Difficulties of Learning and Using French Compound Words

Learning vocabulary constitutes a crucial step in language learning. Amongst different word categories, compound words have failed to attract the attention they deserve. This led us to conduct a study trying to pinpoint the difficulties learning these words and to suggest some techniques facilitating their acquisition. To that effect, a questionnaire as well as a vocabu-lary test were given to two groups of FFL (French as a Foreign Language) learners. Carried out from a descriptive and analytical point of view, this study was based on a real corpus and led to the following results:
Firstly, learners showed little tendency towards making use of compound words, both in writing and in speaking.
Secondly, teachers can contribute to a better learning by providing learners with convenient strategies.
Thirdly, familiarity with Greco-Latin roots enormously help learners to guess the meaning of an unknown word.