Unlocking French with Paul Noble: Your key to language success with the bestselling language coach. Paul Noble

       Remember, of course, that “J’ai passé” means “I have spent”, “I spent” and “I did spend”. And this means, of course, that “vous avez passé” means “you have spent”, “you spent” and “you did spend”. And therefore “nous avons passé” means not only “we have spent” but also “we spent” and “we did spend”. Don’t forget, you get three English past tenses for the price of one in French and this applies whether you’re saying “I…”, “you…”, “we…” or whatever.

      The Checklist

      You have now reached the final part of the first chapter. Once you have finished this short section you will not only have completed your first chapter but you will also understand how this book works. All the other chapters follow the same pattern, with your French becoming ever more sophisticated as you complete each chapter.

      The section you are now on will be the final part of each chapter and is what I call “The Checklist”. It involves nothing more than a read-through of a selection of the words or expressions you have so far encountered.

      You will actually see The Checklist twice. The first time you will see that the French words are written in black (on the left-hand side) and that the English words are written in blue (on the right-hand side) – and you know what blue means… cover up!

      So, what I want you to do here is to cover up the English words (which are written in blue on the right-hand side) while you read through the list of French words on the left. Read through them all, from the top of the list to the bottom, and see if you can recall what they mean in English (uncover one blue word at a time to check if you’ve remembered the meaning correctly). If you can go through the entire list, giving the correct English meaning for each of the French words / expressions without making more than three mistakes in total, then you’re done. If not, then go through the list again. Keep doing this, either working from the top of the list to the bottom or from the bottom to the top (it doesn’t matter which) until you can do it without making more than three mistakes.

      Got it? Then let’s go!