Patricia explains the importance of dictation exercises for learning French. Now an essential teaching tool in the classroom, dictation was originally a pastime for French nobility. The author Prosper Mérimée created a dictation exercise for Empress Eugénie that stumped even the brightest intellectuals. Think you can beat them? Try it yourself here.

It took two hundred years to standardize French spelling before it could be taught in schools using a method called la dictée (dictation), in which a student writes out the words he or she hears. As a matter of fact, this is the exact same principle behind Yabla's Scribe game!

Sometimes numbers like cent (hundred) and quatre-vingts (eighty) take an S at the end, but other times they don't. Others, like mille (thousand), never take one. Sophie and Patrice explain these and other rules of writing numbers in French in this video.

Sophie and Patrice introduce the basics of counting in French. They make it up to one sextillion (un trilliard), but if you're new to French, you can just focus on learning zéro to neuf.

Patrice and Sophie have a conversation about the French language. They agree that French people speak too fast for the average learner, and abbreviations and contractions make it even more difficult to understand. Patrice has a few theories as to why Parisians in particular speak so fast.

Knowing when to pronounce and when not to pronounce the letter E is key to speaking French like a native. Among other places, E usually isn't pronounced when it's between two consonants (and doesn't have an accent mark).

E is a tricky vowel in French: sometimes it's pronounced, sometimes it's not. As Patricia explains, it's usually silent at the end of a word, and often silent in the middle of a word.

Patricia explains the difference between ne pas encore (not yet) and jamais (never), the two negative forms of déjà (already, ever). Ne pas encore applies to actions that are limited in time, while jamais applies to actions that aren't.

Patricia explains the use of déjà and ne pas encore in French. Déjà means "yet" or "already," depending on context. In the negative, déjà becomes ne pas encore (not yet).

Patricia concludes her series on vowels and vowel groups with a discussion of the vowels O and U. She also mentions a French word that contains all five vowels, but none of them are individually pronounced. Can you guess what it is?

In this video, you will learn how to pronounce some vowel combinations with the letter E (ei, eu, eau) as well as the differences between é, è, and ê.

In this lesson, Patricia will show you how to pronounce the six French vowels and the vowel combinations ai, an, au, ain, and aim.

Patricia concludes her lesson on negation with a discussion of phrases using sans (without), double negation, and negation in the imperative mood.

In part three of this series on negation, Patricia demonstrates the use of adverbs of frequency in the affirmative and in the negative form. Some changes are required with some adverbs.

In the second part of this series on negation, you will learn the negative forms rien ne... (nothing), ne... aucun(e) (not any), and ne... nulle part (nowhere). We hope you will be feeling more positive about these negatives!