Department of French

Essential advance preparation for undergraduates before starting the course

It is vital that you do some preparatory work on the following two areas before you arrive in Cambridge to start the course:

• French language
• French literature or linguistics.

This preparation is likely to make your first year much more enjoyable and successful since the Cambridge workload is demanding.

French language

You will need to make sure, before you start your course, that your grammatical knowledge has reached a very good level. Please use one or more grammar books to consolidate what you have covered at school/college, and to learn other major grammar points with which you may have little or no familiarity. You will find recent, helpful, and even enjoyable grammar books listed at http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/french/reading/lang-ref.html (see Section 2 'Grammars'). Ideally, you should purchase at least one of these grammar books, since it will help you throughout your course as well as before it: we'd suggest either the Price or else the Hawkins and Towell (which also has a companion book full of exercises - doing such exercises, in conjunction with studying a grammar book, is a better way to learn grammar than simply to stare at a grammar book). It will also be important for you to buy, if at all possible, two dictionaries, one bilingual (English/French) and one monolingual (French/French). For a list of the ones we suggest you buy, see the same web-page, this time Sections 1 and 3.

To get an idea of the first-year (Part IA) French-language courses ('papers'), see http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/french/courses/ugrad/p1a_intro.html.

French literature or linguistics

In their first year, students of French also study either a French literature paper, 'French literary texts: an introduction', or a linguistics one, 'Introduction to the structure and varieties of modern French'. Don't be put off if you have done little or no linguistics or literature before; neither paper assumes any prior knowledge and they have both been specifically designed to be introductory and stimulating. Moreover, your choice of a linguistics or literary paper at Part IA will not prevent you from studying either area in your second and fourth years.

You should be able to buy or order books by visiting, telephoning, emailing, or writing to bookshops in university cities, such as:

• Grant & Cutler, 55-57 Great Marlborough Street, London W1V 2AY, tel. (0207) 734 8766; e-mail french@grantandcutler.com
• Heffers, 20 Trinity Street, Cambridge CB2 3NG, tel. (01223) 568568; http://www.heffers.co.uk
• also http://www.amazon.com

French books can now be purchased easily over the Internet from sites such as:

• http://www.amazon.fr
• http://www.fnac.com
• http://www.chapitre.com
• http://www.alapage.com

One possibility is for you to take the linguistics paper, Paper Fr 1, which is on the structure and varieties of the modern French language. Once you have studied this paper you will never look at the French language in the same way again! French is far more than just a tool for communication. Language is central to thought and to cultural identity and this paper helps you develop an understanding of what the French language is and how it works.

The lecture course is divided into two halves, which interface with one another. In the 'Varieties' half of the course, you will study how the use of the French language varies according to the type of person speaking or writing it and the situation in which the speaking or writing arises. Topics covered will include the differences between written and spoken French, how French varies in different parts of France (and what type of language is meant by the terms 'dialect' and 'patois'), differences between the French of men and women, old people and young people, the upper classes and the lower classes, and of course the many types of French spoken outside France, including the varieties of French known as pidgins and creoles - which are in fact brand new languages that are in the process of being born.

In the 'Structures' half of the course you will study the different sounds of French, its grammatical structure and its vocabulary. We will examine things that are very familiar to you and teach you how to think about these in completely different ways! Take, for example, the usual way of thinking about French verbs, in three conjugations. Why do we use this classification system? Is it a good one? Can we think of any other ways of doing this? Or what about the words of French? Are they all 'built' in the same way? Are certain methods of creating words more popular than others? Why does the French government try to 'control' the words used in French so much?

There are no set texts for this paper and so you will not be required to buy any books for this course. However, it is very important that you do some advance preparation before you come up to Cambridge. A good way to prepare would be to try and gain some familiarity with different varieties of French. For example, read French newspapers and listen to the radio, or watch satellite or cable TV if you have access to it. Start to think about the ways in which the language used in these contexts differs from that of any literary works you have read. You will also find it helpful to have read one or more of the following:

• A. Battye & M. A. Hintze: The French Language Today (Routledge)


• M. Offord: Varieties of Contemporary French (Macmillan)


• H. Walter: Le Français dans tous les sens (Laffont)


• D. Ager: Sociolinguistics and Contemporary French (CUP)


• R. A. Lodge and others: Exploring the French language (Arnold)


• W. Ayres-Bennett & J. Carruthers, Studies in the Modern French Language (Longman)

Don't be put off by any technical vocabulary you may encounter at this stage - just skip over these parts for now! You will be introduced to all the necessary terminology as part of the course.

