One day, I was idly thinking about French questions that get asked over and over, and inspiration struck: why not create a one-stop resource for lessons, practice exercises, and related content for those knotty topics?
Within a day, I’d figured out what to do and how to do it: publish an every-other-Sunday newsletter for anyone who wants to dive deep on essential aspects of the French language and francophone cultures, including common difficulties, customs, and important events.
Check it out!
La tour Eiffel à fond
Pronominal Verbs à fond
Many French students are first introduced to reflexive verbs and then continue using this term for all verbs that need a reflexive pronoun, but in fact there are 4 different kinds of French pronominal verbs, depending on the meaning / purpose of the pronoun. This issue of Lawless French à fond takes an in-depth look at understanding, conjugating, and using pronominal verbs.
Accents à fond
While French uses the same 26-letter alphabet as English, it decorates half a dozen of them with diacritical marks, aka accents. The purpose of these accents varies, but they are always required when writing and typing. Take an in-depth look at accents: what they mean, how to use them, and how to type them on any computer, tablet, or phone.
La rentrée
La rentrée is one of the biggest events of the French year. In many countries, early September is end-of-summer-break-and-back-to-school time, but in France it's so much more than that. Here's everything you need to know about la rentrée with Lawless French à fond.
Subjunctive à fond
The French subjunctive can be extremely daunting, but like everything else, it can be mastered with good lessons, quality practice, and a fair amount of time. Check out this packed issue of Lawless French à fond for everything you need, including the full-size, shareable version of this cute meme.
Articles of Determination
Despite their tiny size, French articles are an immensely important part of speech. They introduce and modify nouns, providing key information about the purpose of those nouns - as well as their gender and number. Today’s issue of Lawless French à fond takes an in-depth look at the similarities and differences between French articles, and the tricky aspects of using them correctly.
Bastille Day à fond
Geographical Prepositions à fond
In English, talking about geography is fairly straightforward, prepositionally speaking. Regardless of the type of place, whether it's a city or a region or a country, when talking about going somewhere ✈️, being somewhere 🏨, or returning from somewhere 👋, we use just three prepositions: to, in, from. In French, geographical prepositions are orders of magnitude more complicated.
Tu vs Vous à fond
One of the very first things French students discover is that there are two ways to say "you," which can seem really strange for English speakers. In some cases, the choice between tu and vous is obvious, but for certain relationships, it's much more of an art 🎨 than a science. 🧪 Even native speakers don't always know which pronoun to use!
French Open à fond
The French Open is one of the most important tennis events of the year. Not only is it one of the four tournois du Grand Chelem (Grand Slam tournaments), Roland-Garros is the only tournament played on clay courts. But first things first: What is this tournament actually called?
Numbers à fond
When I talk to French students about what they have the most trouble with, at least half of them mention numbers. In French, iIt’s more than just vocabulary: it’s math. 🧮 So if you find yourself writing things like 4-20-17 and then realizing, oops, that’s 97, this audio-packed issue of Lawless French à fond is for you.
Le Premier Mai à fond
Happy May Day! You probably know that May 1st is a holiday in France - but did you know that it’s actually two holidays? Learn how they fit together, discover some related French lessons and exercises, and send a virtual muguet to your favorite Francophile!
Avoir vs Être à fond
French has two auxiliary verbs (aka helping verbs): avoir and être. That means one or the other of these is the opening salvo in every compound verb conjugation, such as the passé composé and the futur antérieur. The rules for when to use avoir and when you need être for these verb forms can seem a little complicated, but with study and practice (and maybe a mnemonic assist) you’ll eventually get to the point where you know which one to use instinctively.
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Note that Lawless French à fond is not a replacement for my regular 2x-weekly newsletter, which includes links to a variety of topics in each issue. They are separate subscriptions, so you can choose to subscribe to either one or both.
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