Grammar notes like those below can be helpful if you're having trouble with the lessons, so consider trying the lessons above before reading the notes. They'll be more helpful once you have a context for understanding them.
French has two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine. All nouns have a gender that you must memorize. Sometimes, the gender can be obvious: une femme ("a woman") is feminine. Other times, it's not obvious: une pomme ("an apple") is also feminine.
In every complete sentence, the subject is the person or thing that performs an action or is being described. This is often a noun, but a personal subject pronoun (e.g. "I", "you", or "he") can replace that noun. In both English and French, pronouns have different forms based on what they replace.
| English | French | Example |
|---|---|---|
| I | je | Je mange. — I eat. |
| You (familiar singular) | tu | Tu manges. — You eat. |
| He/It | il | Il mange. — He eats. |
| She/It | elle | Elle mange. — She eats. |
Notice above that the verb manger (as well as its English equivalent, "to eat") changes form to agree grammatically with the subject. These forms are called conjugations of that verb. Whenever you want to learn a verb's conjugation, hover your mouse over that word and press the "Conjugate" button.
Here are some conjugations for verbs you'll encounter in the first few units:
| Subject | Manger (To Eat) | Être (To Be) | Avoir (To Have) |
|---|---|---|---|
| je | je mange — I eat | je suis — I am | j'ai — I have |
| tu | tu manges — you eat | tu es — you are | tu as — you have |
| il/elle/on | il mange — he eats | il est — he is | il a — he has |
Grammar notes like those below can be helpful if you're having trouble with the lessons, so consider trying the lessons above before reading the notes. They'll be more helpful once you have a context for understanding them.
Articles (e.g. "the" or "a") provide context for a noun. In English, articles may be omitted, but French nouns almost always have an article. French has three types of articles:
Articles have multiple forms, as provided in this table:
| Article | Masculine | Feminine | Plural | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Definite | le/l' | la/l' | les | le chat — the cat |
| Indefinite | un | une | des | une femme — a woman |
| Partitive | du/de l' | de la/de l' | de l'eau — (some) water |
It is critical to understand that articles must agree with their nouns in both gender and number. For instance, le femme is incorrect. It must be la femme because la is feminine and singular, just like femme.
Le and la become just l' if they're followed by a vowel sound. This is an example of elision, which is the removal of a vowel sound in order to prevent consecutive vowel sounds and make pronunciation easier. Elisions are mandatory—for instance, je aime is incorrect. It must be j'aime.
These other one-syllable words can also elide: je, me, te, se, de, ce, ne, and que. Tu can also be elided in casual speech, but not in writing (including on Duolingo).
In a contraction, two words combine to form one shortened word. For instance, the partitive article du is a contraction of the preposition de with le.
However, since du can create vowel conflicts, when it would appear in front of a vowel sound, it takes the elided de l' form instead. This is also the case for de la.
The letter H is always mute (silent) in French, but when H starts a word, it can act as a consonant (aspirate) or vowel (non-aspirate). For example, the H in homme acts as a vowel. This means that "the man" must be written as l'homme.
Conversely, an aspirate H doesn't participate in elisions or liaisons (which you'll learn about soon). It's usually found at the beginning of loanwords from German or other languages. For instance, "the hero" is le héros. Pay attention to this when learning new vocabulary.
Grammar notes like those below can be helpful if you're having trouble with the lessons, so consider trying the lessons above before reading the notes. They'll be more helpful once you have a context for understanding them.
Bonjour is a universal greeting that can be spoken to anyone at any time. In France, greeting people is very important, and some will even say bonjour aloud when entering a public room or bus. Bon après-midi is often used as a farewell in the afternoon, while bonsoir is an evening greeting.
Many words or phrases cannot be translated literally between English and French because their usages are idiomatic. For instance, consider « Ça va ? », which means "How are you?" The literal translation of the French is "That goes?", but this is nonsensical in English. It is very important to identify idioms in both languages and learn how to translate them properly.
In a liaison, an otherwise silent ending consonant is pushed to the next word, where it's pronounced as part of the first syllable. Like elisions, this prevents consecutive vowel sounds. Liaisons are possible whenever a silent ending consonant is followed by a word beginning in a vowel sound, but some liaisons are mandatory and others are forbidden.
Here are some mandatory liaisons, along with approximate pronunciations:
Liaisons are forbidden:
Note that some consonants take on a different sound in liaisons, and it's important to pronounce these correctly when speaking.
| Original Consonant | Resulting Liaison Sound | Example |
|---|---|---|
| -s, -x, -z | Z | des hommes ("day-zohm") |
| -d | T | un grand arbre ("uhn-grahn-tarbre") |
| -f | V | neuf ans ("nuh-vahn") |
Liaison rules vary among speakers, particularly across dialects, and fewer liaisons tend to appear in casual and slow speech. Note that the slow mode in Duo listening exercises does not include liaisons.
In enchaînements, ending consonant sounds are pushed onto the next word if it begins in a vowel. This is essentially the same as a liaison, except that the consonant sound wasn't silent beforehand. For instance:
Impersonal expressions are phrases where there isn't a real subject. For instance, in the phrase "It is snowing" (Il neige), "it" doesn't refer to anything. It's a dummy subject that exists just to maintain the sentence structure.
One of the most common impersonal expressions is il y a, which is an idiom for "there is" or "there are".
You will learn more about impersonal expressions in "V. Pres 1".
Post comments, questions, and note errors here.
French nouns for persons of a certain nationality are capitalized, but in French, national adjectives and language names are not capitalized.
Remember that nouns for nationalities (and also professions and religions) can appear after être without a determiner. In this usage, they are adjectives and are not capitalized.
Because French lacks continuous tenses, most French verbs can translate to either simple or continuous tenses in English (and vice versa).
However, as you learned in "Verbs: Present 2", English stative verbs cannot be used in continuous tenses. You can only use them in simple tenses.
Generally, if a verb refers to a process, it's a dynamic verb; if it refers to a state or condition, it's a stative verb. The most common stative verb is "to be", but here are some other common examples:
However, some verbs can be either stative or active depending on context. For instance:
This restriction on using stative verbs in English continuous tenses will be particularly important in the next few units.
As you learned in "Basics 1", French has two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine. All nouns have a gender, and most nouns have a fixed gender. For instance, la pomme is always feminine and un bébé ("a baby") is always masculine, even for baby girls.
However, some nouns can have multiple genders depending on the situation, and many masculine nouns can be changed to a feminine form simply by adding an -e to the end. Your male friend is un ami and your female friend is une amie. Some nouns, like l'élève ("the student"), have the same spelling and meaning for both gender forms.
Other nouns may have the same spelling, but different genders and meanings. For instance, un tour (masculine) is a tour, while une tour (feminine) is a tower.