The other possibility is for you to take the literature paper (Fr.2), which will give you an excellent grounding in French culture. This paper has been specifically designed to be both introductory and stimulating, and it aims to introduce you to the concepts and practice of literary criticism. It introduces some internationally renowned works such as Molière's theatre and works which have made an important contribution to the development of French literature. Since it covers texts from the Middle Ages to the present, it will also give you the basis for an informed choice when you come to select the French courses which you'll take in your second and final years (Parts IB and II). This Part IA literature paper will be taught by a wide range of lecturers in the French Department; you will therefore have a chance to experience in your first year mind-broadening lectures illustrating different approaches.

For a description of the literature paper, see http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/french/courses/ugrad/fr2.html. There are 6 set texts for this paper: they are listed on a different web-page, i.e. at http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/french/reading/fr2read.html. Please buy all of these, in the prescribed editions, and read at least three of them before the October in which you are arriving at Cambridge. It is very important that you do this first reading of the books in advance, since you won't have time to do it all once the course starts and so will really struggle. You will begin studying all of these books in the very first term of your course. It is also very important that you buy each of these books in the edition specified on the list - please do not buy them in any other edition, since that will cause you problems later on.

How to read the literature set texts

The important thing is to relax and enjoy reading these books! If you find some of them slow at first, then perhaps try reading a few pages regularly, say, a few in the morning and a few in the afternoon, rather than trying to read huge chunks at one go.

Use a dictionary for help with the occasional difficult word which seems very important, or which stops you understanding a whole passage; but don't look up in a dictionary every word which you don't understand, since this would be extremely laborious and would interrupt your reading rhythm too severely, especially with the texts from earlier centuries, where you'll come across many unfamiliar words. You'll soon find that the various set texts need to be read in very different ways in order to be enjoyed. Here are some suggestions for ways of approaching the set texts.

Perhaps start with the Duras novel, which is the most recently written book, then go on to Montesquieu. This is an 'epistolary novel': a series of letters exchanged between fictional people, which end up telling a story. Montesquieu, a French author, imagines Persians visiting France and writing home to describe the strange places where they find themselves: a way of inviting his French readers to think about their culture from the outside.

Next, go on to Molière's plays: you may find you have to read these a little more slowly, since it is in verse, but you'll soon get used to this. Now go on to Robert d'Orbigny: you will notice that the language has changed in interesting ways since this was written, but that there are many words which you will recognise. Start by reading the modern French translation which is included in the prescribed edition, then read the original, referring back to the modern translation where you need to. Somewhat like Montesquieu, this twelfth-century author creates a rather fanciful version of Islamic culture, using it as a device to inspire reflections on love, gender, sexuality, and cultural differences.

The remaining two texts can't be read straight through, as if they were modern novels. They weren't intended to be read like that. When reading the poetry of Nerval, read a poem a few times, let its language wash over you, conjuring up images and meanings in your mind, rather than trying too hard to come up with neat, coherent and 'sensible' interpretations of what the poem means. Consult some of the notes in the edition to help you understand some of the allusions.

Marguerite de Navarre's Heptaméron describes a group of people telling stories to pass the time. Although the names of the characters are fictionalised, it is often possible to see allusions to historical figures; the notes in your edition will explain this. The stories are interesting in their own right as depictions of sixteenth-century aristocratic life and preoccupations; the comments made by those who tell the stories, and by their audience, add to the interest by developing a range of possible perspectives and interpretations. You will see that the different characters can have very different reactions to the tales that are told, and the ways that they use and interpret these stories reflect their own personalities and concerns.

Reading texts becomes much easier with practice. We are sure you will enjoy them more and more as you become more familiar with them.