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Year 8 - French

School reporter: past inversion questions

Past events: the perfect tense, questions

Unit Summary

In this unit, pupils extend their knowledge of the perfect tense as they practise asking intonation, inversion and est-ce que questions in the perfect tense. They learn irregular past participles, practise the two English translations (I did, I have done) for the French perfect tense

Lesson Summary

You will learn to plan questions for a school report using inversion and the perfect tense.

Key Notes

  • The French [s] can make a hard 'z' or a soft 's' sound: maison, société.
  • The SSC [tion] makes a soft 's' sound: attention. The SSC [ç/c] makes a soft 's' sound: cinéma.
  • Use the perfect tense to talk about an action that happened in the past: avoir + past participle.
  • To ask a closed question in the perfect tense use inversion: swap the subject and the verb (avoir): as-tu commencé ?

Vocabulary To Learn

  • [s]: pronounced as in 'maison'
  • [tion]: pronounced as in 'attention'
  • [c/ç]: pronounced as in 'ici'
  • perfect tense: a verb tense that describes completed actions in the past e.g. I listened, you played
  • inversion: when the subject pronoun and the verb switch place to form a question

Common Mistakes To Avoid

  • When forming an inversion question in the perfect tense, the past participle comes after 'avoir'.

3 Quick Questions (With Answers)

1. Explain what you can now say or understand in this lesson.

The French [s] can make a hard 'z' or a soft 's' sound: maison, société. The SSC [tion] makes a soft 's' sound: attention. The SSC [ç/c] makes a soft 's' sound: cinéma.

2. Define this key language word and use it in context. '[s]'

pronounced as in 'maison'. Say or write it in a short sentence so you use the word actively.

3. Correct this common language-learning mistake.

Mistake: When forming an inversion question in the perfect tense, the past participle comes after 'avoir'. Correction: When forming an inversion question in the perfect tense, only the verb avoir and the subject swap. The past participle remains at the end: as-tu commencé ?

More Lessons In This Unit

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