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Francora · TEF & TCF Canada · Vocabulaire

Structures, collocations et locutions

Knowing prendre and knowing décision does not produce prendre une décision. Vocabulary that works is stored in blocks. These eight units cover all five kinds of block.

160 questions 4 domains · 8 units MCQ · Fill-in · Jumbled · Transform · Correct CLB 7 → CLB 8

francora · vocabulaire ← Vocabulary hub

Le mot n’est pas l’unité

Learning vocabulary in blocks: collocations, families, compounds, idioms

A student who knows prendre and knows décision still cannot produce prendre une décision, because nothing in either word predicts that French uses prendre there and not faire.
The pairing is arbitrary and has to be stored whole.
This is the single change that moves a written answer from correct-but-flat to fluent: stop collecting words, start collecting blocks.

Five kinds of block, and this module trains all five. 1. Collocations — a verb and its noun, welded (porter plainte). 2. Word families — one root, many parts of speech (employer, emploi, employeur). 3. Compounds — several words fused into one noun (un permis de conduire). 4. Idioms — blocks whose meaning is not the sum of the words (tomber à l’eau). 5. Support structures — frames built on avoir, être, faire, prendre (avoir beau).

1. Collocations — the verb the noun demands

English has these too (make a decision, not do a decision), which is exactly why they cause trouble: the student translates the English pairing and gets a French sentence that is grammatical and wrong.

The block	Means	What students write instead
prendre une décision	to make a decision	faire une décision
prendre des mesures	to take steps, to act	faire des mesures
faire une demande	to submit an application	faire une application
faire des démarches	to go through the formalities	faire des étapes
poser une question	to ask a question	demander une question
poser sa candidature	to apply for a post	appliquer pour
rendre service à	to do someone a favour	faire un service
porter plainte	to file a complaint	faire une plainte
tirer profit de	to benefit from	prendre profit
remplir un formulaire	to fill in a form	compléter une forme
suivre une formation	to take a course	prendre une formation
obtenir gain de cause	to win one’s case	—

passer un examen means to sit an exam, not to pass it. Passing it is réussir un examen or être reçu à un examen. J’ai passé le TEF trois fois says nothing at all about the result.

2. Word families — one root, four slots

French marks part of speech clearly, so choosing the wrong member of a family is visible immediately.
The slot in the sentence tells you which member you need: after an article you need the noun, after être you usually need the adjective, after a modal you need the infinitive.

Verb	Noun (action)	Noun (person)	Adjective
travailler	le travail	un travailleur	travaillé
employer	l’emploi	un employeur / un employé	inemployé
former	la formation	un formateur	formé
produire	la production	un producteur	productif
loger	le logement	un logeur	logé
agir	l’action	un agent	actif
juger	le jugement	un juge	judiciaire
croire	la croyance	un croyant	incroyable

Learning one family gives you four words for the price of one, and it also gives you nominalisation — the move that compresses a whole clause into a noun phrase and lifts a written answer more than any other single technique.

Le gouvernement a décidé d’augmenter les frais, et cela a provoqué des protestations.

Two clauses, loosely joined. Correct, but low.

La décision d’augmenter les frais a provoqué des protestations.

The clause has become the subject. Shorter, denser, higher.

Depuis qu’on a mis en place la réforme, les délais ont baissé.

A subordinate clause doing the work.

Depuis la mise en place de la réforme, les délais ont baissé.

Same meaning, noun phrase after the preposition.

3. Compounds — several words, one noun

Two patterns cover most of them, and each has its own rule for the plural.

Verb + noun (un lave-vaisselle, un ouvre-boîte, un porte-monnaie, un tire-bouchon): the verb part never changes; only the noun can take an s, and only if the meaning allows it. These are almost always masculine, whatever the gender of the noun inside.
Noun + de + noun (un permis de conduire, une pièce d’identité, un relevé de notes): the gender and the plural come from the first noun. Des permis de conduire, des pièces d’identité.

The second pattern is the one the exam actually uses, because it is the shape of nearly every administrative term: une demande d’emploi, un titre de séjour, une carte de crédit, un compte bancaire, une lettre de motivation, un entretien d’embauche, un état des lieux.

4. Idioms — where the literal reading is the trap

Le projet est tombé à l’eau.

The project fell through. Nothing got wet.

Tout le monde a mis la main à la pâte.

Everyone pitched in.

J’ai du pain sur la planche.

I have a lot on my plate.

Il va falloir faire le point.

We’ll need to take stock. — the most useful of the lot in Section B.

Elle a tiré son épingle du jeu.

She came out of it well.

Ça coûte les yeux de la tête.

It costs a fortune.

Use few, and use them exactly. Two well-placed idioms in a speaking answer read as fluency. Six read as a memorised list, and one that is slightly off — wrong preposition, wrong tense, wrong register — does more damage than not using it. En avoir marre is familier: fine with a friend in Section B, wrong in a formal complaint.

5. Support structures — the frames built on four verbs

Block	Means	What follows it
avoir beau + infinitif	however much one does X, Y anyway	Il a beau insister, je ne changerai pas d’avis.
avoir du mal à + infinitif	to struggle to	J’ai du mal à suivre.
avoir recours à + nom	to resort to	avoir recours à un avocat
être en train de + infinitif	to be in the middle of	Je suis en train de remplir le formulaire.
être sur le point de + infinitif	to be about to	Elle est sur le point de partir.
être censé + infinitif	to be supposed to	Vous êtes censé fournir une pièce d’identité.
faire preuve de + nom	to show (a quality)	faire preuve de patience
faire face à + nom	to deal with, to face	faire face à une hausse des loyers
prendre en charge + nom	to take responsibility for, to cover	Les frais sont pris en charge.

Avoir beau is worth singling out. It has no English equivalent in shape, it is followed directly by a bare infinitive, and the clause that follows carries the contradiction with no mais needed.
Students meet it cold on the reading paper and misread it as a form of être beau.

How to store a block so it comes back under pressure

Write the block in a full short sentence, never as a bare pair. porter plainte stored alone will not surface; J’ai porté plainte contre mon propriétaire. will, because it carries the preposition, the tense and a situation with it.

Group by situation, not alphabetically. Everything you need for a housing complaint belongs on one page — signer un bail, verser une caution, un état des lieux, donner son préavis, charges comprises — because that is how it will be needed.
Unit X8 is organised exactly that way.

Test yourself from the meaning towards the French, never the reverse. Recognising faire preuve de on a page is not the same skill as producing it in a sentence, and only the second one is marked.

What to do with the eight units below

X1 and X2 are the foundation — collocations and families.
X3 and X4 add compounds and idioms.
X5 gives you the support frames, X6 the nominalisation move, X7 the connectors that hold a written answer together, and X8 the set phrases of the five fields the exam keeps returning to: administration, housing, health, work, transport and banking.

If you are short of time, X1, X6 and X8 carry the most weight for the written test, and X5 for speaking.

Exam mode

160 questions · 90 minutes

The timer starts as soon as you press Start and does not pause.
No answers and no explanations are shown until you submit.
At 0:00 the test submits itself with whatever you have entered.
Written answers are graded on spelling; accents are tolerated.

Francora · @frenchwithguri Structures, collocations et locutions