Down with pedants! Language is not an exact science.
"Le français classique" has been shared to the blog from the French reading practice section of the learning library where you can find a large selection of interactive texts to help you with your reading skills. This article also has audio for you to practice your French listening skills; you can find many more listening activities in the French listening exercises section.
Learn about Classical French in this 5-part series of bilingual articles about the development of French over the centuries.*
After listening to the audio, click any word for the English translation and links to related grammar lessons.
Note: The tenses in this French article and its English translation don’t match! In French, we use the present tense to describe historical stories like this to evoke a sense of immediacy, whereas in English, we commonly use the past tense – learn more about historical French tenses.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
- What's this?
*The Development of French
- Birth of the French language
- Dialects and regional languages
- Middle French
- Classical French
- Modern French
References
- Le français du XVIIème et du XVIIIème siècles : une langue qui se fixe
- Le français classique (XVII – XVIIIè siècles)
- Dictionnaire de l’Académie française
Author info
Aurélie is our resident French Expert. She has created most of the wonderful content you see on the site and is usually the person answering your tricky help questions. She comes from a small village near Chartres in Central France, country of cereal fields and not much else. She left (in a hurry) to study English at the world-famous Sorbonne in Paris, before leaving France in 2007 to experience the “London lifestyle” - and never looked back! She's worked as a professional French teacher, translator and linguist in the UK since. She loves to share her love of languages and is a self-professed cinema and literature geek!
Laura is a French expert and Kwiziq's Head of Quality Control. Online educator since '99, Laura is passionate about language, travel, and cooking. She's American by birth and a permanent ex-pat by choice - freelancing made it possible for her to travel extensively and live in several countries before settling permanently in Guadeloupe. Laura is the author of Lawless French, Lawless Spanish, and other websites and books on French, Spanish, Italian, English, and vegetarianism. She spends most of her spare time reading, playing with food, and enjoying water sports.
Comments: 2
Merci pour votre bon courage.
Je pense a vous si loin de L'Amerique, ici en la Californie (San Diego County).