Le Dictionnaire Bilingue (Bilingual Dictionary)
Video
Notes
Two sides of the bilingual dictionary
Abbreviations
Determining gender using a bilingual dictionary
- Each bilingual dictionary has two parts: 1) French to English, and 2) English to French.
- Depending on the dictionary, in the front of the dictionary you may look up the French word to get its English equivalent, or it may be just the opposite.
- In order to know which side to use first, just flip to the front and look at the entries; if they are in English, it is an English to French dictionary, and vice versa.
Abbreviations
- Bilingual dictionaries will often use abbreviations for parts of speech (nouns, verbs, etc.). In English the abbreviations are as follows:
v./vi./vt. = verb > an action
n./nf./nm. = noun > a person, place or thing
adj. = adjective > a word which describes a person, place or thing
adv. = adverb > a type of adjective which describes a verb (action); often ends in -ly in English - In French, the basic abbreviations are the same:
v. = verbe > un action
> for a verb, you may see vi. or vt., which is expressing if the verb is intransitive or transitive, respectively.
n. = nom > une personne, un lieu, ou une chose
> for a noun, you may also see only m or f, meaning masculine or feminine
adj. = adjectif > une déscription
adv. = adverbe > une déscription d'un verbe - You will generally see the abbreviation immediately to the right or left of the French definition.
- You may also find "see prendre," or another term when looking up a term. The word "see" is telling you to see the word following, in this case prendre, in order to find your definition.
- You may also see abbreviations like this that indicate that the term must be followed by something else:
prep: preposition
qqn: quelqu'un (somebody), replace qqn with whoever the action is being done to
qch: quelque chose (something), replace qch with whatever you are talking about
Determining gender using a bilingual dictionary
- In the French language, each noun has a gender (masculine or feminine) and a number (singular or plural), which is also done in Spanish but is not done in English.
- It is important to be able to identify a noun's gender because that plays a role in verb conjugation, article agreement, and adjective agreement.
- Generally, you will be given the singular form of a verb in the dictionary entry.
- In order to know the gender of a noun, look directly to the right of the entry and you will see one of the following abbreviations:
f = feminine
m = masculine - You may also see the gender abbreviation combined with the part of speech abbreviation like so:
nf = feminine noun
nm = masculine noun - Using these gender abbreviations will help you to decide which article (a/an, the; un/une, le/la) to use in front of a noun; in proper French it is ALWAYS necessary to use an article.
English to French
French to English
Determining which definition to use
- Oftentimes, like in English, you will have a French word which has multiple meanings, so it is important to make sure you read the whole entry for a word's definition to find the correct word.
- Oftentimes, the dictionary will have a word in parentheses that will show you the context in which you would use a certain definition, as shown below.
- It is also important to pay attention to the accents above letters because those can often change the definition of word.
- Many times, you will even be given different contexts that the term will be used in. Oftentimes, the original term is replaced by "~" to save space.
Verbs are given in the "infinitive" form
Cognates and false cognates (les vrais amis et les faux amis)
- When using nouns to speak or write in most languages, you must conjugate the verb.
- When looking up a verb in the dictionary, you will be given the infinitive or non-conjugated form of the verb. A few examples of infinitive verbs in English are: 1) to run, 2) to eat, 3) to fall.
- Because the verb is given in the infinitive form, you must conjugate the verb after looking it up in the dictionary, you cannot simply write the word that you are given.
- You will know that a French verb is in the infinitive form if you see an -er, -ir, or -re ending. Examples:
manger = to eat
finir = to finish
entendre = to hear
Cognates and false cognates (les vrais amis et les faux amis)
- There are many cognates (vrais amis) and false cognates (faux amis) in the French and English languages, so it is important to be aware when looking these words up.
- Many dictionaries will warn you of false cognates with a dialogue box that appears below an entry, but not all will do this.
- If you are not sure if a word is a cognate, be on the safe side and check in the dictionary. Oftentimes you will be given a word like "un crayon," which looks like crayon in English, but actually means pencil.
- You can often assume a word is a cognate unless it doesn't make any sense.
Activities
Le Dictionnaire
Get students to look up words in a bilingual dictionary to practice identifying the gender and the part of speech of French words.
Directions:
Materials: a class set of dictionaries, or an online dictionary like Word Reference.
Scavenger Hunt
Directions:
English to French
Get students to look up words in a bilingual dictionary to practice identifying the gender and the part of speech of French words.
Directions:
- Students choose 15 letters from the French alphabet and find 15 French words that start with those letters.
- For each word, students must identify the English definition, part of speech, and gender (if a noun) of the word.
- Alternately, you can choose to have students find a word for each of the 26 letters of the alphabet, but it takes quite a long time.
Materials: a class set of dictionaries, or an online dictionary like Word Reference.
Scavenger Hunt
Directions:
- Each student is given a bilingual dictionary and each group is given an individual whiteboard and a dry-erase marker.
- As a group, students will work to find the information below using their dictionaries for the words listed below.
- Part of speech
- Definition (French or English)
- Gender (if a noun)
- The teacher can decide to go one word at a time and give a point to the first group to find the information for each word or the winning team is the group with all of the correct information for all 10 words first.
English to French
- average
- channel (television)
- fantasy
- listen
- under
- aiguille
- calotter
- discorde
- pauvre
- derrière
Additional Sites
An Introduction to Bilingual Dictionaries
How to use Bilingual dictionaries along with some explanations of their functions.
How to use Bilingual dictionaries along with some explanations of their functions.