One of the most difficult aspects of learning French is memorizing noun genders. However, by spending some time now memorizing the following patterns, you may be able to guess most nouns' genders and save yourself a lot of trouble in the future.
Some genders depend on a noun's classification. For instance, languages, days of the week, months, seasons, metals, colors, and measurements are mostly masculine.
Otherwise, memorizing word endings is the best way to guess genders. We'll learn these ending patterns in four steps:
First: Nouns ending in -e tend to be feminine. All others, especially nouns ending in consonants, tend to be masculine. This is true for over 70% of all nouns.
Second: Nouns that have the endings -ion and -son tend to be feminine, even though they end in consonants.
Third: Nouns with these endings are usually masculine, although they end in -e:
Fourth: Watch out for these complications:
That's it! Memorize these, and you'll be able to guess most noun genders.
In French, female animal nouns are generally formed as follows by taking the last consonant, doubling it, and adding a mute -e to the end.
Of course, there are many exceptions. For example:
Post comments, questions, and note errors here.
Many French words have plural forms. Plural nouns and adjectives can be formed by appending an -s to the singular, but remember that this -s is usually silent.
There are also plural forms for pronouns and verb conjugations. Consider parler ("to speak"):
| Person | French | Example |
|---|---|---|
| I | je | Je parle. — I speak. |
| You (familiar singular) | tu | Tu parles. — You speak. |
| You (formal singular) | vous | Vous parlez. — You speak. |
| He | il | Il parle. — He speaks. |
| She | elle | Elle parle. — She speaks. |
| We | nous | Nous parlons. — We speak. |
| You (plural) | vous | Vous parlez. — You speak. |
| They (any group including a male) | ils | Ils parlent. — They speak. |
| They (all women) | elles | Elles parlent. — They speak. |
Pronouns, adjectives, and articles must agree with their nouns in both gender and number. Consider the examples below and note how the article and adjective change to agree with each noun.
Not all adjectives change forms. For instance, riche is the same for both masculine and feminine singular nouns.
French has two words for the subject pronoun "you": tu and vous. For a singular "you", tu should only be used for friends, peers, relatives, children, or anyone else who's very familiar to you. In all other cases and also for plurals, the more polite vous should be used to show respect. When in doubt, use vous.
A gallicism is a phrase or grammatical construction peculiar to the French language
When describing people and things with a noun after être in French, you usually can't use the personal subject pronoun like il, elle, ils, and elles. Instead, you must use the impersonal pronoun ce, which can also mean "this" or "that". Note that ce is invariable, so it can never be ces sont.
| Impersonal Subject Pronoun | Personal Subject Pronoun | |
|---|---|---|
| Singular | c'est | il/elle est |
| Plural | ce sont | ils/elles sont |
These pronouns aren't interchangeable. The basic rule is that you must use ce when être is followed by any determiner—for instance, an article or a possessive adjective. Note that c'est should be used for singulars and ce sont should be used for plurals.
If an adjective, adverb, or both appear after être, then use the personal pronoun.
As you know, nouns generally need determiners, but one important exception is that professions can act as adjectives after être. This is optional; you can also choose to treat them as nouns.
However, c'est should be used when using an adjective to make a general comment about (but not describe) a thing or situation. In this case, use the masculine singular form of the adjective.
One of the most common idioms in French is the use of the verb avoir in certain places where English would use the verb "to be". This is especially common for states or conditions that a person may experience.
Être and avoir are the most common verbs in French. Like many common verbs, they have irregular conjugations.
| Subject | Être ("to be") | Avoir ("to have") |
|---|---|---|
| je/j' | (je) suis | (j')ai |
| tu | es | as |
| il/elle/on | est | a |
| nous | sommes | avons |
| vous | êtes | avez |
| ils/elles | sont | ont |
There should be a liaison between ils or elles and ont ("il-zon" or "elle-zon"). The "z" sound is essential here to differentiate between "they are" and "they have", so be sure to emphasize it.
These two verbs are very important because they can act as auxiliary verbs in French, but they differ from their English equivalents. "I write" and "I am writing" both translate to j'écris, not je suis écris. This is because être cannot be used as an auxiliary in a simple tense. It can only be used in compound tenses, which you will learn in the "Passé Composé" unit.
Another important distinction is that avoir means "to have" in the sense of "to possess", but not "to consume" or "to experience". Other verbs must be used for these meanings.
English has two present tenses: simple ("I write") and continuous ("I am writing"), but French has no specialized continuous verb tenses. This means that "I write", "I am writing", and "I do write" can translate to j'écris (not je suis écris) and vice versa.
However, the idiomatic phrase « être en train de » is often used to indicate that someone is in the process of doing something.
When translating, remember that English stative verbs have no continuous forms. For instance, « j'aime un garçon » cannot be translated as "I am loving a boy".
The partitive article is used for unspecified amounts of uncountable nouns. In English, it can translate to "some", but it's often just omitted. Remember that du is a contraction of de + le and that partitives can elide.
| Gender | Partitive Article | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | du | Je mange du poisson. — I am eating fish. |
| Feminine | de la | Je mange de la viande. — I am eating meat. |
| Elided Masc. | de l' | Je mange de l'ananas. — I am eating pineapple. |
| Elided Fem. | de l' | Je bois de l'eau. — I am drinking water. |
Nouns almost never appear without articles in French, so articles must be repeated in serial lists.
Count nouns are discrete and can be counted, like un livre ("a book"). They can be modified by definite and indefinite articles, but not partitive articles.
Mass nouns like lait ("milk") are uncountable, and they can be modified by definite and partitive articles, but not indefinite articles.
However, many nouns can behave as both count nouns and mass nouns. This is true for most edible things. For instance, consider poisson ("fish") or vin ("wine"):
Note that some mass nouns can be pluralized in English when they refer to multiple types of the noun, but this usage isn't found in French. For instance, "the fishes" refers to multiple species of fish, while les poissons just refers to multiple fish.
When an article is missing in an English sentence, it must be added to the French translation. The definite article can be used to fill this void in three situations:
If any of the above is true, then use the definite article. Otherwise, use the indefinite or partitive, depending on whether or not the noun is countable.
Both articles are missing in the English version of this example. Aimer expresses fondness for wine, so le vin should be used there. However, boire is not a verb of appreciation, so the partitive du should be used on the uncountable lait.
This is a general truth about cats, but #2 above can only apply to subjects, so only chats takes a definite article here. Animaux are countable, so use the plural indefinite des.
This is a tricky example because the meat is the direct object of manger, not aimer. Thus, #3 does not apply and viande cannot take a definite article.
Also, the French definite article can be ambiguous when translating from French to English. It can often refer to both a specific noun and the general sense of a noun.
De plus a definite article can also have other meanings. De means "of" or "from", so this can also indicate possession or association with a definite noun.
Post comments, questions, and note errors here.
Most plural forms of nouns and adjectives can be formed by appending an -s to the singular, but remember that this -s is usually silent.
