READ ME FIRST Flashcards
(1/5) WELCOME MY DEAR FRIEND! 😃
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Content in Brainscape is organized according to a 3-level hierarchy (Class > Deck > Flashcard):
- The dashboard shows the classes you are enrolled in,
- Each class contains decks,
- Each deck holds flashcards.
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The Dear French flashcards are split into 2 classes:
- the FREE CLASS,
- the PREMIUM CLASS.
FLIP THE CARD ↓ to keep reading
THE FREE CLASS
As the name suggests, this class is for everyone.
It contains several hundred cards, helping to gain a basic understanding of the French language.
The cards are organized into 7 decks, named DAY 1, DAY 2… until DAY 7 to mirror the structure of Dear French Story.
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THE PREMIUM CLASS
This is where magic happens! 😀
Only available to Dear French PREMIUM1 members, the class offers thousands of additional cards.
Since we continue from where the FREE CLASS left off, the decks are named DAY 8, DAY 9, DAY 10, and so forth.
1 If you have just become a PREMIUM member and do not see the class in your Brainscape dashboard yet, you will receive an email with the access link within 24 hours.
RATE A 5 and see you on the next card ↓
(2/5) TYPES OF FLASHCARDS
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You will primarily encounter 2 types of flashcards:
- Vocabulary flashcards,
- Conjugation flashcards.
Additionally, most cards will be presented in 2 forms:
- a visual form,
- an audio form.
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1. VISUAL CARDS
Designed for vocabulary acquisition, learning conjugation, and oral expression
On the front, an image will be presented (or a definition if the item cannot be represented by an image), and you will be prompted to pronounce it out loud in French.
⚠️ I cannot stress enough the importance of answering out loud: 😀
- Unless you are fortunate enough to have French speakers around, the cards will be your primary short-term opportunity to speak and learn to pronounce correctly.
- The combination of visual and auditory elements will enhance memorization (similar to how children naturally learn before attending school).
So please, have faith in the process! 🙏
On the back, you will find the answer and be prompted to rate from 1 to 5 how easily you could recall the answer (more on the confidence rating in the next card).
FLIP THE CARD ↓
2. AUDIO CARDS
Designed for enhancing listening comprehension of the material learned through related visual cards
On the front, you will hear a sound and be prompted to visualize what it corresponds to.
The visualization could be:
- the image of the corresponding visual flashcard,
- a mental image that you have created (useful for cards with a definition as input).
Once again, the association of sound and visualization will enhance memorization.
On the back, you will see the answer and be asked to rate the card as explained previously.
RATE A 5 and see you on the next card ↓
(3/5) RATING FLASHCARDS
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I recommend the following guidelines to start:
- Rate a 5 when you feel that you will never forget the item again (Brainscape will still occasionally repeat it just to be sure you still know it, but you will see it less and less until it never again appears). Also, avoid marking 5s on weakly known items. 😃
- Rate a 3 or 4 when you feel you know the item well for now, but are not confident you will remember it forever.
- Rate a 2 when you had it on the tip of your tongue… but it didn’t come out.
- Rate a 1 when you were totally clueless (which will often be the case the first time you see the card). The algorithm chooses a 1 or a new card about 60% of the time, so you should see that card again very soon.
FLIP THE CARD ↓
A few additional comments:
- The more 1s you rate, the less likely you are to see new cards (which is totally fine because there is no point in moving forward until you have mastered the fundamentals).
- If you feel like you are seeing too many new cards when you are not yet confident enough in the current ones, consider rating more cards a 1.
- That said, it’s okay if your rating is not perfect, so don’t stress because everything is going to be alright.
- Finally, resetting your stats is possible, but only if you are a Brainscape PRO user.
RATE A 5 and see you on the next card ↓
(4/5) YOUR STUDY SESSIONS
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Cognitive science has shown that spaced repetition within optimal time intervals is the most important factor in our ability to retain knowledge.
It is literally how our brains are wired to encode memories.
> More on the topic here, here and there
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Presenting the right cards at the right time is the responsibility of Brainscape and its algorithm. However, to facilitate this, regular and consistent study is essential.
A good way to ensure consistency is by enabling notifications to set streak reminders (only available in the app, not on desktop).
To do so, click on … at the top right corner of the dashboard (the screen you see right after launching the app).
Next, know that Brainscape offers you the flexibility to study:
- at the class level,
- at the deck level.
I recommend the following approach:
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1. If you wish to progress at the pace of Dear French Story:
- Study at the deck level (DAY 1, DAY 2…) to explore the new card decks mentioned in the story.
- Review at the class level to reinforce what you have already learned (you can also choose specific decks within the class for review).
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2. If you prefer to advance at your own pace, study and review your cards solely at the class level.
FLIP THE CARD ↓
Also, be aware that Brainscape offers two study modes:
- The progressive mode, which introduces new cards in the chronological order of the deck they belong to,
- The random mode, which presents cards in a completely random order (crossing decks).
⚠️ ALWAYS use the progressive mode, which is the default, because the order of the cards is anything but random. 😃
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When should you end a study session?
