--- title: Olympiad: decoding a short French text ★★★ — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Olympiad: decoding a short French text ★★★», a lesson of the french course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: In a language olympiad you often get a short real text - a postcard, a sign, a menu, a recipe - and must work out what it says w --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/) / Olympiad: decoding a short French text… # Olympiad: decoding a short French text ★★★ Lesson 39 of the french course of Mova's primary school: 24 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/0/) — In a language olympiad you often get a short real text - a postcard, a sign, a menu, a recipe - and must work out what it says without a dictionary, like a code-breaker. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/1/) — Start with the words you know (famille, chat, trois, fromage), then the lookalikes that really are friends (perché, perched; sucre, sugar), and only then guess the rest from what makes sense in that place. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/2/) — Watch for traps: false friends like librairie, tiny words that flip the meaning like ne ... pas, and French habits such as a comma in a price - 9,50 € means nine euros fifty. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/3/) — Picture a lamppost in Dieppe with a poster: "Perdu : petit chat noir, yeux verts." The first word is the key - perdu means lost - so this is someone looking for their cat, not selling one. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/4/) — Then check your answer against the whole text: if your meaning does not fit a sign in a park or a note on a fridge, look again. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/5/) — Léa's postcard - "Je suis à Nice avec ma famille. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/6/) — Il fait beau et chaud. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/7/) — Hier, on a nagé dans la mer." - means she is in Nice with her family, the weather is fine and hot, and yesterday they swam in the sea; la mer is the sea and la mère is the mother. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/8/) — "Maître Corbeau, sur un arbre perché, tenait en son bec un fromage" is the start of a fable by La Fontaine (1668): Mr Crow, perched in a tree, held a cheese in his beak; a fox later tricks him into dropping it. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/9/) — "Menu enfant : steak haché, frites, glace à la vanille - 9,50 €" is a kids' menu: a minced-beef patty, chips and vanilla ice cream for 9 euros 50; French writes a comma where English writes a decimal point. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/10/) — "Défense de marcher sur la pelouse" means "Keep off the grass": défense de means it is forbidden to, marcher is to walk, la pelouse is the lawn. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/11/) — "Je suis un fruit jaune. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/12/) — Les singes m'adorent. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/13/) — Qui suis-je ?" - I am a yellow fruit, monkeys love me, who am I? - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/14/) — The answer is une banane; les singes are monkeys. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/16/) — Il fait dix-huit degrés." means rain in the morning, sun in the afternoon, 18 degrees. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/17/) — "De la farine, trois œufs, du lait et un peu de sucre" means flour, three eggs, milk and a little sugar. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/18/) — "Perdu : petit chat noir, yeux verts. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/19/) — Il s'appelle Minou." means "Lost: small black cat with green eyes, called Minou". - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/20/) — Départ means departure and arrivée means arrival; a train leaving at 14h05 and arriving at 16h50 takes 2 hours 45 minutes. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/21/) — "Samedi, je vais à la librairie avec mon père. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/22/) — J'achète un livre sur les chevaux." means on Saturday she goes to the bookshop with her dad and buys a book about horses. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/23/) — "Le goûter est dans le placard. - [24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/39-olympiad-decoding-a-short-french-text/24/) — Ne mangez pas tout le chocolat !" means the after-school snack is in the cupboard - don't eat all the chocolate; ne ... pas makes it "don't". - ← previous: [Olympiad: gender-pattern puzzles ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/38-olympiad-gender-pattern-puzzles/) - next →: [Olympiad: mixed brain-teasers ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/40-olympiad-mixed-brain-teasers/) - ↑ back to [French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/)