Technology provided by Simple French with Hems® Inc.
Pick a level
Tap a card to begin.
For educators
Research and Evidence
This speaking method is built on established research in English–French language transfer: learners do better when shared spelling and sound patterns are made explicit, grouped, and practiced. The sources below describe that approach. They support the method used here; they do not test this application itself.
1. Tréville (1996) — The advantage of cognates for beginners
English-speaking beginner learners of French · Canadian Modern Language Review
Tréville found that systematic, guided work with French–English cognates helped beginners recognize words, apply correspondence patterns, and generalize those patterns to new words rather than memorizing each one. This program follows the same idea: ending/sound patterns are taught once, then reused across many verbs. It also uses both identical forms (homographs) and near-matches with regular spelling differences (parographs), so the pattern—not a single word—is what transfers.
2. Hipfner-Boucher et al. (2021) — Children do not spot similar cognates on their own
Grade 1–2 French immersion · Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
Grade 1 children recognized true cognates with identical spelling, but failed to recognize true cognates with similar spellings unless the relationship was made clear. That is why this method does not leave the English–French connection for students to discover. Cognates are used on purpose, and the path is pedagogical: sound family, spoken form, pronoun, then a complete sentence.
3. Lam, Chen & Deacon (2020) — Awareness of shared word endings
French immersion students · Reading Research Quarterly
This study found that awareness of systematic relationships between word endings across languages—for example, recurring suffix correspondences—was related to second-language reading comprehension. Learners benefit from noticing those recurring patterns. This method makes French ending/sound patterns explicit, groups them into sound families, and gives each family a permanent visual identity.
4. Québec Ministère de l’Éducation — Teaching for language transfer
Official pedagogical guidance · English Language Arts / FSL
Québec’s guidance treats prior-language knowledge as an asset, not a problem: English can support French when teachers help students compare the two. It asks students to look for similar letter patterns and sound patterns (including word endings) and to use graphic organizers. This program follows those guidelines by connecting English-recognizable sounds, grouping endings into families, and laying the sentence out visually, box by box.
5. Krenca et al. (2023) — English sound knowledge can transfer into French
62 English-L1 / French-L2 children, mean age 6.3 · Journal of Child Language
In this Canadian-led study of children near the lower end of the 6–12 age range, English lexical specificity predicted later French phonological awareness, especially where sounds were shared between English and French. Children can carry English sound knowledge into French. This program uses English-aware, pattern-based vocabulary so that shared sounds support new words as learners grow.
6. Mitchell, Tsui & Byers-Heinlein (2024) — Cognates help young children produce words
Concordia University, Montreal · 47 young English–French bilingual children · Journal of Child Language
Children produced a greater proportion of cognates than non-cognates, and translation equivalents appeared sooner when the words were cognates. English–French cognates and phonological similarity can support early expressive vocabulary. This application is built around those same ingredients: cognate-rich verbs, shared sound patterns, and spoken production.
