Pardon my French...
THIS program covers 83 French verbs, in three main groups according
to difficulty.
The choice of verbs is, of course, largely a matter of taste
but I could have thought that absoudre, accroitre, croitre, assaillir,
dechoir could have been omitted and replaced with many of the
common etre verbs: sortir, entrer, monter, retourner. revenir.
devenir, which are missing and which are essential Form Five verbs.
The second option allows one to look up the verbal forms by verb.
The third option allows the user to look up by tense. The tenses
covered are the present, imperfect, perfect, future and conditional
- the five essential tenses.
The screen is divided into two halves. The bottom explains what
is happening and the top displays the conjugation of the verbs
in two "windows". Four colours are used but black and white can
be specified. This makes them somewhat easier to see.
I had looked forward to seeing the perfect tense but I was somewhat
disappointed. Not only were many etre verbs missing but also the
whole range of possible past participle endings were not displayed,
nor were the elle and elles form (though there is a spare line
in the window).
As the conjugation of the singular is displayed side by side
with the plural, there is no room to show the nous, vous and ils
form of reflexive verbs (except for se taire) and so the effect
is lost. Again the participle agreements are simplified.
Could not these forms have been shown in the other window? The
forms are obviously in memory because they are tested later.
The "browse" option allows the computer to display verbal forms
quickly or slowly of the group of verbs and tenses chosen. The
quick option displays a conjunction about once a second which
is a little fast.
The fifth option is "test". Once again one may chose any group(s)
of verbs and any of the tenses specifying a time limit if desired.
The computer is very strict and does not allow extra spaces to
be typed in inadvertently. Perhaps a procedure could have been
used to allow this.
It is perhaps the "retest" option which is the most novel in
this program. The first 10 elements of a test may be stored in
memory or recalled from cassette or disc for retest, either the
whole test or just the mistakes. This seems potentially useful
to the learner and a 10 element test will not lose his interest.
To sum up, a sound program and a good "verb calculator" and data
base. It could however, have been more explicit in the perfect
tense which is a major stumbling block for the Level candidate.
This review first appeared in the November 1983 issue of Language
Monthly.
