A Frequency Dictionary of French (Routledge Frequency Dictionaries)

I bought this book because although my grammar and knowledge of sentence structure are servicable, I still feel stymied by lack of sufficient vocabulary. I would have guessed that I know about 3000 words well enough to use them. I was surprized to find that it took me about ten minutes of looking through the least common words in this book to find one I didn't know well enough to use in most of its forms. Sadly though, I still can't read an article in Le Monde without a dictionary handy. I now know that my vocabulary is probably closer to 10,000 words. So I would guess that I will need to get to around 20,000 words before the dictionary gathers any dust.However, this book would have been very handy when I was first starting out. If you know the words in this book, you will have enough vocabulary be able to get away from using an English/French dictionary and move to a good French dictionary like my favorite "Le Robert Micro". This is a big milestone in learning French and this book can help you get there. Use it as a guide to which words to learn first. But don't just accept the definitions given. They are inadequate in most cases and almost useless in some cases. Look up each word in at least one good dictionary, preferably at least two. Also, be aware that the word frequency is mainly based on written French. For instance, "merde" and "ouais" are listed as the 2376th and 1928th most common words. However, if you eavesdrop on a conversation in a Paris cafe you will learn that many Frenchmen seem incapable of forming a sentence that does not contain one or both of them!

This is an incredible resource which I've used for several years in my teaching. I completely agree with other commenters that frequency lists are far more helpful than textbooks in developing a useful vocabulary base in a language and provide greater opportunity for fluency and conversational ability. Also as others have noted, there are some ways in which it could be better organized etc. Some of those improvements are evident in the equivalent Spanish resource which I purchased this summer and I admit that I am eagerly awaiting what I hope is in the works, a second edition of this French first edition, that incorporates some of those ideas. I love the topical sections, such as the weather one, and was so excited I got out my Spanish one b/c I need to learn those - and found they had so many MORE Spanish words, including a break down of verbs, nouns, and adjectives. The Spanish one also included words for hurricane etc, which may not be as common, but it's sometimes helpful to know and which have a place in such a list. Great resource and PLEASE get us the 2nd edition asap!

Disappointing.Several experts recommend that beginners focus of learning the most common 1000 to 2000 words in the new language, noting that those words will suffice for many basic conversations. Therefore a frequency dictionary is recommended. I wanted to focus on the most frequently used nouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions & verbs. It's nice that there are lists of words by parts of speech but I found a few confusing things. For example, in the list of nouns, the fourth most common noun is listed as pouvoir. For most beginners, we know pouvoir as the verb meaning "to be able". It can be a noun also (meaning "power") but its not used commonly.. In the main list of word frequency pouvoir is listed as the 20th most common word and the example sentence presents it as a verb only. Its the same situation with the word vouloir, the verb meaning "to want". It's on the list of nouns (13th on the list of nouns) and indeed it can be used as a noun, meaning "desire". However, in the main list of word frequency, it's #57, but it's presented only as a verb. It's the same with the word pendant. It's on the list of nouns but in the main list of word frequency, it's 89, but used as a preposition, which is probably its most common usage for a beginner. It's on the list of nouns because it can mean "a pendant" but that is a very uncommon use of that word. Another example is the word, penser, also on the list of nouns. Penser is the verb "to think". The noun form "a thought" is "pensée".I do understand the concept of the lemma but why, in a $35 paperback, are there not some clarifications regarding such situations.I did appreciate that there were lists divided by parts of speech but there were no markings along the page edges so it required lots of flipping through pages to get to the desired section.

This is a really nice resource for building vocabulary by focusing on the most commonly-used words. The methodology detailed in the front matter is impressive - the top 5,000 words were selected after an analysis of millions of films, newspapers, magazines, political and other commonly-used publications. A sample sentence is provided for each term, which is really helpful. This book also has some excellent indexes that make it user-friendly, such as an alphabetical index and a part of speech index. It also has some helpful thematic call-outs highlighting need-to-know terminology across several themes, including cuisine, parts of the body, and about 10 or 15 others. I've been using this book alongside the version of it that has been posted in Quizlet, where I can hear the pronunciation and do some drills on the terms I don't yet know. This is a great resource!

This book is excellent. Other reviewers have pointed out its function and its benefits: these are faithful and correct. In particular, the inclusion of context sentences is very helpful.I highly recommend it to anyone wishing to learn French vocabulary in a prioritised way: you learn words in frequency order, meaning you learn the most common words first.This does not rule out learning other words (e.g. by topic) as you study and do exercises from other text books. The two can co-exist.A really key omission is that there is no IPA spelling for each word (e.g. puovoir /puvwaR/ apaiser /apeze/). This is NECESSARY since it aids pronunciation. One reviewer pointed out the academic style of the Introduction. Perhaps the authors saw the target audience as other expert academics who would not need the pronunciation. The existence of the CD version points to this. "This CD version is designed for use by corpus and computational linguists in a format that researchers can process and turn into suitable lists for their own research work." The authors seemed to have missed the simple idea that anything highly useful will have contagious consequences: in this case, an extensive secondary market audience.In the case of the CD, I would have liked it to include an Anki version of the dictionary. I would certainly buy that as a stand-alone product.So, go ahead and buy this dictionary with the confidence that it will be useful whatever your level of French.

Of this series, this is probably the very best, in that some of the others let themselves down by missing info from the sentences, such as phonics in the Japanese one. This has no such problem. The lay-out is quite interesting with the main listing being interlaced with thematic lists with frequency info. I'll be able to use the sentences to Goldlist and learn the word in a living context. The sentences are not abstract but taken in most cases from situations you could use or easily make replacements to use them. As such, we are not really far from a Glossika style method here.I give it nearly full marks. I only think it is not so great that it stops at a mere 5,000 words and I hope this means that volume two is on the way.

This does a lot more than it says on the tin. Each entry provides a context, and also it's noted if it is particularly high in spoken, or written French for example. There's also plenty of specialist lists, like animals or family, providing the most frequent words in those areas. Each entry has the translation, as well as an example sentence in French, along with English translation. As well as the frequency index the words are also listed separately in alphabetical order. Learning the most frequently used words in any language is one of the keys to rapid language acquisition and people seem to be finally getting that now. I used to hate getting taught in basic French classes terms like "central reservation". This book really helps you focus on that strategy.

I've used frequency dictionaries in the past and they are so useful for language learners. This book has the potential to be brilliant, but it let down by frequent spelling errors, and the omission of some frequent words (see other reviews). I really want to love this, but the spelling errors, especially for the English translations, are just awful. Quite frequently, the authors have just used the french word again!Second edition really needs a proof reader!

A lot of work has gone into compiling this frequency dictionary - it's very useful for prioritizing vocabulary to study, and there are also thematic lists, so if you want to study up on a particular area, you can. It's especially good on the kindle, because you can search by word, and see the approximate translation into English and the word in context in French. It's very handy if you're using a Spaced Repetition System of flashcards like anki for learning vocabulary. It's quite expensive, but that reflects the amount of work put in to producing it.