# French Sentence Breakdown > Turn any French audio transcript, article, or written text into a full deep-dive study package using English (not the learner's native language) as the bilingual bridge — clean transcript, sentence-by-sentence grammatical breakdown (English translation, IPA, word-by-word gloss, sentence structure, grammar notes flagging English/French convergence and divergence, extension examples), a running gra… - **Type:** Skill - **Install:** `agentstack add skill-neofirst0715-french-sentence-breakdown-french-sentence-breakdown` - **Verified:** Yes — security-reviewed for prompt injection and unsafe behavior - **Seller:** [Neofirst0715](https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/neofirst0715) - **Installs:** 0 - **Category:** [Content & Media](https://agentstack.voostack.com/c/content-and-media) - **Latest version:** 0.1.0 - **License:** Apache-2.0 - **Upstream author:** [Neofirst0715](https://github.com/Neofirst0715) - **Source:** https://github.com/Neofirst0715/french-sentence-breakdown - **Website:** https://neofirst0715.github.io/french-sentence-breakdown/ ## Install ```sh agentstack add skill-neofirst0715-french-sentence-breakdown-french-sentence-breakdown ``` Requires the [AgentStack CLI](https://agentstack.voostack.com/docs/cli). Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent. ## About # French Sentence Breakdown & Study System A skill for converting raw French audio/text into structured bilingual study material — using **English as the bridge language**, not the learner's native language — and for running an ongoing French-acquisition system built on the **Three Listen Rule**. **Why English as the bridge, not the learner's L1**: French and English are both Indo-European and share grammatical categories (tense marking, agreement, relative pronouns, article systems) that a non-Indo-European L1 often lacks. Translating French into English tends to preserve the grammatical structure in a way translating into, say, Chinese does not — the L1 translation is often correct in meaning but strips the grammar out entirely. Use this only when the learner is genuinely comfortable in English at a level where it can serve as a reliable bridge — confirm this once rather than assuming it. This convenience comes with three real risks, so every breakdown must actively guard against them (see Step 2): 1. **Translation-mediated reaction speed** — routing French through English on every sentence can become a crutch that slows real-time listening/speaking, where there's no time for a two-step conversion. Counter with a mandatory French-only restatement step. 2. **Faux amis (false friends)** — French and English look alike, which makes look-alike-but-wrong word pairs the single biggest failure mode of this method (*actuellement* ≠ actually, *assister à* ≠ assist, *librairie* ≠ library). Counter with a running false-friends log. 3. **Structure calquing** — copying English sentence structure into French where the two actually diverge (e.g. *plaire à qqn* reverses subject/object versus "to like"; passive constructions like "I was rejected for a visa" need restructuring in French, not word-for-word translation). Counter by explicitly flagging divergence points, not just convergence points. This skill has two modes. Detect which one the input calls for: 1. **Material mode** — the user gives you French content (transcript, article, lyrics, their own journal entry) and wants it cleaned up, explained, corrected, or turned into study material. 2. **System mode** — the user wants a listening/study plan, a progress check, or help deciding what to practice next. Most conversations start in Material mode and drift into System mode once several pieces of material exist. Keep both available. --- ## Mode 1: Material Mode ### Step 0 — Classify the input Before doing anything, identify: - **Is it clean or raw?** Auto-generated transcripts are full of noise: missing punctuation, wrong homophones, dropped accents, stray `[musique]`/sound-effect tags, English asides, mis-heard proper nouns. If raw, clean it first (see `references/transcript-cleaning.md`). - **Is it teaching material or authentic material?** A didactic podcast (slow, repetitive, built for learners) gets treated very differently from a real vlog/interview/song (natural speed, elision, disfluencies). Say explicitly which type it is and roughly what CEFR level it sits at (A1–C1) — the user needs this to calibrate expectations. Don't let them assume every piece of content is equally learnable at their current level. - **Is it the user's own writing?** If so, this is a correction task, not a transcript-cleaning task — go to `references/writing-correction.md` instead of the breakdown format below. ### Step 1 — Produce a clean, speaker-labeled, thematically segmented transcript Only needed for raw/messy input. Standard for a clean transcript: - Segment into numbered thematic sections with a short French header (e.g. `## 3. Le dessert`) - Label speaker turns if multiple speakers (infer from content if the raw file has no labels — say so explicitly, e.g. "attribution reconstructed from content") - Fix mis-transcribed words, missing accents, dropped partitive articles, etc. - Append a **corrections table** at the end: `| Sous-titre automatique | Correction | Type |` - If anything is genuinely inaudible or a musical/sound-effect artifact, cut it and note it in the table rather than guessing at content Full template and worked example: `references/transcript-cleaning.md` ### Step 2 — Sentence-by-sentence breakdown This is the core deliverable. For each sentence, produce the six-part format below. Full template, worked examples, and calibration notes (when to compress a short/simple sentence) are in `references/sentence-breakdown-format.md`. Read that file before producing breakdowns — it defines exactly how much detail each part needs and when to abbreviate. The six parts, in order, per sentence: 1. **English translation** 2. **IPA** 3. **Word-by-word gloss** (number every word/morpheme) 4. **Sentence structure** (skeleton, for anything beyond a simple SVO sentence) 5. **Grammar notes** (the grammar point(s) worth teaching from this sentence — the actual payload). Explicitly mark each point as either **converges with English** (structure maps over cleanly — worth noting briefly, since this is exactly why the bridge works) or **diverges from English** (worth slowing down on — this is where calquing errors come from). Don't only list convergences; divergences are the higher-value half of this section. 