Le chat noir — The black cat ⇒ Les chats noirs — The black cats
Un chat noir — A black cat ⇒ Des chats noirs — (Some) black cats
Note: If the noun is preceded by an adjective, des becomes de.
Articles must agree with the nouns they modify, so plural nouns require either les or des. This is a great way to tell if a noun is plural. If you hear les or des (which sound similar to "lay" and "day"), then the noun is plural. If not, it's probably singular.
Remember that verbs change conjugation to agree with their subjects in both grammatical person and number.
| Subject | Être ("to be") | Parler ("to speak") |
|---|---|---|
| je | suis | parle |
| tu | es | parles |
| il/elle/on | est | parle |
| nous | sommes | parlons |
| vous | êtes | parlez |
| ils/elles | sont | parlent |
There are no quotation marks in French. Instead, the French use guillemets (« »). Exclamation marks (!), question marks (?), colons (:), semicolons (;) and guillemets need to have a space on either side.
When writing numbers in French, commas are decimal points, while spaces mark thousands places.
In French, it is common to use verbs like faire ("to do") idiomatically for general conditions such as weather.
To describe the weather (le temps), we can use the impersonal expression il fait (literally, "it does" or "it makes"). In English, when we say "it is raining," we do not use "it" as a real subject. The "it" doesn't refer to anything. This is the same with the French "il" in impersonal expressions: it is not a real subject. You have encountered something similar to this in the "Phrases" unit: il y a ("there is/are").
However, il fait followed by various adjectives describes sensory impressions.
Note that we can also explicitly describe the weather with the same adjectives: Le temps est chaud. Le temps est froid. Le temps est beau., etc.
Some weather conditions are commonly expressed with a noun instead of an adjective, and il y a is used, followed by a partitive article if the noun is uncountable.
There are other French verbs used impersonally with "il" to describe the weather. You will encounter some of them in this unit.
To ask someone about the weather, simply use the expression Quel temps fait-il ? (What is the weather like?) You will learn later on how this question is formed grammatically.
written by georgeoftruth (7 avr 2018)- Rev Sitesurf 9 avr 2018
Congratulations on passing the first checkpoint!
Être and avoir are the most common verbs in French. Like many common verbs, they have irregular conjugations.
| Subject | Être ("to be") | Avoir ("to have") |
|---|---|---|
| je/j' | (je) suis | (j')ai |
| tu | es | as |
| il/elle/on | est | a |
| nous | sommes | avons |
| vous | êtes | avez |
| ils/elles | sont | ont |
There should be a liaison between ils or elles and ont ("il-zon" or "elle-zon"). The "z" sound is essential here to differentiate between "they are" and "they have", so be sure to emphasize it.
These two verbs are very important because they can act as auxiliary verbs in French, but they differ from their English equivalents. In "Basics 2", you learned that "I write" and "I am writing" both translate to j'écris, not je suis écris. This is because être cannot be used as an auxiliary in a simple tense. It can only be used in compound tenses, which you will learn in the "Passé Composé" unit.
Another important distinction is that avoir means "to have" in the sense of "to possess", but not "to consume" or "to experience". Other verbs must be used for these meanings.
When describing people and things with être in French, you usually can't use a personal subject pronoun like elle. Instead, you must use the impersonal pronoun ce, which can also mean "this" or "that". Note that ce is invariable, so it can never be ces sont.
| Impersonal Subject Pronoun | Personal Subject Pronoun | |
|---|---|---|
| Singular | c'est | il/elle est |
| Plural | ce sont | ils/elles sont |
These pronouns aren't interchangeable. The basic rule is that you must use ce when être is followed by any determiner—for instance, an article or a possessive adjective. Note that c'est should be used for singulars and ce sont should be used for plurals.
If an adjective, adverb, or both appear after être, then use the personal pronoun.
As you know, nouns generally need determiners, but one important exception is that professions, nationalities, and religions can act as adjectives after être. This is optional; you can also choose to treat them as nouns.
However, c'est should be used when using an adjective to make a general comment about (but not describe) a thing or situation. In this case, use the masculine singular form of the adjective.
One of the most common idioms in French is the use of the verb avoir in certain places where English would use the verb "to be". This is especially common for states or conditions that a person may experience.
French tends to use the verb faire ("to do") idiomatically for general conditions like weather. Note that il fait is an impersonal expression with no real subject, just like il y a from "Common Phrases".
English has a number of idiomatic plural-only nouns that have to be translated carefully. These are not just nouns that are invariable with number (like "deer"), but rather nouns that cannot refer to a singular thing at all.
For instance, "the pants" can only be plural in English, but the corresponding le pantalon is singular in French. A single pair of pants is not les pantalons, which refers to multiple pairs of pants. Similarly, when translating le pantalon back to English, you can say "the pants" or "a pair of pants", but "a pant" is not correct. This also applies to un jean ("a pair of jeans").
Un vêtement refers to a single article of clothing, and it's incorrect to translate it as "clothes", which is plural and refers to a collection of clothing. This would have to be des vêtements.
The acute accent (é) only appears on E and produces a pure [e] that isn't found in English. To make this sound, say the word "cliché", but hold your tongue perfectly still on the last vowel to avoid making a diphthong sound.
The grave accent (è) can appear on A/E/U, though it only changes the sound for E (to [ɛ], which is the E in "lemon"). Otherwise, it distinguishes homophones like a (a conjugated form of avoir) and à (a preposition).
The cedilla (ç) softens a normally hard C sound to the soft C in "cent". Otherwise, a C followed by an A, O, or U has a hard sound like the C in "car".
The circumflex (ê) usually means that an S used to follow the vowel in Old French or Latin. (The same is true of the acute accent.) For instance, île was once "isle".
The trema (ë) indicates that two adjacent vowels must be pronounced separately, like in Noël ("Christmas") and maïs ("corn").
There are four nasal vowels in French. Try to learn these sounds by listening to native speakers.
| IPA | Letter Sequence | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| /œ̃/ | un/um | un/parfum |
| /ɛ̃/ | in/im/yn/ym | vin/pain/syndicat/sympa |
| /ɑ̃/ | an/am/en/em | dans/chambre/en/emploi |
| /ɔ̃/ | on/om | mon/ombre |
These aren't always nasalized. If there's a double M or N, or if they are followed by any vowel, then the vowel should have an oral sound instead. For instance, un is nasal, but une is not. Also, vin is nasal, but vinaigre is not.
Please see this discussion for more information about nasal vowels.
Colors can be both nouns and adjectives. As nouns, colors are usually masculine.
As adjectives, they agree with the nouns they modify except in two cases. First, colors derived from nouns (e.g. fruits, flowers, or gems) tend to be invariable with gender and number. Orange ("orange") and marron ("brown") are the most common examples.
Second, in compound adjectives (les adjectifs composés) made up of two adjectives, both adjectives remain in their masculine singular forms.
