Learning the difference between verbs that require à or de after them

Yes, the types of mnemonics that pair well with verbs are either People or Objects. If you go with People, then you need to assign characters to each preposition. (Bill Clinton = à, Count Chocula = de, etc). Then, you'll want some example sentences that involve the verb + that preposition.

For instance, "Elle aimait beaucoup à lire les livres en langue anglaise" (She really loved to read English books)

“On peut accepter de murir et de vivre les choses au lieu de les combattre” (Tricker to translate, but roughly "It's possible to embrace/accept maturity and live what life throws at us, rather than fight everything that comes our way.")

Then you blank out chunks and add the infinitive:

"Elle beaucoup __ lire les livres en langue anglaise (aimer)"

“On peut __ murir et de vivre les choses au lieu de les combattre (accepter)”

You'll add pictures that go with these stories. A woman reading books in the first one. The second one is more abstract and so you can have a much wider range of images (someone maturing, someone facing adversity, someone going along with the current of a stream instead of fighting it).

Then you use those flashcards.

If it turns out that you can remember them pretty well, preposition and all, then you don't need mnemonics at this time.

If, on the other hand, you have trouble remembering the preposition, then when you're reviewing and you get the card wrong, you take a moment to imagine a story involving that mnemonic. For the first one, you could imagine Bill Clinton, who just loves reading all those books in English with this lady. For the second one, you might imagine Count Chocula growing up emotionally, learning that he can just live his life and go with whatever life throws at him, instead of always having to fight and hoard his cereal (...etc.)

The same thing applies if you use Objects instead of people. Just your stories would be a bit different (If à = basketball and de = sushi), then perhaps the woman loves reading English books and also loves reading the text off of basketballs, etc.

 

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