Course Description
Grammar, idioms, and vocabulary. Practice in translating
moderately difficult technical and non-technical French.
Athena Title
French for Reading Knowledge
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in FREN 2500
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.
Semester Course Offered
Offered summer semester every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
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.
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.
General Education Core
CORE IV: World Languages and Global Culture
