While the Legault government wants to attack the teaching of French, French teachers have a controversial but interesting suggestion: simplify the past participles1.
Be honest: can you agree the following past participles without relying on chance and explaining the rule?
1) They are [PARLER] ;
2) Lots of people showed up [INTÉRESSER] by this cause;
3) They [VOIR] ;
4) His books are all the rage; the movies we have [TIRER] have the same success.
5) She [MENTIR] in making this choice.2
Do you give your tongue to the cat? You are like almost all Quebecers, who do not know all the exceptions to the rules for agreeing past participles.
There is only one real argument for keeping these thirty exceptions: the appeal of the status quo.
On the contrary, we think that French is a living language that must evolve. And that Quebec must be the first French-speaking state to simplify the agreement of past participles.
Since 2014, the International Council of the French language proposes to simplify the rules of agreement of past participles. The Quebec Association of French Teachers (AQPF) has supported this proposal since 2021.
Currently, the past participle without auxiliary agrees like an adjective. With the auxiliary “to be”, it agrees with the subject. With the auxiliary “avoir”, it agrees with the direct complement only if the latter is placed before the auxiliary.
So far, it’s relatively simple. But there are… about thirty exceptions to these rules (pronominals, en, infinitive, impersonal verbs, and of course the exceptions of the exceptions). These exceptions represent in practice only 1% of cases of past participles.
The proposed reform is simple: the basic rules are completely reviewed and all exceptions are eliminated. Past participles without an auxiliary would always agree as an adjective (it wouldn’t change), they would always agree with “être” (it wouldn’t change) and they would always be invariable with “avoir” (it would change). In 92% of cases, past participles would agree the same way as with the current rules, according to a study.3
Let’s be serious: our French language won’t be any less beautiful if we simplify the basic rules and get rid of all those super-complicated exceptions that hardly anyone knows or uses in practice.
In addition, the direct complement rule with “avoir” is the only agreement in the French language that takes into account the position of words in the sentence. When you think about it, it’s illogical.
If we adopted this reform, instead of focusing on the exceptions and the rule of the direct complement with “have”, teachers could use the 80 hours devoted to past participles at school (especially towards the end of secondary school) to reinforce teaching basic agreement rules, where the majority of past participle mistakes occur.
“We need to focus our teaching more on the regularities of the language rather than on the irregularities. We want to make good use of our time in class,” says Alexandra Pharand, vice-president of the AQPF.
“This reform proposal is quite logical and simple. It’s not a competition to make the language more complex,” says Pascale Lefrançois, professor of French didactics and vice-rector at the University of Montreal.
In its reflection on improving the teaching of French – the conclusions of which are expected in 2023 – the Legault government should listen to French teachers. They know what they’re talking about. Four of their proposals are particularly interesting:
- Simplify the teaching of French by focusing on the regularities of the language (ex: simplify the agreements of past participles and color adjectives);
- Have students write more;
- Use only the new grammar, adopted in… 1995;
- Go from three to two school stages in order to devote more time to teaching and less to assessments.
Will Quebec dare to simplify the rules of past participles? The office of Minister of Education Bernard Drainville warns that we will not teach “grammar rules that are not validated by the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF)”. For its part, the OQLF has “begun its reflection” but warns that such a reform will have to “be the subject of consultation” with the rest of the Francophonie.
Translation: Quebec does not want to proceed alone and it could take a very long time before all the French-speaking countries agree on this.
Damage.
2. These examples come from the Linguistic Assistance Bank of the Office québécois de la langue française. Here are the answers :
1) They talked to each other; 2) A lot of people were interested in this cause; 3) They saw each other; 4) His books are all the rage; the films that have been made from it enjoy the same success; 5) She lied to herself by making this choice.