Dictation!, the podcast from the editorial staff of Current wife brings dictation up to date. In the previous episode, we tell you an extract from the poem “Tomorrow, from dawn” by Victor Hugo. It’s time to put down your pen and start editing! Madam speech therapist, spelling influencer and author of the book “Madam speech therapist, erase all your spelling mistakes”gives us his answer key and his tips to stop making spelling mistakes.
The text of the dictation from the poem by Victor Hugo
TOMORROW, AT DOWN
Tomorrow, at dawn, at a time when the countryside whitens,
I leave. You see, I know you’re waiting for me.
I will go through the forest, I will go across the mountains.
I can’t stay away from you any longer.
I will walk with my eyes fixed on my thoughts,
Without seeing anything outside, without hearing any noise,
Alone, unknown, back bent, hands crossed,
Sad, and the day for me will be like the night.
Madam speech therapist’s correction
– “dawn”: pay attention to the spelling of the word “dawn” with the “l’”.
– “at the time when”: we had to put an emphasis on the “where” because it refers to a moment. The unaccented “or” is used to suggest an alternative. It can be replaced by “or else”. In this sentence, you cannot say “that moment or I heard it coming up”. You must therefore write “where” with an accent.
– “whitens the companion”: the ending of “whitens” is a T. We must ask ourselves “who whitens”? That’s the countryside. It is the third person singular present tense of the verb “blanchire” and the ending is -IT.
– “I will leave”: the ending of “will leave” is -AI because it is a future action. The word “tomorrow” tells you this. It is common to ask the question: -AI or -AIS when I hear “ai”? One is future, the other is conditional. If you are in doubt between future and conditional, that is, between -AI and -AIS, replace I with WE to hear the difference. In this sentence you can say “we will leave” and not “we would leave”. So you know that you are using the future tense. Now that you understand when to use one or the other, here’s a little mnemonic that I’ve used personally: “AI” is the shortest ending, like the word “future”! (-AIS is the longest ending, like the word “conditional”.) Sometimes the tips can be very simple, the main thing is that they help you remember! So don’t hesitate to look for some whenever necessary!
– “You see, I know that you are waiting for me”: “see” and “wait” are written with an S because the subject is YOU.
– “I will go through the forest, I will go through the mountain”: the ending of “irai” is -AI because it is in the future. You could say “we will go”.
– “I cannot stay away from you any longer”: “remain” is written with -ER- at the end. Remember the tip I gave you during a previous dictation! To differentiate between -ER and -é, replace with “sell/sold”. If you can say “sell”, it is the infinitive and should be written -ER. Here you can say “I cannot sell…” and not “I cannot sell…”, so it is the infinitive “to remain”.
– “I will walk”: it’s always in the future.
– “eyes fixed”: we should not forget the S in “fixed”.
– “on my thoughts”: an E and an S for “thoughts”.
– “Without seeing anything outside”: without hearing any noise: you should not put an S in “none” or “noise” because there is no “noise”, zero.
– “Alone, unknown”: there is no E or S in these words because it is a man who writes.
– “back bent, hands crossed”: it was necessary to write “crossed” with -ÉES because it is the hands that are crossed.
– “Sad, and the day for me will be like the night”: “night” and “noise” have a T at the end that we don’t hear. You can think of words in the same family to find the silent letter at the end of a word. For example, you can say “an overnight stay” or “a sound effect” and you hear the T’s, so don’t forget them for “night” and “noise”.