[Course Forum] 5000 most common French words by Ciccero aka Chartalegna

[michael_z]

All points from [Course Forum] 5000 most common French words by Ciccero (1-52) corrected as well as all that remained from [Course Forum] 5000 most common French words by Ciccero (in italic).

[michael_z]

Edit: Below set updated.

53 —
86 part nf share –> + [not “portion”]
3806 portion nf portion, share –> + [not “part”]

54 —
scrutin nm ballot, poll 2913 –> + [not “sondage”]
sondage nm poll 2232 –> + [not “scrutin”]

55 —
2397 désastre nm disaster –> + [not “catastrophe”]
1832 catastrophe nf catastrophe, disaster –> + [not “désastre”]

56 —
1838 bouche nf mouth –> + [not “gueule”]
3015 gueule nf mouth, trap –> + [not “bouche”]

57 —
1285 dégager to free, clear –> + [not "débarrasser / “débloquer”]
2235 débarrasser to clear, get rid of –> + [not “dégager” / “débloquer”]
3904 débloquer to free, unfreeze, unjam, release, unblock –> + [not “dégager” / “débarrasser”]

58 —
384 développement development –> + [not “déroulement” / “aménagement” / “essor”]
3024 déroulement development, progress –> + [not “développement” / “aménagement” / “essor”]
3851 aménagement development, planning, fitting, adjustment –> + [not “développement” / “déroulement” / “essor”]
4662 essor expansion, development, flight –> + [not “développement” / “déroulement” / “aménagement”]

59 —

2063 gouverner to govern, rule, steer, helm –> + [not “régir”]
3030 régir to govern –> + [not “gouverner”]

60 —

3057 résidence residence, block of flats –> + [not “demeure” / “habitation”]
3524 demeure residence, home –> + [not “résidence” / “habitation”]
3616 habitation residence, home, dwelling, housing –> + [not “résidence” / “demeure”]

61 —

3058 dedans inside, indoors –> + [not “l…”]
3796 là-dedans inside, in it –> + [not “dedans”]

62 —

153 travail nm work –> + [not “oeuvre” / “tâche” / “ouvrage”]
331 oeuvre nf work, task –> + [not “travail” / “tâche” / “ouvrage”]
887 tâche nf task –> + [not “travail” / “oeuvre” / “ouvrage”]
1740 ouvrage nm work –> + [not “travail” / “oeuvre” / “tâche”]

63 —

675 essentiel essential –> + [not “indispensable”]
1746 indispensable essential –> + [not “essentiel”]

64 —

2951 surprenant surprising –> + [not “étonnant”]
1627 étonnant surprising, amazing, incredible –> + [not “surprenant”]

65 —

750 consacrer v to devote, consecrate –> + [not “vouer” / “dévouer”]
2950 vouer v to devote, dedicate to, vow to –> + [not “consacrer” / “dévouer”]
4753 dévouer v to devote, sacrifice oneself –> + [not “consacrer” / “vouer”]

66 —

827 médecin physician, doctor –> + [not “docteur”]
2176 docteur doctor –> + [not “médecin”]

67 —

438 chance nf luck; chance –> + [not “hasard”]
1882 hasard nm chance, luck –> + [not “chance”]

68 —

2223 rivière river –> + [not “fleuve”]
2893 fleuve river –> + [not “rivière”]

69 —

249 nombre nm number –> + [not “numéro”]
766 numéro nm number –> + [not “nombre”]

70 —

481 presque adv almost –> + [not “quasi” / “quasiment”]
2778 quasi almost, nearly –> + [not “presque” / “quasiment”]
3538 quasiment almost, early –> + [not “presque” / “quasi”]

71 —

2099 alimentaire food –> + [not “nourriture” / “aliment” / “alimentation”]
2285 nourriture food –> + [not “alimentaire” / “aliment” / “alimentation”]
2845 aliment food –> + [not “alimentaire” / “nourriture” / “alimentation”]
2846 alimentation diet, food, groceries, supply –> + [not “alimentaire” / “nourriture” / “aliment”]

