Which French words tend to cause difficulty for B1 learners based on recent research

Recent research indicates several French words tend to cause difficulty for B1 level learners, especially due to interference from their mother tongue or first foreign language, lexical complexity, and orthographic/phonological challenges.

Main Difficult Word Types for B1 Learners

• Words subject to interference from learners’ native language or English, making it hard to distinguish correct French vocabulary in context.
• Words with low imageability or unfamiliar concepts tend to be harder to retain unless strongly encoded during learning.
• French words that resemble English or other languages superficially but differ in meaning or use, causing confusion.
• Vocabulary items with complex phonological forms or orthographic irregularities are challenging for proper recognition and production.
• Abstract or high-frequency words still can pose issues if they lack clear semantic anchors or have multiple meanings.

Research Highlights

• A study on Russian B1 learners showed that twofold language influence (native and English) affected word discrimination ability. ¹
• Research demonstrates that difficult French words (low familiarity or imageability) require strong initial acquisition to improve long-term retention. ²
• Reading difficulties among adolescent learners mainly appear in decoding French words and phrases, indicating lexical and phonological challenges. ³
• Dynamic word learning tasks highlight that phonological encoding difficulties contribute to problems with some French words even in younger learners, impacting B1 learners similarly. ^{4, 5}

In summary, B1 learners typically struggle with French words that are low in familiarity, phonologically or orthographically complex, semantically ambiguous, or strongly interfered with by their first language or English.

If a list of specific high-frequency difficult words for B1 learners is desired, further targeted research or vocabulary assessment studies could be consulted. This research, however, consistently emphasizes the role of linguistic interference, word complexity, and encoding strength as main factors in word difficulty at B1 level.

References

• French for Learners in Hesitation Between Mother Tongue and English

• Language Difficulty and Prior Learning Influence Foreign Vocabulary Acquisition

• Difficulties of Reading in French Subject Among Morrocan Middle School Students: Case of Learners in First Year of the Secondary School

• A new dynamic word learning task to diagnose language disorder in French-speaking monolingual and bilingual children

• A new dynamic word learning task to diagnose language disorder in French-speaking monolingual and bilingual children

• Exploring the use of ultrasound visual feedback in the classroom: a pilot study on the acquisition of selected English vowel contrasts by French learners.

• A Receptive Vocabulary Knowledge Test for French L2 Learners With Academic Reading Goals

• LSP4Employability conference: 10-11 May 2022 Our keynote speakers

• 1. INTERCOMPREHENSION AND LANGuAGE TRANSFER IN TEACHING RELATED LANGuAGES

• The Research of the Chinese-English Cultural Difference and Its Influence on English Culture Teaching in Colleges & Universities

• Early versus Late Start in Foreign Language Education: Documenting Achievements.

• L 1 Effects in L 2 Acquisition of English Viewpoint Aspect

• Wordlikeness and Novel Word Learning

• Use of Ethnographic Interviews As a Resource for Developing Intercultural Understanding

• Difficulty Estimation and Simplification of French Text Using LLMs

• Assisted Lexical Simplification for French Native Children with Reading Difficulties

• Deep Learning Models for Fast Retrieval and Extraction of French Speech Vocabulary Applications

• A Context-Aligned Two Thousand Test: Toward estimating high-frequency French vocabulary knowledge for beginner-to-low intermediate proficiency adolescent learners in England

• Lexical restructuring stimulates phonological awareness among emerging English-French bilingual children’s literacy.

• Language effects in second language learners and proficient bilinguals investigated with event-related potentials