Countries and regions

Question

So Mexique, Cambodge, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Belize are masculine although they end in -e; Qubec, Texas and New Mexico are countries but California is not. It's le Merseyside but not le Bordeaux. Turkey is outside Europe (not entirely I think) and a turkey is from India. You really couldn't make up something more ridiculous than this if you tried.

I felt I was making good progress with this course but now I am bogged down with endless questions about places that don't interest me and loosing the will to live. I accept that fluent french speakers may need this but I can barely conjugate faire yet, surely this content should be moved to C1?

I am going to write myself out a big crib sheet and cheat - hopefully I can convince the quizzbot I know this stuff so I can move on to something more useful.

Accepted Answer

Bonjour Robert !
I understand your frustration, as French is nothing but riddled with exceptions to the rule :)When teaching a rule such as prepositions with countries or regions, we cannot omit the exceptional cases which don't follow that rule.However, as you pointed out, this lesson is A1, meaning that our testing usually focuses on the main application of the rule, and not more obscure exceptions.Therefore, if you understands the main agreement rule, there is no reason for you not to get to the next level :)I hope that's helpful!Bonne journée !

Answer

I feel your frustration -- been there, done that.You could assemble topics you like to study in a notebook and then study the notebook. But the cheat sheet is a nice idea, too.