Most colors that end in -e in their masculine forms are invariable with gender.
Most plural forms of nouns and adjectives can be formed by appending an -s to the singular, but remember that this -s is usually silent.
Le chat noir — The black cat ⇒ Les chats noirs — The black cats
Un chat noir — A black cat ⇒ Des chats noirs — (Some) black cats
Note: If the noun is preceded by an adjective, des becomes de.
Articles must agree with the nouns they modify, so plural nouns require either les or des. This is a great way to tell if a noun is plural. If you hear les or des (which sound similar to "lay" and "day"), then the noun is plural. If not, it's probably singular.
Remember that verbs change conjugation to agree with their subjects in both grammatical person and number.
| Subject | Être ("to be") | Parler ("to speak") |
|---|---|---|
| je | suis | parle |
| tu | es | parles |
| il/elle/on | est | parle |
| nous | sommes | parlons |
| vous | êtes | parlez |
| ils/elles | sont | parlent |
There are no quotation marks in French. Instead, the French use guillemets (« »). Exclamation marks (!), question marks (?), colons (:), semicolons (;) and guillemets need to have a space on either side.
When writing numbers in French, commas are decimal points, while spaces mark thousands places.
In English, possessive adjectives (e.g. "his") match the owner. However, in French, they match the thing being owned.
Consider the example of "her lion". The French translation is son lion, because lion is masculine and both the lion and the woman are singular. Note that if we hear just son lion, we can't tell if the lion is owned by a man or woman. It's ambiguous without more context. If two people own a lion, then it is leur lion.
Possessives have different forms that agree with four things: the number of owners, the number of things owned, the gender of the thing owned, and the grammatical person of the owner (e.g. "his" versus "my").
For one owner, the possessive adjectives are:
| Person | English | Masculine Singular | Feminine Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | my | mon | ma | mes |
| 2nd | your (singular) | ton | ta | tes |
| 3rd | his/her/its | son | sa | ses |
For multiple owners, genders don't matter:
| Person | English | Singular Owned | Plural Owned |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | our | notre | nos |
| 2nd | your (plural) | votre | vos |
| 3rd | their | leur | leurs |
The plural second-person possessive adjectives, votre and vos, should be used when addressing someone formally with vous.
Examples:
| Owner | Singular Owned | Plural Owned |
|---|---|---|
| My | Mon ami — My friend | Mes tigres — My tigers |
| Your | Ton abeille — Your bee | Tes lions — Your lions |
| His/Her | Son oiseau — His/her bird | Ses chiens — His/her dogs |
| Our | Notre bière — Our beer | Nos pommes — Our apples |
| Your | Votre sel — Your salt | Vos citrons — Your lemons |
| Their | Leur fromage — Their cheese | Leurs fromages — Their cheeses |
For the sake of euphony, all singular feminine possessives switch to their masculine forms when followed by a vowel sound.
| Person | Masculine | Feminine | Feminine + Vowel Sound |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | mon chat | ma robe | mon eau |
| 2nd | ton chat | ta robe | ton eau |
| 3rd | son chat | sa robe | son eau |
Femme can mean "woman" or "wife" and fille can mean "girl" or "daughter" depending on the context. For example, when femme and fille are preceded by a possessive adjective, then they translate to "wife" and "daughter", respectively.
As you learned in "Basics 1", verbs like parler conjugate to agree with their subjects. Parler itself is an infinitive, which is a verb's base form. It consists of a root (parl-) and an ending (-er). The ending can dictate how the verb should be conjugated. In this case, almost all verbs ending in -er are regular verbs in the 1st Group that share the same conjugation pattern. To conjugate another 1st Group verb, affix the ending to that verb's root.
Every verb belongs to one of three groups:
| Subject | G1: parler | G2: finir | G3: dormir |
|---|---|---|---|
| je | parle | finis | dors |
| tu | parles | finis | dors |
| il/elle/on | parle | finit | dort |
| nous | parlons | finissons | dormons |
| vous | parlez | finissez | dormez |
| ils/elles | parlent | finissent | dorment |
Aller ("to go") is the only fully irregular verb in Group 1, but a handful of others are slightly irregular.
Spelling-changing verbs end in -ger (e.g. manger) or -cer (e.g. lancer, "to throw") and change slightly in the nous form, as well as any other form whose ending begins with an A or O. These verbs take a form like nous mangeons or nous lançons.
Stem-changing verbs have different roots in their nous and vous forms. For instance, most forms of appeler ("to call") have two L's (e.g. j'appelle), but the N/V forms are nous appelons and vous appelez.
The only true auxiliary verbs in French are être and avoir, but there are a number of semi-auxiliary verbs in French that can be used with other verbs to express ability, necessity, desire, and so on. They are used in double-verb constructions where the first verb (the semi-auxiliary) is conjugated and the second is not.
Modal verbs are the English equivalents of semi-auxiliaries—for instance, "can", which translates to either savoir or pouvoir. When "can" indicates knowledge, use savoir.
When "can" indicates permission or ability (apart from knowledge), use pouvoir.
One of the most important semi-auxiliary verbs is aller, which is used to express the near future (futur proche), just like the English verb "going to".
Note that in verb constructions beginning with non-auxiliary verbs, the verbs must be separated by a preposition.
A few defective impersonal verbs can only be used in impersonal statements and must be conjugated as third-person singular with il. Remember that il is a dummy subject and does not refer to a person.
Falloir means "to be necessary", and it often takes the form il faut + infinitive.
Il faut can also be used transitively with a noun to indicate that it is needed.
Used transitively, savoir and connaître both mean "to know", but in different ways. Savoir implies understanding of subjects, things, or skills, while connaître indicates familiarity with people, animals, places, things, or situations.
Attendre means "to await", which is why it does not need a preposition.
The indefinite article doesn't always refer to just one thing. Sometimes, it can mean one thing each. Consider these examples:
Demonstrative adjectives ("this", "that", "these", and "those") modify nouns so they refer to something or someone specific. They can be used in place of articles. Like other adjectives, they must agree with the nouns they modify.
| Gender | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | ce/cet | ces |
| Feminine | cette | ces |
The singular masculine ce becomes cet in front of a vowel sound for euphony.
Ce can mean either "this" or "that". It's ambiguous between the two. To specify, use the suffix -ci ("here") or -là ("there") on the modified noun.
French learners often confuse the demonstrative adjective ce with the pronoun ce (from "Être-Avoir"). Discerning between them is easy, however: an adjective must modify a noun, while a pronoun can stand alone as a subject or object. Compare:
In the first example, ces is an adjective that modifies hommes, but in the second, ce is a subject pronoun.
The indefinite demonstrative pronoun ça refers to an unnamed concept or thing. When it's used as an object, it usually translates to "this" or "that".
Ça can also be used as a subject, in which case it can also mean "it".
