a text.There are problems associated with this.One is thatthe most important words in French are le,la,de,que and so on. One way out is to look at different categories of words:it is convenient -though not strictly accurate -to tell students that there are eight types.This ispossible if one ignores the existence of exclamations like ‘eh hop!’,‘aie!'oreven ‘ouille!’This voluntary amnesia is motivated by the.pedagogical desireto have equal-sized,neatly symetrical categories,and produces two balancedgroups of four: firstly:noun,verb,adjective,adverb(semantically 'full';open series) secondly:pronoun,preposition,determiner,conjunction(semantically‘empty’,closed series providing grammatical information such as function ofword or relationship between words in first series). It is the second group that occupies so much space in any text.Conversely,the first group takes up most room in the dictionary.One might say that thefirst group is 'semantically full'(to which most people will assent)while thesecond is 'semantically empty'(to which people will not agree without rathersevere reservations).Less tendentiously,one could say that the first group is PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE ANDDISSEMINATE THIS MATERIALHAS BEEN GRANTED BYe4e lleTO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC U.S.DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONOffice of

FAQs

What does the article say about measuring how important French words are?

It argues that frequency-based measurement is problematic because highly frequent French items like le, la, de, and que are not the kind of words learners always perceive as “meaningful.”

How does the article divide French vocabulary categories?

It groups words into two balanced sets of four: open series (noun, verb, adjective, adverb) and closed series (pronoun, preposition, determiner, conjunction), distinguishing semantic fullness from grammatical function.

What vocabulary learning technique does the article recommend?

Instead of linear lists or picture dictionaries alone, it recommends starting with “obvious” words (e.g., ferme) and clustering related terms around them to expand vocabulary more effectively.

Sep 28, 2026

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