British learners acquire very little vocabulary in their foreign languages, compared to pupils elsewhere in Europe, particularly learners of English as a foreign language. Could the materials used for teaching help explain this difference? An analysis of the vocabulary loading of a textbook for French as a foreign language commonly used in Britain, "Encore Tricolore" (Mascie-Taylor and Honnor, 2001, Cheltenham, UK, Nelson Thornes), was carried out with this question in mind. An analysis of the vocabulary suggests that it is not introduced and practised in a way that is conducive to building a sufficiently large vocabulary to reach level B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). (Contains 4 tables, 1 figure, and 1 note.)