Prendre (French) – Structured Vocabulary Support
£2.00
‘prendre’ is one of the busiest verbs in French - you take a bus, take a photo, take a decision. But it is also the root of two of the most important verbs a learner meets: ‘apprendre’ ‘to learn’ and ‘comprendre’ ‘to understand’. This resource shows why - both are kinds of grasping.
French ‘prendre’ comes from Latin ‘prehendere’ ‘to seize, grasp’ - ‘prae-’ ‘before’ plus ‘-hendere’ ‘to grasp’. The same verb gave English ‘apprehend’, ‘comprehend’ and ‘prison’, so a learner meets familiar English shapes while working in French.
• The etymology comic - illustrated stage cards, one idea each, with short captions
• The word history, Latin to modern French, dated at each stage the record allows
• A present-tense conjugation card showing the stem shift - ‘je prends’ but ‘nous prenons’
• An English-links card naming the English words from the same root - ‘prehensile’, ‘apprehend’, ‘comprehend’, ‘prison’
• A sources page
• A short how-to-use guide for the adult
For personal use in home education and tutoring only.
Designed first for secondary MFL learners (KS3 and KS4), but it suits a wider range: anyone who likes word origins, learners taking French alongside Italian or Spanish who want the shared Latin roots, home-educated children, specialist tuition students including dyslexic and working-memory profiles, and adults returning to French alongside a child.
It isn’t for a learner who hasn’t yet met present-tense verbs. The card assumes the learner can read a short French sentence and is ready to see the stem-change pattern.
The stem shift in ‘prendre’ - ‘je prends’ but ‘nous prenons’, ‘ils prennent’ - is one of the first irregular patterns a French learner has to hold, and ‘apprendre’ and ‘comprendre’ inherit it. Seeing all three as one verb, with one root meaning ‘grasp’, makes the pattern one thing to learn instead of three.
Linguistic quirk: ‘apprendre’ and ‘appréhender’ are the same Latin word twice over - both from ‘apprehendere’. The inherited ‘apprendre’ softened into ‘to learn’; the borrowed ‘appréhender’ kept the physical ‘seize’ and even gained ‘to dread’. And ‘apprendre’ itself does double duty: it can mean both ‘to learn’ and ‘to teach’ - both ends of handing knowledge across.
Originally created to support one of my own children’s learning once the school day had ended.
Same root, other languages: ‘prendere’ in L’Officina Radice and ‘prender’ in El Taller Raíz trace the same Latin verb across Italian and Spanish.
Why word origins help with modern languages: the Compendium post on teaching words through structure.
Free in The Wordhord - the English cousins of this root: ‘comprehend’, ‘apprehend’ and ‘prison’.
‘prendre’ is one of the busiest verbs in French - you take a bus, take a photo, take a decision. But it is also the root of two of the most important verbs a learner meets: ‘apprendre’ ‘to learn’ and ‘comprendre’ ‘to understand’. This resource shows why - both are kinds of grasping.
French ‘prendre’ comes from Latin ‘prehendere’ ‘to seize, grasp’ - ‘prae-’ ‘before’ plus ‘-hendere’ ‘to grasp’. The same verb gave English ‘apprehend’, ‘comprehend’ and ‘prison’, so a learner meets familiar English shapes while working in French.
• The etymology comic - illustrated stage cards, one idea each, with short captions
• The word history, Latin to modern French, dated at each stage the record allows
• A present-tense conjugation card showing the stem shift - ‘je prends’ but ‘nous prenons’
• An English-links card naming the English words from the same root - ‘prehensile’, ‘apprehend’, ‘comprehend’, ‘prison’
• A sources page
• A short how-to-use guide for the adult
For personal use in home education and tutoring only.
Designed first for secondary MFL learners (KS3 and KS4), but it suits a wider range: anyone who likes word origins, learners taking French alongside Italian or Spanish who want the shared Latin roots, home-educated children, specialist tuition students including dyslexic and working-memory profiles, and adults returning to French alongside a child.
It isn’t for a learner who hasn’t yet met present-tense verbs. The card assumes the learner can read a short French sentence and is ready to see the stem-change pattern.
The stem shift in ‘prendre’ - ‘je prends’ but ‘nous prenons’, ‘ils prennent’ - is one of the first irregular patterns a French learner has to hold, and ‘apprendre’ and ‘comprendre’ inherit it. Seeing all three as one verb, with one root meaning ‘grasp’, makes the pattern one thing to learn instead of three.
Linguistic quirk: ‘apprendre’ and ‘appréhender’ are the same Latin word twice over - both from ‘apprehendere’. The inherited ‘apprendre’ softened into ‘to learn’; the borrowed ‘appréhender’ kept the physical ‘seize’ and even gained ‘to dread’. And ‘apprendre’ itself does double duty: it can mean both ‘to learn’ and ‘to teach’ - both ends of handing knowledge across.
Originally created to support one of my own children’s learning once the school day had ended.
Same root, other languages: ‘prendere’ in L’Officina Radice and ‘prender’ in El Taller Raíz trace the same Latin verb across Italian and Spanish.
Why word origins help with modern languages: the Compendium post on teaching words through structure.
Free in The Wordhord - the English cousins of this root: ‘comprehend’, ‘apprehend’ and ‘prison’.