6. **Extension examples** (2 short examples using the same structure) Two additions run alongside the six parts, not per-sentence but as running threads through the whole breakdown: - **French-only restatement.** After finishing a natural chunk of sentences (a themed section, or every 5-8 sentences in continuous prose), insert a short prompt telling the learner to close the English side and restate the passage in French only, in their own words. This is not optional decoration — it's the step that converts the English-bridge comprehension gain back into direct French processing, and skipping it is exactly how the bridge becomes a permanent crutch. - **Faux-amis log.** Maintain a running table across the whole document of any French word that resembles an English word but means something different, or where the surface similarity could tempt a wrong guess. Append to it as they come up rather than scattering the warning inline only — a consolidated list is what the learner will actually review later. **Do not give every sentence the full six-part treatment.** Short/simple/filler sentences (single interjections, exact repeats of a structure just covered, "Incroyable.", "Trop bon.") should be compressed to 1–2 lines. Spend the words on sentences that teach something. See the compression rules in `references/sentence-breakdown-format.md`. **Handle long transcripts in one pass.** The user has explicitly asked for longer sessions rather than many tiny ones — a 40–80 sentence transcript should normally be broken down as one continuous document (or at most 2–3 large parts if length limits force a split), not chopped into many short files. Don't default to 15–20 sentence chunks unless the user asks for that. ### Step 3 — Cross-cutting grammar review At the end of each breakdown, add a **grammar review table**: every grammar point taught, which sentence(s) it came from, whether it converges or diverges from English, and a one-line takeaway. See the format and the "recurring structures" style analysis in `references/sentence-breakdown-format.md` — for longer/authentic texts, explicitly call out which structures *recur* across many sentences (these are the highest ROI to master) versus which appear once (lower priority, recognition-only for now). Close with the accumulated **faux-amis log** table so it reads as one reference list, not scattered footnotes. ### Step 4 — Practical use note Close with a short, concrete note on how this specific piece of material should be used given its difficulty level relative to the learner (intensive deep-dive vs. extensive/background listening vs. skip-for-now). Don't let a B2 vlog get treated the same way as an A1 teaching podcast — say so. --- ## Mode 2: System Mode When the user wants a study plan, a progress check, or help deciding what to do next, use `references/study-system.md`. It defines: - The **Three Listen Rule**, scaled correctly by learner level and by material type (teaching podcast vs. authentic content) — this is a listening *comprehension* technique and must not be conflated with extensive/volume listening - A **daily engine** (vocabulary SRS, micro-listening, self-breakdown, extensive listening, output) that fits into a fixed daily time budget - A **back-translation** method (French → English → French, spaced across days) for converting listening material directly into writing practice, plus the French-only restatement drill that keeps the English bridge from becoming a permanent crutch - A **systematic grammar curriculum** (ordered list of grammar points to cover on a timeline) to run alongside the material-driven, extraction-based grammar notes from Mode 1 - Level-appropriate material tiers (staple / bridge / stretch) and the upgrade test for moving between them - A weekly rhythm and a monthly checkpoint with concrete pass/fail thresholds Always ask or infer: **current vocabulary size, current CEFR level, target level, deadline, daily time budget.** These five numbers drive every recommendation — don't give generic advice without them. If any are missing, ask once, briefly, rather than guessing. --- ## Formatting conventions (apply in both modes) - All learner-facing explanatory text is in **English**; French sentences, IPA, and example sentences stay in French. (English was chosen deliberately as the bridge language — see the rationale above — not defaulted to as a generic choice. If the learner's preference changes, or if a specific phrase is genuinely clearer glossed in their L1, that's fine as an occasional aside, but it shouldn't become the default mode.) - Bold the French target word/phrase inside English explanations rather than translating it away. - Use `>` blockquotes for important warnings/exceptions the learner is likely to get wrong — divergence points and faux amis are the most common candidates for this treatment. - Never present output only as a chat reply for anything long-form — create a markdown file so the user can save/reuse it (this is study material, not a one-off answer). - Respect copyright: this skill produces **learner analysis and pedagogical restructuring** of the source, not a verbatim reproduction for its own sake. Never reproduce song lyrics. Transcript cleaning is fine because it's a functional transformation (fixing ASR errors) in service of language instruction, not redistribution of the work. ## Source & license This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code. - **Author:** [Neofirst0715](https://github.com/Neofirst0715) - **Source:** [Neofirst0715/french-sentence-breakdown](https://github.com/Neofirst0715/french-sentence-breakdown) - **License:** Apache-2.0 - **Homepage:** https://neofirst0715.github.io/french-sentence-breakdown/ Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above. ## Pricing - **Free** — Free ## Security capabilities Automated source analysis of v0.1.0 — what this tool can access: - **Network access:** no - **Filesystem access:** no - **Shell / process execution:** no - **Environment & secrets:** no - **Dynamic code execution:** no *"Yes" means the capability is present in the source — more access means more to trust, not that it is unsafe.* ## Versions - **0.1.0** — security scan: passed — Imported from the upstream source. ## Links - Listing page: https://agentstack.voostack.com/l/skill-neofirst0715-french-sentence-breakdown-french-sentence-breakdown - Seller: https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/neofirst0715 - Browse the marketplace: https://agentstack.voostack.com/browse --- Listed on AgentStack — the marketplace for AI agent skills and MCP servers. 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