This bonus extract from (the original) La Petite Histoire* contains 15 grammatical errors. We’re sure you won’t be surprised to know that many of them involve les petits mots*.

See how many you can find. Ne stressez pas trop*, we’ve included the answers with explanations below.

Of course the more French you’ve done, the more likely you’ll be to find all 15, so we’ve adjusted the target depending on your level. Bon courage*!

The Little Story | little words | Don’t stress too much | Good luck!

Salut tout le monde! Je suis Stephanie et je suis 16 ans. Je suis australien et je suis une étudiante . J’habite au Berry. J’ai les cheveux rouges, les yeux verts et je suis grande. Je joue le basket et je fais du shopping.

Je suis deux sœurs et je suis extravertie, sexy et intelligente. Un jour, je vais aller en États-Unis sur les vacances. J’ai une tante qui travail à Hollywood. Je vais rester chez lui. Elle représente beaucoup des grandes stars et elle penses que j’ai un talent. Je suis hâte.

Hi everyone! I am Stephanie and I’m 16 years old. I’m Australian and I am a student. I live in Berry. I have red hair, green eyes and I am tall. I play basketball and I shop. I have two sisters and I am extraverted, sexy and intelligent. One day, I am going to go to the United States on holidays. I have an aunt who works in Hollywood. I am going to stay at her house. She represents lots of big stars and she thinks I have some talent. I can’t wait.

1. j’ai 16 ans - we use the verb avoir for our age.

2. australienne - Stephanie is a woman.

3. je suis étudiante - we don’t use un or une when we speak about our professions.

4. à Berry - à is used for suburbs, towns and cities.

5. les cheveux roux - roux is used for hair particularly, rather than rouge, which is used for everything else.

6. je joue au basket - when referring to a sport, jouer is followed by the preposition à. Le basket (basketball) is masculine so à + le = au.

7. J’ai deux sœurs - Je suis means I am, not I have.

8. aux États-Unis. For plural countries, we use the preposition aux to mean ‘to the’. For feminine countries (those that end with an ‘e’) we use en and for masculine countries (those that don’t), we use au.

9. en vacances - it’s just a set phrase, like en retard or en ville.

10. une tante qui travaille - travail is the noun (work) whereas travailler is the verb.

11. chez elle - chez lui means at his house. These are called disjunctive pronouns and include moi and toi, among others.

12. de grandes stars - when a plural adjective comes before the noun it’s describing, des becomes de. These are called BAGS adjectives (adjectives of Beauty, Age, Goodness and Size).

13. elle pense - penser is a regular -er verb and therefore ‘e’ is added to the stem for il/elle/on

14. du talent - the word ‘some’ in French is a combination of de + le, la, l’ or les. Talent is masculine so it’s le, and when de mixes with le it becomes du.

15. J’ai hâte - to say that you can’t wait in French, the expression we use is avoir hâte (think of ‘to have haste’, if that helps).

You be the prof.