Latin had ‘intra’, meaning ‘within, inside’. It was not a verb. It was the word you used for being inside the walls, and it began life as a case form of an older adjective meaning ‘situated within’. The verb was built on top of it afterwards: ‘intrare’, to go into, to enter. French wore that down. By the 900s speakers were saying ‘entrer’, with an ‘e’ at the front and the Latin ending gone, and that is still the form in use. The same Latin verb travelled south and gave Spanish ‘entrar’ and Italian ‘entrare’. German went a different way entirely and built its own compound, ‘eintreten’.
• The etymology comic - eight illustrated stage cards, one idea to a card, with short captions written for a learner rather than a linguist.
• The word-history breakdown, running from Proto-Indo-European through Latin to modern French, with a date at each stage the record allows.
• The English-links card: ‘enter’, ‘entry’, ‘entrance’ and ‘entrée’, all off the same Latin verb.
• The cross-language card, showing Spanish ‘entrar’ and Italian ‘entrare’ alongside the French, and the point where German parts company.
• The sources page, naming every dictionary consulted.
• The how-to-use guide for the adult.
• Pronunciation respellings in plain English letters on every French and Latin form.
For personal use in home education and tutoring only.
• Anyone who likes knowing where words come from.
• KS3 and KS4 French learners, in school or at home.
• Home-educated children working through French without a class around them.
• Learners with dyslexia or a weak working memory, who find isolated vocabulary hard to hold on to.
• Parents who want to work alongside a child rather than test them.
• Adults picking French back up years after school.
It won’t suit a learner who hasn’t met French verbs yet. The cards assume the reader can already recognise that ‘entrer’ and ‘entrez’ are the same verb in two forms, even if they couldn’t explain the difference. If that isn’t there yet, a noun from the shop is the better place to start.
‘Entrer’ is a word a learner meets in the first fortnight and then stops looking at. It becomes a string of letters and nothing else. Taking it apart puts something underneath it - a Latin word for inside, a verb built on that word, then centuries of French rubbing the ends off. The four English cousins on the last card make the link plain. A child who can see ‘entrance’ inside ‘entrer’ has one word to hold rather than two.
‘Entrer’, ‘entrez’, ‘entrée’ and ‘entré’ are said exactly the same way. Four spellings, one sound. On the page the accent tells them apart. In speech nothing does, and only the surrounding grammar shows which one you heard.
Two forms, and you choose. The eight large cards print single-sided, one idea to a page, ready to laminate, trim and punch so they clip onto a single binder ring. They’re numbered, so a loose deck goes back in order, and once they’re on the ring a child can turn them over and lay the Latin out next to the French. It’s a bag-sized deck, or a dinner-table one - not a pencil case.
The single sheet at the end holds all eight cards on one page. Print it and it’s ready - no laminating, no cutting. That’s the version for the middle of a lesson. You’ll need a printer for either, and a laminator and a ring for the deck; there’s no ready-made deck in the box.
The same everyday territory in L’atelier des mots - doors, going in, coming home: ‘entrez’, the command a French speaker shouts through the door; ‘entrée’, the way in and the first course; and the four words built on the ‘r-’ form, ‘rentrer’, ‘rentré’, ‘rentrée’ and ‘prérentrée’.
All six come off this same Latin verb. Most of the shop’s topic sets are held together by subject rather than by root. Bought together they make one deck that runs from ‘intra’ to the first day of the French school year.
Available now as a PDF download.
Latin had ‘intra’, meaning ‘within, inside’. It was not a verb. It was the word you used for being inside the walls, and it began life as a case form of an older adjective meaning ‘situated within’. The verb was built on top of it afterwards: ‘intrare’, to go into, to enter. French wore that down. By the 900s speakers were saying ‘entrer’, with an ‘e’ at the front and the Latin ending gone, and that is still the form in use. The same Latin verb travelled south and gave Spanish ‘entrar’ and Italian ‘entrare’. German went a different way entirely and built its own compound, ‘eintreten’.
• The etymology comic - eight illustrated stage cards, one idea to a card, with short captions written for a learner rather than a linguist.
• The word-history breakdown, running from Proto-Indo-European through Latin to modern French, with a date at each stage the record allows.
• The English-links card: ‘enter’, ‘entry’, ‘entrance’ and ‘entrée’, all off the same Latin verb.
• The cross-language card, showing Spanish ‘entrar’ and Italian ‘entrare’ alongside the French, and the point where German parts company.
• The sources page, naming every dictionary consulted.
• The how-to-use guide for the adult.
• Pronunciation respellings in plain English letters on every French and Latin form.
For personal use in home education and tutoring only.
• Anyone who likes knowing where words come from.
• KS3 and KS4 French learners, in school or at home.
• Home-educated children working through French without a class around them.
• Learners with dyslexia or a weak working memory, who find isolated vocabulary hard to hold on to.
• Parents who want to work alongside a child rather than test them.
• Adults picking French back up years after school.
It won’t suit a learner who hasn’t met French verbs yet. The cards assume the reader can already recognise that ‘entrer’ and ‘entrez’ are the same verb in two forms, even if they couldn’t explain the difference. If that isn’t there yet, a noun from the shop is the better place to start.
‘Entrer’ is a word a learner meets in the first fortnight and then stops looking at. It becomes a string of letters and nothing else. Taking it apart puts something underneath it - a Latin word for inside, a verb built on that word, then centuries of French rubbing the ends off. The four English cousins on the last card make the link plain. A child who can see ‘entrance’ inside ‘entrer’ has one word to hold rather than two.
‘Entrer’, ‘entrez’, ‘entrée’ and ‘entré’ are said exactly the same way. Four spellings, one sound. On the page the accent tells them apart. In speech nothing does, and only the surrounding grammar shows which one you heard.
Two forms, and you choose. The eight large cards print single-sided, one idea to a page, ready to laminate, trim and punch so they clip onto a single binder ring. They’re numbered, so a loose deck goes back in order, and once they’re on the ring a child can turn them over and lay the Latin out next to the French. It’s a bag-sized deck, or a dinner-table one - not a pencil case.
The single sheet at the end holds all eight cards on one page. Print it and it’s ready - no laminating, no cutting. That’s the version for the middle of a lesson. You’ll need a printer for either, and a laminator and a ring for the deck; there’s no ready-made deck in the box.
The same everyday territory in L’atelier des mots - doors, going in, coming home: ‘entrez’, the command a French speaker shouts through the door; ‘entrée’, the way in and the first course; and the four words built on the ‘r-’ form, ‘rentrer’, ‘rentré’, ‘rentrée’ and ‘prérentrée’.
All six come off this same Latin verb. Most of the shop’s topic sets are held together by subject rather than by root. Bought together they make one deck that runs from ‘intra’ to the first day of the French school year.
Available now as a PDF download.
