A dictée, as every French schoolchild learns to his sorrow, is a dictation exercise full of traps for the unwary. Prosper Mérimée, author of the original Carmen, once offered a 248-word specimen as a test at the imperial court in Compiègne, and Napoleon III committed 75 errors. (Empress Eugènie made only 62.) Nothing much has changed since then in the stern regulations governing how the French teach their language to their children. Grading is fierce (more than five mistakes on a dictée bring a zero), and two out of three students flunk at least...
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