A simple rule of thumb to follow is that ce should be used with être, including in the double-verb constructions pouvoir être and devoir être.
Ça should be used with all other verbs.
However, when an object pronoun comes before être, then you must use ça, not ce. This is relatively rare.
Also, note that ça is informal and is usually replaced by cela ("that") or ceci ("this") in writing.
Conjunctions function by hooking up words, phrases, and clauses. This unit focuses on coordinating conjunctions, which link two or more similar elements in a sentence. For instance, et may be used to link two nouns together.
It may also link two adjectives or even two clauses.
For the most part, French coordinating conjunctions behave very similarly to their English counterparts.
| Conj. | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| et | and | Elle a un chien et un chat. — She has a dog and a cat. |
| mais | but | Mais pas maintenant. — But not now. |
| ou | or | Oui ou non ? — Yes or no? |
| comme | as/like | Je suis comme ça. — I am like that. |
| donc | so/thus | Il est jeune, donc il est petit. — He is young, so he is small. |
| car | because | Je lis, car j'aime ce livre. — I read because I like this book. |
The conjunction car means "because", and it's usually reserved for writing. The subordinating conjunction parce que is preferred in speech; you'll learn this in "Conjunctions 2".
The partitive article is used for unspecified amounts of uncountable nouns. In English, it can translate to "some", but it's often just omitted. Remember that du is a contraction of de + le and that partitives can elide.
| Gender | Partitive Article | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | du | Je mange du poisson. — I am eating fish. |
| Feminine | de la | Je mange de la viande. — I am eating meat. |
| Elided Masc. | de l' | Je mange de l'ananas. — I am eating pineapple. |
| Elided Fem. | de l' | Je bois de l'eau. — I am drinking water. |
Nouns almost never appear without articles in French, so articles must be repeated in serial lists.
Count nouns are discrete and can be counted, like un livre ("a book"). They can be modified by definite and indefinite articles, but not partitive articles.
Mass nouns like lait ("milk") are uncountable, and they can be modified by definite and partitive articles, but not indefinite articles.
However, many nouns can behave as both count nouns and mass nouns. This is true for most edible things. For instance, consider poisson ("fish") or vin ("wine"):
Note that some mass nouns can be pluralized in English when they refer to multiple types of the noun, but this usage isn't found in French. For instance, "the fishes" refers to multiple species of fish, while les poissons just refers to multiple fish.
When an article is missing in an English sentence, it must be added to the French translation. The definite article can be used to fill this void in three situations:
If any of the above is true, then use the definite article. Otherwise, use the indefinite or partitive, depending on whether or not the noun is countable.
Both articles are missing in the English version of this example. Aimer expresses fondness for wine, so le vin should be used there. However, boire is not a verb of appreciation, so the partitive du should be used on the uncountable lait.
This is a general truth about cats, but #2 above can only apply to subjects, so only chats takes a definite article here. Animaux are countable, so use the plural indefinite des.
This is a tricky example because the meat is the direct object of manger, not aimer. Thus, #3 does not apply and viande cannot take a definite article.
Also, the French definite article can be ambiguous when translating from French to English. It can often refer to both a specific noun and the general sense of a noun.
De plus a definite article can also have other meanings. De means "of" or "from", so this can also indicate possession or association with a definite noun.
The most formal way of asking a question is to use an inversion, where the verb appears before its pronoun and the two are connected by a hyphen.
However, if the subject of the sentence is a noun, then the noun should appear before the verb, although a pronoun still needs to appear afterwards.
If the verb ends in a vowel, the letter T must be inserted after the verb for euphony. This T is chaîned onto the pronoun and is meaningless.
Inverted forms still obey other grammar rules, like those for il est vs. c'est. However, the pronoun in an inversion cannot elide.
Est-ce que (pronounced like "essk") can be added in front of a statement to turn it into a question. Remember that que elides in front of vowel sounds.
In informal speech, one of the most common ways to ask a question is simply to raise your intonation at the end of a statement, like you'd do in English.
An interrogative word introduces a question. French has interrogative adjectives, pronouns, and adverbs.
French has one interrogative adjective with four forms. It translates to "which" or "what" depending on the context.
| Gender | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | quel | quels |
| Feminine | quelle | quelles |
An interrogative adjective cannot stand alone. It must modify (and agree with) a noun, and that noun must either be adjacent to it or separated by a form of être.
Quel is also an exclamatory adjective in statements.
Unlike an adjective, an interrogative pronoun can stand alone. For instance, the interrogative pronoun lequel can replace quel + noun. Note that it agrees with the noun it replaces.
| Quel Form | Lequel Form |
|---|---|
| Quel cheval ? — Which horse? | Lequel ? — Which one? |
| Quels hommes mangent ? — Which men eat? | Lesquels mangent ? — Which ones eat? |
| Quelle robe est rose ? — Which dress is pink? | Laquelle est rose ? — Which one is pink? |
| Quelles lettres ? — Which letters? | Lesquelles ? — Which ones? |
The most common interrogative pronouns are qui (for people) and que (for everything else). However, the construction changes based on a number of factors. Qui is the only pronoun that can start a question by itself, but both qui and que can be used with inversion.
Both can also use est-ce, but est-ce que (which you learned above) can only be used in a question with être or when the pronoun is the object ("what" or "whom"). When it's the subject, est-ce qui must be used.
After prepositions and at the end of questions, que becomes quoi.
Qui and que can be very confusing because they can also be relative pronouns. Que can also be a subordinating conjunction. You will learn these uses later.
A number of interrogative adverbs can be used to request information
Note that when these adverbs are used with intonation-based questions, they can appear at the beginning or the end of the sentence (except pourquoi).
In English, possessive adjectives (e.g. "his") match the owner. However, in French, they match the thing being owned.
Consider the example of "her lion". The French translation is son lion, because lion is masculine and both the lion and the woman are singular. Note that if we hear just son lion, we can't tell if the lion is owned by a man or woman. It's ambiguous without more context. If two people own a lion, then it is leur lion.
Possessives have different forms that agree with four things: the number of owners, the number of things owned, the gender of the thing owned, and the grammatical person of the owner (e.g. "his" versus "my").
For one owner, the possessive adjectives are:
| Person | English | Masculine Singular | Feminine Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | my | mon | ma | mes |
| 2nd | your (singular) | ton | ta | tes |
| 3rd | his/her/its | son | sa | ses |
For multiple owners, genders don't matter:
| Person | English | Singular Owned | Plural Owned |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | our | notre | nos |
| 2nd | your (plural) | votre | vos |
| 3rd | their | leur | leurs |
The plural second-person possessive adjectives, votre and vos, should be used when addressing someone formally with vous.