End it when one of the following occurs:
- You already know most of the flashcards quite well, and they are becoming “easy”,
- You have just been exposed to a lot of challenging new content, and you have rated many cards with a 1 or a 2 (low confidence),
- Your head hurts, and you need a break.
RATE A 5 and see you on the last card ↓
(5/5) FAQ
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Progressing at the pace of the story, I find myself with too many cards to review (plus new ones to come). How do I get out of it?
You have two options:
- Either catch up on your cards before continuing to read Maria’s adventures,
- or study and review your cards at your own pace, without strictly adhering to the progression plan suggested by Dear French Story. 😃
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Can I skip the checkpoint showing up every 10 cards?
Yes! During a study session, click on the gear icon displayed at the top of your screen and select Enable Continuous Study.
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Can I study in reverse (Q/A > A/Q)? And how?
Please do not study the Dear French flashcards in reverse because the way I designed them is not suitable for this study mode. 😀
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What is Random Mix? And should I enable it?
Random Mix is a mode that presents cards in a random order (crossing decks).
Since I ordered the cards in a very specific way, please stick with the progressive mode, which is the default.
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Can I edit the flashcards?
If you are a Brainscape PRO user (unrelated to your Dear French FREE/PREMIUM Plan), you can duplicate any class and its decks, and then customize the cards they contain to your liking.
FLIP THE CARD ↓ for more Q&As
Can I study offline when I use the app?
You only need Internet to:
- initially download the Dear French flashcards to your device(s)1,
- sync your study data if you use several devices (e.g. your phone and a tablet).
1 While I did my best to minimize the size of the images and audio files, you may still prefer to use Wi-Fi (particularly if you have a limited data plan).
But otherwise, you can study offline, and your updated mastery data will only “live” on your device until you reconnect to the Internet (the app will then make a data call to the Brainscape server to sync your study mastery data between devices).
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Should I / How do I unsubscribe from Brainscape emails?
You should unsubscribe if you have no interest in Brainscape other than studying your Dear French’s flashcards.
To do so, click on the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of any of their emails.
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Does the app drain my device’s battery?
No. All flashcard data is being retrieved from the local database on your device.
And while the app makes some occasional data calls to the Brainscape server to keep your study mastery data in sync between devices, those are very “data-light”.
Finally, the app neither uses or shares your location data (which is often a big reason why some apps may drain your battery).
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Any other questions related to Brainscape?
Visit their help center, contact them or send me an email at premium@dearfrench.com.
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PROF 😃
(OUTDATED) PRONUNCIATION 101 (1/2)
(Short introduction to the cards that are going to teach you French sounds)
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To speak French, you first need to learn the 33 sounds 1 (also called phonemes) that make up the language.
1 In reality, there are 37, but 4 are not distinct enough from other sounds (even for most French speakers!) to be worth learning.
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Each sound can be represented by a symbol called a phoneme, conventionally enclosed in [brackets].
So, the 33 phonemes, corresponding to the 33 distinctive sounds of French, make up what is called a phonetic alphabet.
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What are these phonemes for?
- They allow distinguishing one sound from another.
- When you know the sound corresponding to each phoneme, you will know how to pronounce any word just by seeing its phonetic spelling (which is nothing more than a sequence of phonemes), also enclosed in brackets.
FLIP THE CARD ↓ to see an example illustrating what I just said
Let’s take the word “ami” as an example (which means “friend” in English):
- It is made up of 3 sounds (with the phonemes [a], [m], [i]) and is composed of 2 syllables ([a] is pronounced alone, while [m] and [i] are pronounced together).
- Its phonetic spelling is therefore [a.mi] (as a convention, a dot is used to separate syllables).
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There are several phonetic alphabet systems.
The most well-known is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), but it is not practical for French because some of its symbols:
- are not user-friendly: [ɛ̃], [ʃ], [ɔ], [ŋ]…
- are not available on our keyboards,
- do not visually represent the corresponding sound well.
Therefore, I have decided to:
- only use the IPA symbols that are satisfactory,
- replace problematic symbols with much more intuitive and easy-to-remember symbols.
Now, let’s get to the heart of the matter! 😃
RATE A 5 ↓ if you don’t want to see this card too often
(OUTDATED) PRONUNCIATION 101 (2/2)
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The 33 sounds of French fall into 3 types. There are:
- 13 vowel sounds,
- 17 consonant sounds,
- 3 hybrid sounds (called semi-consonants or semi-vowels).
The cards will introduce them to you in this order.
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Among the 13 vowel sounds, 10 are oral and 3 are nasal:
- Oral sounds are those where air passes only through the mouth.
- Nasal sounds also involve the passage of air through the nasal cavity (thanks to the lowering of the soft palate).
FLIP THE CARD ↓
As for the consonant and hybrid sounds, I won’t bore you with technical details.
All you need to know is that they will be introduced to you alongside a vowel sound because:
- pronouncing them alone is quite challenging (and rarely happens in real life),
- it will allow you to practice pronouncing the vowel sounds seen earlier (which are the most challenging for an English speaker).
If you are ready, let’s start with the first sound!
