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Unit 4 · 5 lessons

Discours et argumentation: Reporting, Persuading and Style

Handle other people's words and build your own case: indirect speech with every tense, time and place shift, indirect questions and commands, the faire causatif, a structured argument with concession and connectors, and the figures of speech that give poems, songs and ads their force.

  • 49 practice questions
  • 44 flashcards
  • 2 interactive lessons
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Lessons

  1. 1Indirect Discourse: Every ShiftThe complete system for reporting what someone said: every tense and what it becomes after a past reporting verb (including the futur antérieur, the impératif and the subjonctif), which verbs count as past, when the présent may stay, the full set of time and place shifts, and how a precise reporting verb lets you show a speaker's stance as a journalist does.Interactive10 questions
  2. 2Indirect Questions and CommandsReporting and asking questions inside a sentence: si, ce que, ce qui, qui, à quoi and the question words that stay, statement word order and the one place where a noun subject may still be inverted, polite indirect questions in the present, and the full family of verbs for reporting commands and requests, with the prepositions and pronouns each one takes.Interactive10 questions
  3. 3Faire Causatif, se faire and se laisserHow French says have something done, make someone do something, get yourself noticed and let yourself be convinced: faire plus an infinitive, where the doer of the action goes and when it takes à or par, why every object pronoun moves in front of faire, why fait never agrees here, and the reflexive patterns se faire and se laisser plus an infinitive.10 questions
  4. 4Building an Argument: Thesis, Concession and ConnectorsHow a French argumentative text is built, from the introduction (sujet amené, posé, divisé) through argument paragraphs with evidence to a concession that turns into a refutation and a conclusion that opens outward; the connectors for adding, contrasting, conceding, explaining cause and consequence and concluding; and the phrases that keep a debate polite but firm.9 questions
  5. 5Figures of Speech and Literary AnalysisThe French names and workings of the main figures of speech (comparaison, métaphore, personnification, hyperbole, litote, euphémisme, antithèse, oxymore, gradation, anaphore, allitération, assonance, question rhétorique), shown in famous lines by Corneille, Racine, Lamartine, Verlaine, Louise Labé and Gilles Vigneault, with a three-step method for analysing a poem, a song or an ad, and the basics of French verse: counting syllables, rhyme schemes and the sonnet.10 questions