Examples:
| Owner | Singular Owned | Plural Owned |
|---|---|---|
| My | Mon ami — My friend | Mes tigres — My tigers |
| Your | Ton abeille — Your bee | Tes lions — Your lions |
| His/Her | Son oiseau — His/her bird | Ses chiens — His/her dogs |
| Our | Notre bière — Our beer | Nos pommes — Our apples |
| Your | Votre sel — Your salt | Vos citrons — Your lemons |
| Their | Leur fromage — Their cheese | Leurs fromages — Their cheeses |
For the sake of euphony, all singular feminine possessives switch to their masculine forms when followed by a vowel sound.
| Person | Masculine | Feminine | Feminine + Vowel Sound |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | mon chat | ma robe | mon eau |
| 2nd | ton chat | ta robe | ton eau |
| 3rd | son chat | sa robe | son eau |
Femme can mean "woman" or "wife" and fille can mean "girl" or "daughter" depending on the context. For example, when femme and fille are preceded by a possessive adjective, then they translate to "wife" and "daughter", respectively.
As you learned in "Verbs Present 1", Group 3 verbs are considered irregular, but some sparse patterns do exist among the -ir and -er verbs in this group.
| Subject | G1 parler | G2 finir | G3 dormir | G3 ouvrir | G3 vendre |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| je | parle | finis | dors | ouvre | vends |
| tu | parles | finis | dors | ouvres | vends |
| il/elle/on | parle | finit | dort | ouvre | vend |
| nous | parlons | finissons | dormons | ouvrons | vendons |
| vous | parlez | finissez | dormez | ouvrez | vendez |
| ils/elles | parlent | finissent | dorment | ouvrent | vendent |
Among the G3 -ir verbs, some conjugate like dormir, while verbs like ouvrir conjugate as though they're -er verbs. Note that singular conjugations of dormir drop the last letter of the root. Also, while some -re verbs (such as attendre, entendre, and perdre) conjugate like vendre, dozens of other conjugation patterns exist, so it's best to memorize each verb's conjugation individually.
Sentences can have grammatical objects, which are nouns that are affected by a verb. There are two types of objects: direct objects, which are nouns acted upon, and indirect objects, which are nouns that are indirectly affected by the action.
In this example, "Ben" is the subject, "the ball" is the direct object, and "him" is the indirect object. You can usually recognize indirect objects in English by looking for a preposition after a verb. Identifying objects is important, especially in French.
Verbs can be transitive, intransitive, or both. Transitive verbs can have direct objects, while intransitive verbs cannot. However, both types of verbs can have indirect objects.
Parler is an interesting example because it's intransitive for everything but language names.
French verbs can be tricky for Anglophones because some transitive verbs in French have intransitive English translations and vice versa. Pay attention to this.
Unlike dynamic verbs, which describe actions and processes, stative verbs describe states of being—physical and mental states, possession, sensations, and so on. The most common stative verb is "to be". Here are some other common examples:
The most important detail about stative verbs is that they can't be used in continuous tenses in English.
You may have noticed that some verbs can be both stative and dynamic based on context. For instance:
Pay attention to this nuance when translating into English. This problem rarely occurs when translating to French because it lacks continuous tenses.
A number of other impersonal verbs have to do with weather.
Chaud can be replaced with a number of other adjectives, like froid ("cold") or humide ("humid").
Like their English counterparts, voir ("to see") and regarder ("to watch") differ based on the subject's intention. If the subject is actively watching or looking for something, use regarder. Otherwise, use voir.
Congratulations on passing the second checkpoint!
French prepositions can be difficult because their meanings and uses don't always line up to what you would expect in English.
The most common French prepositions are de ("of"/"from") and à ("to"/"at"). These prepositions can be used in many ways. For instance, they may indicate movement or location.
Notice au above. De and à must contract with definite articles whenever they are adjacent.
| Definite Article | De | À |
|---|---|---|
| le | du | au |
| la | de la | à la |
| les | des | aux |
If the contraction is followed by a vowel sound, du and de la both become de l' and au and à la both become à l'. This change occurs for euphony only; the nouns do not change genders because of it.
De may be found in numerous fixed expressions, especially in adverbs of quantity like beaucoup de ("a lot of").
Adding de or à to the end of certain verbs can change their meanings.
Most articles can be used immediately after expressions and verbs ending in de, but they must follow contraction and elision rules.
However, no article that already contains de may follow an expression, negative term, or verb ending in de. This includes the partitives du and de la and the indefinite des. In this situation, the article is removed so that only the naked de remains.
When des appears immediately before an adjective, it changes to de. This only occurs with BANGS adjectives, which come before the noun.
Please report T&N errors here.
On is a versatile and ubiquitous French indefinite subject pronoun. Francophones usually say on to refer to "us", "them", or one or more unidentified persons. On is always masculine and third-person singular, which is why conjugation charts often list il/elle/on together.
On can also be used more formally in the passive voice or for general statements, much like the English "one".
As you learned in "Verbs: Present 2", direct objects are things that are directly acted upon by a verb. For instance, in the sentence "Ben threw the ball", the ball is the direct object. French has a set of pronouns that can be used to refer to a direct object.
| English | Direct Object |
|---|---|
| me | me |
| you (sing.) | te |
| him | le |
| her | la |
| us | nous |
| you (plur. or formal sing.) | vous |
| them | les |
Direct object pronouns usually come before their verbs.
Me/te/le/la elide, so make sure you notice them when they hide in the first syllable of a verb.
Le and les only contract when they're articles, not when they're object pronouns.
The adverbial pronoun en can be used to replace objects introduced by de. For instance, it can replace a partitive article + noun.
En may replace nouns or pronouns in verb constructions that use de, like parler de ("to talk about").
Nouns in adverbs of quantity can also be replaced with en.
Notice that en always precedes the verb, but adverbs stay in place after the verb.
The adverbial pronoun y can refer to a previously mentioned or implied place, in which case it's usually translated as "there".
In English, "there" may be omitted, but the same is not true of y in French. Je vais is not a complete sentence without y.
Relative pronouns introduce relative clauses, which are subordinate clauses that elaborate upon a previously mentioned noun (the antecedent). Use que when the relative pronoun is the direct object ("whom" in English) and use qui when it's the subject ("who" in English).
If you have trouble figuring out whether to use qui or que, try rephrasing the sentence without the relative pronoun. Use qui if the antecedent is the subject; otherwise, use que.
A reflexive pronoun like se can be used to indicate that a verb acts upon the subject. Se is used with all third-person subjects, regardless of gender and number.
When se refers to a plural subject, it can also be reciprocal or mutual ("each other").
Certain pronouns can be added to the end of the sentence to differentiate between reflexive and reciprocal uses if necessary.
Possessive pronouns replace a possessive adjective + a noun. Like most other pronouns, they agree in gender and number with the noun they replace.
