How to Write an Essay in French Using Useful Phrases

When starting to learn French it's important to get to know useful phrases before progressing,

When first learning a language it's important to build your conversations and essays around core phrases that you can get from text books, the Internet or your teacher at school. When asked by your French teacher to write an essay, it's easy to complicate things by using complex grammar or detailed vocabulary. Once you've achieved a certain level you can progress to this, however when starting out, it's best to stick to key phrases.

Instructions

1. Put all your useful phrases in front of you and look for a common theme which can help shape your essay. Perhaps you have a list of questions about ordering food in a restaurant or phrases about gardening. Your teacher is unlikely to worry about the topic of the essay, and will instead be more interested in the use of phrases.

2. Work out your essay structure. Even though the essay is in French, it still needs to be logical. A typical structure will start by presenting a theme, listing arguments using as many verbs and adjectives as possible, apply your own opinion and then conclude.

3. Make sure you know colors, numbers and important adjectives. You can easily look up a noun in a book, but you need to know how to describe it, without scrambling around in a dictionary. It may seem frustrating reciting lists when starting out, but it pays off in the long term.

4. Buy a conjugation book. French has a completely different sentence structure to English, as well as a more complex grammar system. If you need to use a new verb, a dictionary can't help you use it properly as it only provides the word in the infinitive form. Buy a verb conjugation book which provides tables of verbs conjugated for use by different subjects; this will also allow you to modify phrases you may already have.

5. Use Vous. Essays should be formal so make sure you use the 'Vous' subject, rather than 'Tu'. Vous is used in professional situations or when speaking to elders, while Tu is used between friends or in informal conversations.

6. Take your time. It's easy to make mistakes and get sloppy when using a language you're unfamiliar with. Be careful when writing down your phrases as it's easy to miss out a letter or use an incorrect suffix. Once you start making certain mistakes, it's hard to get rid of them.

References

• Real French: Writing Essays in French
• University of Richmond: Writing in French