RATE A 5 ↓ if you don’t want to see this card too often
(OUTDATED) PRONUNCIATION 101 (3/3)
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You are now familiar with the 33 main French sounds.
As you may have already noticed, each one appears to you more or less frequently based on the confidence rating (from 1 to 5) you have given it (rating updated with each return of the corresponding card).
Shall we continue? 😃
FLIP THE CARD ↓ if you want to
I love your enthusiasm! 😃
Now, let’s set the bar a bit higher by creating new combinations that can go up to 3 sounds and incorporating some sound groups commonly heard at the end of words.
By the way, if you’re wondering why we are doing this, it’s to get you used to pronouncing the most frequent groups of sounds in French.
So, when you encounter your first words, you will be able to pronounce them much more quickly than someone who hasn’t done this groundwork (and with the French accent to boot!).
To sum up, keep going and your efforts will soon pay off!
RATE A 5 ↓ if you don’t want to see this card too often
(OUTDATED) PRONUNCIATION 101 (4/4)
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We’re done with the sounds and phonemes!!
However, there are two last symbols I need to tell you about to complete the loop: “.” and “‿”.
They don’t correspond to any sound but are there to provide you with additional information.
The first symbol “.” is the syllable separator, allowing you to easily see how a word is articulated:
- If the word has a single syllable, its phonetic representation won’t contain a dot (e.g., 2 is phonetically written [de]),
- If it has two syllables, its phonetic representation will contain a dot (e.g., 200 is written [de.sä]),
- If it has three syllables, its phonetic representation will contain two dots (e.g., 1200 is written [mil.de.sä]),
- And so on…
Shall we move on to the second symbol?
FLIP THE CARD ↓ for that
The second symbol “‿” is used to identify liaisons.
Liaisons, what’s that??!!
It’s true that I haven’t talked to you about it yet, so let’s start from the beginning.
In French, there is a liaison when the last consonant of a word, usually silent but not always, is finally pronounced with the first syllable of the following word that begins with a vowel sound.
Let’s take an example: “des enfants” (“children” in English).
By default, “des” is pronounced [dé] and “enfants” is pronounced [ä.fä].
Yet here, a liaison must be made, meaning pronouncing the “-s” of “des” with the “en-“ of “enfants.”
In this context, knowing that the “s” is always pronounced [z], the phonetic representation will therefore be [dé.z‿ä.fä].
By the way, it’s exactly the same as [dé zä.fä], but conventionally, phonetic representation signals the presence of liaisons, so I’ll stick to that.
I’ll stop here because a dedicated lesson on liaisons will soon help you better understand this concept and the situations in which they occur.
(OUTDATED) PRONUNCIATION 101 (5/5)
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Now, let’s explore the second most important concept in pronunciation: graphemes.
A grapheme is one of the written representations of a sound (not to be confused with its [phonetic symbol], whose sole purpose is to indicate how to pronounce it).
On a word scale, a grapheme is therefore a letter or group of letters that correspond to a single sound.
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You will better understand with an example.
What do you think the words “cent” (= one hundred) and “sans” (= without) have in common?
ANSWER: They are pronounced the same way!
Wait, what?!
EXPLANATIONS ON THE BACK ↓
That’s related to what I explained earlier: a sound can have several written correspondences.
In this context:
- the graphemes “c” and the first “s” are both pronounced [s],
- the graphemes “ent” and “ans” are both pronounced [ɑ̃] 1,
- the “s” and “t” are silent at the end of a word (as is the “e” and many other consonants, actually).
1 like “en” and “an”, because in French, consonants such as “t” and “s” are silent at the end of a word (like the vowel “e”)
So, have you grasped the difference between a phoneme and a grapheme?
If not, reread what is above until you have fully understood it.
From now on, we will study the most common graphemes in French. There are quite a few, but don’t worry because:
- as an English speaker, you already know quite a few,
- we will distribute them across several decks (from this DAY 3 deck to DAY 6).
After that, believe me: you will quickly get accustomed to written French (which can be intimidating for those who haven’t been prepared for it).
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(OUTDATED) PRONUNCIATION 101 (6/6)
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Bravo, champion!! You’ve successfully tackled all the graphemes I wanted to show you.
You have no idea how much time you’ve just saved for the future by doing this preparatory work on sounds, phonemes, and graphemes!
However, the pronunciation of certain sounds may still pose some problems for you (Yes, [O], [A], [1], [u], and [r], I’m talking about you specifically!). 😀
That’s why I have one last exercise for you: it’s called minimal pairs.
Don’t know what that is?
FLIP THE CARD ↓ to figure it out
The exercise of minimal pairs consists of determining which word, among the two written on the card, corresponds to what you hear (and no need to know what they mean at this stage).
But the paired words have one particularity: only one sound differentiates them! 😅
The purpose of this exercise is to:
- continue associating sounds with the graphemes you’ve just learned,
- but, most importantly, to accurately identify the sounds you hear.
Sharpening your ear will not only improve your pronunciation but also enable you to progress much faster than the average in listening comprehension.
So when you’re ready, let’s begin!
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