For one owner, the forms of possessive pronouns follow a simple pattern:
| Person | English | Masc. Sing. | Fem. Sing. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | mine | le mien | la mienne |
| 2nd | yours | le tien | la tienne |
| 3rd | his/hers | le sien | la sienne |
For multiple owners, the articles vary with gender, but the pronouns do not:
| Person | English | Sing. Masc. | Sing. Fem. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | ours | le nôtre | la nôtre |
| 2nd | yours | le vôtre | la vôtre |
| 3rd | theirs | le leur | la leur |
The 2nd-person articles for multiple owners can be used for a single owner when speaking formally.
Notice that you must use c'est with possessive pronouns, not il est, elle est, etc.
The definite article at the beginning of a possessive pronoun can contract with à or de.
Ceci ("this") and cela ("that") are the formal versions of the indefinite demonstrative pronoun ça ("this" or "that"). These are used when pointing something out, referring to something indefinite (like an idea), or referring back to something already mentioned.
Ceci is usually only used when making a distinction between "this" and "that". Otherwise, cela is preferred in writing and ça is preferred in speech.
Remember that ce can only be used with être, including devoir être and pouvoir être.
However, cela and ceci can also be used with être for emphasis.
Cela/ceci/ça should be used with all other verbs.
Demonstrative pronouns (e.g. "this one", "that one", "these", "those") replace a demonstrative adjective + noun for the sake of avoiding repetition. Like most other pronouns, they agree in gender and number with the noun they replace.
| Type | Adj + Noun ⇒ Pronoun | English |
|---|---|---|
| Masc. Sing. | ce + noun ⇒ celui | the one / this one / that one |
| Masc. Plur. | ces + noun ⇒ ceux | the ones / these / those |
| Fem. Sing. | cette + noun ⇒ celle | the one / this one / that one |
| Fem. Plur. | ces + noun ⇒ celles | the ones / these / those |
Demonstrative pronouns refer to a very specific thing and cannot stand alone. They must be used in one of three constructions.
A relative pronoun and dependent clause can follow the demonstrative pronoun. For instance, you can use que when the relative pronoun is the direct object and use qui when it's the subject.
The preposition de can appear after the demonstrative pronoun to indicate possession.
This construction appears in "Demonstratives 3".
Demonstrative pronouns are often used in comparisons or choices between alternatives.
They can also be used within prepositional phrases.
In French, the present tense can often be used to describe something that will happen soon.
This also occurs in English, albeit less frequently.
The most common way to express a date in French is to use nous sommes or on est. This construction is idiomatic and does not directly translate to English.
Note that c'est vendredi does not mean "it is Friday" but "it is on Friday", where "c'est/it is" refers to a future event or occasion. However, c'est vendredi aujourd'hui means and translates to/from "it is Friday today".
Note that while "today" is a noun and adverb in English, aujourd'hui cannot be used as a noun to give a date, so you cannot say Aujourd'hui est mardi. However, hier, aujourd'hui, and demain can be used as nouns when jour or journée are used as well.
This construction can be used to express the month, though you must add en. Months aren't capitalized in French.
When denoting specific dates, put le and the date before the month. Also, French date abbreviations take the form DD/MM/YY.
However, for the first day of the month, you must use the word premier.
To express a relative time in the past, you can use il y a.
A few words for dates and times have both masculine and feminine forms that are used in different contexts.
| English | Masculine | Feminine |
|---|---|---|
| day | jour | journée |
| morning | matin | matinée |
| evening | soir | soirée |
| year | an | année |
Consider the meaning of the whole sentence when deciding between the two. Some pairs are more flexible than others. Jour and journée can often be interchangeable, but matin and matinée are very strictly separate.
The masculine forms are used for countable units of time and specific dates or moments. For instance:
The feminine forms are used to express or emphasize a duration or the passing of time. They're also used with most adjectives. For instance:
Deciding between forms with un depends on whether un acts as a numeral or article. If you can translate un as "one" in English, then go with the masculine.
Notice that chaque matin doesn't require an article but tous les matins does. This is because chaque, ce, and articles are all examples of determiners, which are words that give context to nouns. You will learn more about determiners in "Adjectives 3".
Verb conjugations are classified in two ways: tense and mood. Tenses reflect a time frame (e.g. present tense), while moods reflect a speaker's attitude. So far, you've mainly used the indicative mood (for facts and certainties), but it is only one of seven moods.
The infinitive mood is an impersonal mood that isn't conjugated nor associated with any subject pronoun. It can be used in a variety of constructions, either with or without prepositions.
Infinitives are often the objects of conjugated semi-auxiliary verbs such as vouloir, pouvoir, and aimer. You learned this in "Verbs: Present 1".
Infinitives can also act like nouns and can be used as subjects.
Here, note that French infinitives can often be translated as English gerunds (with an -ing ending), especially when they're subjects.
As you learned previously, some verbs must be followed by a preposition to complete their meaning (e.g. penser à). An infinitive can be used as an object when it follows such prepositions.
Since infinitives can act like nouns, they can follow être + de to describe or define a subject (as a subject complement).
The preposition pour ("for" or "in order to") can come before an infinitive to express the purpose of an action.
Keep in mind that conjugated verbs should never come after prepositions.
An infinitive can also modify a noun when used with de or à. It may take practice to decide which preposition should be used, but in general, use de whenever the infinitive has an object.
Use à when the verb in the sentence is avoir (with the translation "to have").
À can also be used to indicate the purpose of a noun.
Infinitives can be used with the construction il est + adjective + de to create impersonal expressions. Remember from "Common Phrases" that an impersonal statement is one with a dummy subject instead of a real one.
However, if the subject il is a real thing instead of just a dummy subject, then you must use à instead of de.
To further illustrate the difference, consider these two different translations of "It is fun to read." The first is a general statement, while the second is a statement about a real subject.
Faire often appears before a verb to indicate that the subject causes something to happen instead of performing it. It's often used in relation to foods.
It can also be used to indicate that the subject has directed someone else to perform an action.
Remember that occupations (along with nationalities and religions) can act as adjectives when used with être or devenir, so unlike in English, the French often drop the indefinite article (un, une, etc.) before an occupation.
However, if any specification follows the occupation, then the indefinite article must be added.
Omitting the indefinite article is optional. However, if it's included in the third-person, then you must use c'est or ce sont.
Some occupations have the same form in both masculine and feminine.
Other occupations have a feminine form that's derived from the masculine:
| Masculine | Feminine | English |
|---|---|---|
| un policier | une policière | a police officer |
| un agriculteur | une agricultrice | a farmer |
| un avocat | une avocate | a lawyer |
| un enseignant | une enseignante | a teacher |
| un serveur | une serveuse | a server |
| un cuisinier | une cuisinière | a cook |
| un coiffeur | une coiffeuse | a hairdresser |
| un boulanger | une boulangère | a baker |
A negation changes the meaning of a statement to its negative. Most French negations are constructed out of two words that surround a conjugated verb.
Note that the particle ne elides before vowel sounds.