72 —

1166 règlement nm rule, regulation –> + [not “réglementation”]
2828 réglementation nf regulation –> + [not “règlement”]

73 —

2243 paiement nm payment –> + [not “rémunération” / “versement”]
3088 rémunération nf remuneration, payment, pay –> + [not “paiement” / “versement”]
4531 versement nm payment –> + [not “paiement” / “rémunération”]

74 —

120 suivre v to follow –> + [not “ensuivre”]
4942 ensuivre v to follow, result, ensue –> + [not “suivre”]

75 —

823 augmenter v to increase, raise –> + [not "accroître " / “hausser” / “grandir” / “croître”]
1523 accroître v to increase –> + [not "augmenter " / “hausser” / “grandir” / “croître”]
2177 hausser v to raise –> + [not “augmenter” / “accroître” / “grandir” / “croître”]
1936 grandir v to grow, increase, expand –> + [not “augmenter” / “accroître” / “hausser” / “croître”]
2131 croître v to grow, increase –> + [not “augmenter” / “accroître” / “hausser” / “grandir”]

76 —

1263 augmentation nf increase, rise –> + [not “hausse” / “accroissement”]
1572 hausse nf rise, raise, increase –> + [not “augmentation” / “accroissement”]
2762 accroissement nm increase –> + [not “augmentation” / “hausse”]

77 —

423 occasion nf chance, opportunity –> + [not “opportunité”]
2863 opportunité nf opportunity, timeliness –> + [not “occasion”]

78 —

59 grand adv,nadj great, big, tall –> + [not “super”]
2993 super adji,nm great –> + [not “grand”]

79 —

2776 étoile nf star –> + [not “star”]
3322 star nf star –> + [not “étoile”]

80 —

3104 surplus nm(pl) surplus –> + [not “excès” / “excédent”]
3132 excès nm(pl) excess, surplus, abuse –> + [not “surplus” / “excédent”]
3140 excédent nm surplus –> + [not “surplus” / “excès”]

81 —

1358 attacher v to attach –> + [not “r…”]
3157 rattacher v to attach, join, tie –> + [not “attacher”]

82 —

3012 bar nm bar –> + [not “barre”]
2349 barre nf bar, rod –> + [not “bar”]

[michael_z]

Hi @Lien, can you have a look at the two words- “un support” and “un plancher” as in the screenshots below? There are additional answers, “support” (answer 3) and “floor” (answer 4), respectively. However, those answers don’t exist in the course- I can’t find them in the database.

[VincentOostelbos]

Hey, I love this course, it’s great quality and the example sentences are very helpful!

I did find one mistake so far (have only gone through the first 300 words): for travailler, it says ‘not “travailler”’.

[MaxineDownunder]

I love this course also. It would be helpful to add the level this word is on. I am not a contributor but know from experience that helps.

[VincentOostelbos]

Oh right, of course. I did say in the first 300 words, but that still leaves three possible levels. Anyway, it was in the third level, near the end.

[Koala_girl]

Great, I’ll ask for @JoThelan or @michael_z - to take a look at this.

[MaxineDownunder]

Thanks @Koala_girl - you beat me to it!

[michael_z]

@VincentOostelbos thanks, it’s done.

@Maxine_Downunder no, the level is not needed. There’s a databases of words used in the course and it’s quicker to find one through search rather than scanning through levels.

[MaxineDownunder]

OK - thanks for that @michael_z. The reason I wrote that in is because I’ve seen it lots of times elsewhere (possibly for other courses though).

[VincentOostelbos]

I am of course learning French, which is why I am here, so I might be mistaken, but I think the tenses for the translations given in the example sentences for “importer” is wrong. It uses the form “importait”, which seems to be imperfect, but the translation into English is in the present tense (“it’s important”).

[VincentOostelbos]

In the example sentence for “une sécurité”, I believe the example sentence is wrongly translated as well:

“ils se sentaient plus en sécurité dans la rue qu’à la maison – he felt safer in the streets than at home”

I believe it should be “they felt safer […]”.

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In the example sentence for “un bout”, a space is missing between the last two words of the English translation (“thestreet”).

