Illusion of Gaia/fr-en/Introduction
Bonjour tout le monde! Hello everyone! I am TJack, and I will begin an ambitious project to teach French to beginners, using the game called Illusion of Gaia (In the European version it is called Illusion of Time). I hope to cover enough grammar to cover about 3 years of high school French. I want to break down each of the five sections that will be covered in each segment: Translation, Vocabulary, Grammar, Pronunciation, and Practice.
Translation[edit]
This section will show all the text from the game, plus its translation. Because this is aimed towards beginners, it is NOT expected that you will know how to all the grammar works from the very beginning. Instead, you will only understand very little early on. If it was done otherwise, there would be dozens of grammar points in one section, too much in a short period of time. However, as we progress, you will learn enough grammar and vocabulary that you will start to get at least an idea how the sentence is translated, and then the gist, and then to the point where you might not even need to see the translation at all!
In the beginning, it will be useful to focus on the other four sections instead of this section, but later on, focus equally on the text and the other sections. I encourage you to look back every so often to earlier texts, to see how far you progressed.
Vocabulary[edit]
This will be a list of the major words from the text. Not all the words will be here, just the words that are the most important. The columns will be divided into four columns: French, English, IPA and (possibly) the word pronounced. The French and English columns will have the French words with the definitions in English. IPA, which stands for International Pronunciation Alphabet, will have the pronunciation guide to help pronounce the word, which is useful if someone hasn't uploaded their work saying the word on Wiktionary. Wiktionary, which is an online dictionary, is the site where I'll pull the pronounced words from. If it exists, there will be a link to it. If it doesn't exist, you will have to rely on the IPA (which I will explain more in Pronunciation).
Grammar[edit]
Each section will cover 3 to 4 grammar points, taken from the text. There will also be example sentences using the grammar, and the game's text will be placed here to demonstrate how the grammar is used. As more sections of the game are added, more and more advanced grammar will be covered. Thus, I will title a group of sections Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced.
Pronuciation[edit]
Because I do not have the equipment, or the time, to compile all the text and vocabulary to speech, we will have to rely on outside sources for pronunciation. However, we have one tool to help with pronouncing the words: IPA. IPA is the alphabet used to cover most languages pronunciation, from English, to French to Dutch, etc. This will allow us to pronounce the words, even without having someone say the word. In this section, I will explain each IPA character, usually 3 or 4 at a time, and explain pronunciation points like elision and liaison.
Practice[edit]
Practice is the last section, and will be problems to practice grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. Each section will have a header and instructions, and the answers will be at the very bottom, so you can see how far you are progressing. I suggest trying the practice problems without looking at the other sections, and see how much you retained. Then, with the problems you were stuck on, review the appropriate sections, and try it again twice: right after you study, and some time after you study. If you can get the correct answers after you and study, but not some time after you study, that means the information didn't transfer from your short term memory to your long term memory. However, if you passed both times, then that means you are more likely to remember the information later on.
