This is a great book for anyone starting to learn French. You'll find it easy to learn new words by looking at the small, labelled pictures. Then you can practise the words by talking about the large central pictures. This book also has its own Usborne Quicklinks Web site where you can listen to all the French words, print out some French picture puzzles, and follow links to other fun and useful Web sites.
Masculine and feminine words
When you look at French words for things such as "table" or "man", you will see that they have le, la or l' in front of them. This is because all French words for things and people are either masculine or feminine. Le is the word for "the" in front of a masculine word, la is "the" in front of a feminine word, and you use l' in front of words that begin with "a", "e", "I", "o" or "u". In front of the words that are plural (more than one, such as "tables" or "men"), the French word for "the" is les.
All the labels in this book show words for things with le, la, I' or les. Always learn them with this little word.
Looking at French words
A few French words have accents. These are signs that are written over or under some letters. Usually they are over the letter "e", and they change the way you say the letter.
Saying French words
The best way to learn how to say French words is to listen to a French speaker and repeat what you hear. You can listen to all the words in this book on the Usborne Quicklinks Web site. For more information on how to do this, see the page on the left. At the back of this book, there is also a word list with an easy pronunciation guide for each French word.
