Natural sciences

What holds these lists together

Not a degree course, but what really appears in an explanatory article, a set of instructions or a warning on a label — and, further on, the fields in which French specialists write for each other. The value lies less in the science than in the places where French draws its lines differently from English. Un physicien studies physics and will not examine you; a doctor is un médecin. Un milliard is a thousand million, and un billion is a thousand times more, so a French figure read with English eyes is out by a factor of a thousand. Small words, and sentences that go quietly wrong without them.

For example: la faune (the fauna), la résultante (the resultant force), la matière première (the raw material), le relief (the relief of the land), le vent dominant (the prevailing wind), la canopée (the canopy)

Spread across the levels

The category runs across the levels — it is an area, not a difficulty. If you practise it, you can also choose a level at the top of the practice page and then get only the part that sits there.