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In the example sentence for “durer”, the French “quinze jours” is translated into English as “two weeks”. While I understand that is approximately the same, I would recommend simply translating it more literally as “fifteen days” in English.

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The example sentence for “souvenir”, “Je ne veux me souvenir de rien”, is translated into English as “I don’t remember anything”. This may be a case of insufficient familiarity with/understanding of French on my part, but wouldn’t that be “I don’t want to remember anything” in English?

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The example sentence for “figurer” uses “figurent”, which is translated in the past tense as “appeared”, but I believe it should be present tense, “appear”.

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The example sentence for “une charge” uses “plie”, which is translated in the past tense as “collapsed”, but I believe it should be present tense, “collapses”.

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In addition, I was wondering what the meaning is of the various acronyms/abbreviations in the “additions” field sometimes, like “nm” and the like.

[fanny_sta]

Hi Vincent,

Thank you so much for spotting these, they are all corrected now. Regarding the abbreviations: nm means ‘nom masculin’ (noun of the masculine gender) and nf ‘nom féminin’ (noun of the feminine gender). I hope this help.

[VincentOostelbos]

Thank you very much! It’s so good to see this course active and still continuing to be improved. I will continue slowly but surely to go through the course, and will post any issues I come across as I go.

I thought that might be what the abbreviations meant thanks again.

[pflinders]

Is anyone still maintaining this course?

I thought it would be a good idea to finally beef up my French vocab but I’m finding it a somewhat frustrating experience.

The root of the problem is that Memrise cannot cope with the fact that there is not a one to one mapping between words in two languages but many to many with multiple alternates and synonyms on each side. So, when, for example “work(n)” in English could be translated as “un travail”, “une œuvre” or even “un ouvrage” - Memrise cannot accept one of these words where it was expecting another.

Thus we get entries like (from michael_z’s post last May).

153 travail nm work –> + [not “oeuvre” / “tâche” / “ouvrage”]
331 oeuvre nf work, task –> + [not “travail” / “tâche” / “ouvrage”]
887 tâche nf task –> + [not “travail” / “oeuvre” / “ouvrage”]
1740 ouvrage nm work –> + [not “travail” / “oeuvre” / “tâche”]

I see why this has been done but it isn’t terribly helpful when learning the vocabulary. Also I think I got given just about all of these in a multi-choice entry for “work”, during a “speed review” no less and it really is impossible to pick the right one in the time limit.

Unfortunately this has been a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to the underlying Memrise problem and has not always been done as well as it could, making the problem worse.

I haven’t finished all 50 modules yet so I can’t see all the possibilities but to pick just two (to start) could I propose that:

“chacun” is rendered in English as “Each one” or “Each person” as it has a distinct usage to “chaque”.
“tâche” is taken out of the travail/work mess and just translated as “task”. Neither of my go-to dictionaries (WordReference or the online Collins-Robert) provide any English (or French) synonym other than tâche=task. (NB, stain is tache, no circumflex, so does not come into this).

Agreed many are going to be difficult to resolve but I think a few at least could be disambiguated in a way which will be more meaningful to a learner.

Oh, apropos “quinze jours” [VincentOostelbo Jul '17] the best English translation is going to be “Fortnight”.

[MaxineDownunder]

I don’t know if Ciccero is still looking after this course (or not), but I’ll tag him/her here … @chartalegna

[pflinders]

No response, @JoThelan was someone else with access. Is there any way to “take over” an abandoned course?

[11191 (カプチンケイオス８)]

Hello! I’m just wondering if you could create another course that is the same content as what there is here but in a random order.

[Sonnenkrieger]

I know this course is no longer being maintained, but do you guys think this is the best Memrise community-created course for French vocabulary acquisition? There are so many to choose from, I don’t know which one has the least amount of errors while also featuring a large number of words. I am not very interested in the courses that only teach a few hundred or a thousand words. I want to learn at least 5,000 French words here.

[Olaf.Rabbachin]

I’ve been working on this course for well over a year and am about 60% through. The quality is very good, there’s hardly any problematic words that I would remember having come across. IMHO one of the best courses around (not only reg. FR)!