In “Dictation!”the new podcast from the editorial staff of Current wife, we bring dictation up to date. During the previous episode, we offered you a return to the past with a dictation given for the primary education certificate of 1912. This was an extract from the text “To the schoolchildren of Alsace” by Ernest Lavisse. It’s time to put down your pen and start making corrections! Madam speech therapist, spelling influencer and author of the book “Madam speech therapist, erase all your spelling mistakes”reveals his answer key and his tips to avoid making mistakes again.
The text of the dictation of the certificate of primary studies for the year 1912
TO ALSACE SCHOOLCHILDREN
Comrades, we know that you are suffering great pain because you are separated from us; To be separated from you is a great sorrow for us. If someone tells you we’re not thinking about you, don’t believe it. Our fathers lived together for a long time, citizens of the same homeland. Together, they learned, in the penultimate century, to believe in the dignity of the human being and to love justice and freedom.
Madam speech therapist’s correction
Now that you have the text in front of you, let’s come back to the biggest pitfalls of text. A short French course is essential to understand and no longer make spelling mistakes!
– “Because” : perhaps you have already doubted but this conjunction is always written in two words and without a hyphen between “because” And “that”.
– “To be separated from you”: it was necessary to put a “s” has “separated” because it refers to “We”. These are several individuals who are separated, so it must be put in the plural, with a “s”. It is important to question the connections between words to know how to match them.
– “It is a great sorrow for us”: “It is” is written with a “vs” in this sentence since it is the contraction of “that is”. You could say “This is a great sorrow” in more sustained language. I offer you this little tip to no longer hesitate with other possible spellings: if you can replace “It is” by “that is”you will write “It is” with the letter “vs”. You find the “vs” of “That” In “It is” also.
– “Our fathers lived together for a long time”: in this sentence, “have” is written with the letter “t”. This is the auxiliary avoir in the present tense. If you sometimes confuse it with “we”, to avoid making any mistakes, try to conjugate the verb avoir in another tense. If we return to the example of dictation, you could say “our fathers had lived…”. So you know that it is indeed the auxiliary have that is in question. You find the “-nt”plural mark at the end of “had” and of “have”.
Also, there is no “s” has “together” because it is an adverb. It modifies and provides clarification on the verb. Here he completes “have lived”. He says “how they lived”: together. It is invariable and is therefore written without “s”. If you can replace it with a word from the same category, i.e. another adverb then “together” is not written with a “s”. Here we could replace “together” by “quickly”. For example, you can say “They lived together quickly”. “Quickly” is an adverb and does not vary, “together” is also in this sentence and does not vary either.
– “Together they learned”: for the same reasons mentioned previously, there is no “s” has “together” not here either. You could say “quickly, they learned”
– “learned” : we write it with a “s” at the end. In “they learned” : “learn” is conjugated to a compound tense which is therefore composed of two parts: “have” And “learned”. To find out what the silent letter is at the end of this 2nd part, here is a tip that works every time: look for the feminine! The feminine of “learned”It is “learned”. You hear the ZZZ so you need a “s” has “learned” to prepare him to receive a feminine depending on the situation.
– “To believe in the dignity of the human being and to love justice and freedom” : “to like” is written “er” at the end here because it is about the form “asleep” of the verb to love. The sleeping form is the one you find in the dictionary, in other words the infinitive. Here is a tip that can help you no longer make a mistake between the two endings“e” And “er”. Just try to replace the verb with another verb in the infinitive but in which we hear a difference. For example, if you can say “take”then we must put “er”. If you cannot, you must write “e”. Here you can say “to take justice”it is therefore “to love” with the ending “er”.
See you in two weeks for a new dictation and its correction!