Course Description

Grammar, idioms, and vocabulary. Practice in translating moderately difficult technical and non-technical French.

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Athena Title

French for Reading Knowledge

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Equivalent Courses

Not open to students with credit in FREN 2500

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Non-Traditional Format

This course will be taught 95% or more online. Intended to assist graduate students to satisfy reading knowledge requirement, but does not carry graduate credit. Not to be used to satisfy undergraduate language requirement. Not open to French majors. Lectures, discussions, assignments, and student works are managed online according to the Guidelines for Online Teaching and Digital Literacy of the Romance Languages Department.

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Semester Course Offered

Offered summer semester every year.

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Grading System

A - F (Traditional)

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Student Learning Outcomes

• Students will demonstrate the ability to read and analyze moderately complex French texts, including scholarly articles, literary works, and specialized documents.
• Students will produce accurate and nuanced translations of French texts, preserving the original tone, style, and context.
• Students will compare competing translations of French texts, evaluating the effectiveness and accuracy of different translation approaches.
• Students will identify and interpret grammatical structures in French, applying this knowledge to enhance reading and translation skills.

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Topical Outline

• Translation of French of increasing difficulty, ranging from individual words to sentences, to passages taken from literature, the social sciences, and the physical sciences. As the course progresses, different features of the French language are taught: cognates and "false friends," gender and number of nouns and adjectives, verbs (conjugations and tense systems, especially methods of tense recognition), different structures of negation, interrogation, and subordination. By the end of the course, students translate moderately-difficult passages of authentic French.

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General Education Core

CORE IV: World Languages and Global Culture

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Institutional Competencies

Analytical Thinking

The ability to reason, interpret, analyze, and solve problems from a wide array of authentic contexts.

Critical Thinking

The ability to pursue and comprehensively evaluate information before accepting or establishing a conclusion, decision, or action.

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