Along with ne...pas, there are a number of other negations you can use.
Note that in negations, direct objects preceded by indefinite and partitive articles change to de.
Since être does not have direct objects, all articles may be used.
In addition to the negative adverbs above, you also have the option of starting a sentence with a negative word, which acts like a masculine subject. Both personne and rien can also be negative subject pronouns if you put ne after them.
Personne ne means "nobody".
Rien ne ("nothing") is the pronoun version of ne...rien.
The negative conjunction ni can be used to add something to a negation and is similar to the English "nor". Think of it as a negative form of et ("and"). Ni can be used instead of negative adverbs or in addition to them.
When ni coordinates multiple conjugated verbs, each verb must be preceded by ne.
When the negated verb has a pronoun object, it belongs right after ne.
When a negation is used with an inversion (to ask a question), the whole inversion must remain inside the negation.
Unconjugated verbs like infinitives must come after the negation.
Extra adverbs that modify the verb usually come after the negation. Otherwise, they follow the rules from "Adverbs 1".
In English, two negatives may make a positive, but in French, they usually don't. For instance, consider ne... jamais rien, which is "never... anything", not "never... nothing".
The particle ne is often skipped or slurred in casual speech. It's also omitted for short phrases that lack a verb.
Remember that verbs of appreciation (e.g. aimer) require the definite article in French. Negations are no different.
In "Conjunctions 1", you learned about coordinating conjunctions, which link similar elements that have equal importance in a sentence. However, in complex sentences, one clause may be dependent on another.
In this example, parce qu'il a faim ("because he is hungry") is a dependent clause because it gives more information about the independent clause il mange ("he eats"). The dependent clause is introduced by parce que, which is a subordinating conjunction. Many subordinating conjunctions end in que.
Unlike coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions can begin sentences.
Quand and lorsque both mean "when", but they aren't always interchangeable. Both can be used for temporal correlations, but lorsque cannot be used in direct or indirect questions. Only quand is also an adverb, so it can be used in questions. When in doubt, use quand.
Alors que, pendant que, and tandis que can indicate simultaneity.
Alors que and tandis que can also indicate a contrast or contradiction, though this is rare for tandis que.
Parce que, car, and puisque all mean "because" and describe some kind of cause-and-effect relationship, but they aren't completely interchangeable.
Parce que is a subordinating conjunction that provides an explanation, motive, or justification.
Car is similar to parce que, but it's a coordinating conjunction and thus cannot begin a sentence or clause.
Puisque is a subordinating conjunction that means "because" or "since" and gives an already-known or obvious reason or justification.
Usually, only one-syllable words ending in -e can be elided, but the main exceptions are elle, si, and words ending in que. However, si only elides before il and ils, so you must write s'il, but cannot write s'elle.
Verb conjugations are classified in two ways: tense and mood. Tenses reflect a time frame (e.g. present tense), while moods reflect a speaker's attitude. So far, you've mainly used the indicative mood (for facts and certainties), but it is only one of seven moods.
The infinitive mood is an impersonal mood that isn't conjugated nor associated with any subject pronoun. It can be used in a variety of constructions, either with or without prepositions.
Infinitives are often the objects of conjugated semi-auxiliary verbs such as vouloir, pouvoir, and aimer. You learned this in "Verbs: Present 1".
Infinitives can also act like nouns and can be used as subjects.
Here, note that French infinitives can often be translated as English gerunds (with an -ing ending), especially when they're subjects.
As you learned previously, some verbs must be followed by a preposition to complete their meaning (e.g. penser à). An infinitive can be used as an object when it follows such prepositions.
Since infinitives can act like nouns, they can follow être + de to describe or define a subject (as a subject complement).
The preposition pour ("for" or "in order to") can come before an infinitive to express the purpose of an action.
Keep in mind that conjugated verbs should never come after prepositions.
An infinitive can also modify a noun when used with de or à. It may take practice to decide which preposition should be used, but in general, use de whenever the infinitive has an object.
Use à when the verb in the sentence is avoir (with the translation "to have").
À can also be used to indicate the purpose of a noun.
Infinitives can be used with the construction il est + adjective + de to create impersonal expressions. Remember from "Common Phrases" that an impersonal statement is one with a dummy subject instead of a real one.
However, if the subject il is a real thing instead of just a dummy subject, then you must use à instead of de.
To further illustrate the difference, consider these two different translations of "It is fun to read." The first is a general statement, while the second is a statement about a real subject.
Faire often appears before a verb to indicate that the subject causes something to happen instead of performing it. It's often used in relation to foods.
It can also be used to indicate that the subject has directed someone else to perform an action.
So far, you have learned how to express present events using the present tense. You have also just learned about the infinitive form of a verb. We can combine these verb forms to help ease you into building more French verb tenses.
There are two special tenses in French used to indicate an action that happens very close to present time: the near future and the near past (also called "recent past"). They are formed by conjugating one of two semi-auxiliary verbs in the present tense and adding an infinitive. You will learn them both in this "Near Time" unit.
The near future tense is used for things that are going to happen very soon or in the near future. It is similar in meaning and construction with the English "going to" + infinitive.
To form the futur proche, conjugate the semi-auxiliary verb aller ("to go") in the present tense and add the infinitive form of your active verb.
As a reminder, here is the present tense conjugation of aller
| Subject | Verb |
|---|---|
| je | vais |
| tu | vas |
| il/elle/on | va |
| nous | allons |
| vous | allez |
| ils/elles | vont |
Here are some examples of the near future tense.
The recent past tense is used to describe things that have just happened.
To form the recent past, conjugate the semi-auxiliary verb venir ("to come") in the present tense, add the preposition de, and add the infinitive.
As a reminder, here is the present tense conjugation of venir
| Subject | Verb |
|---|---|
| je | viens |
| tu | viens |
| il/elle/on | vient |
| nous | venons |
| vous | venez |
| ils/elles | viennent |
Here are some examples of the recent past tense.
Note that the required preposition de must elide (contract) with the infinitive when the infinitive starts with a vowel or a mute H.
In these tenses, there is no movement meant by aller or venir. They are semi-auxiliary verbs.
Also note that the French recent past does not distinguish between the English simple past and the English present perfect. For example, "tu viens de manger" can be translated as either "you just ate" or "you have just eaten".
As you continue to see more verb forms in later units, you will be able to conjugate aller and venir into other tenses and moods. If they are used in the "near time" construction, you can then express more special situations, events, and conditions.
written by georgeoftruth (22 juin 2018), edited by sitesurf (23 juin 2018)
Choosing a preposition for time depends on the situation, but multiple choices may be appropriate.
Pendant and durant are interchangeable and mean "during" or "for". These are versatile and can be used for most expressions of duration.
Depuis ("since" or "for") can be used for things that are still happening, and it's usually followed by a start date or a duration. It's tricky because a French present tense verb with depuis often translates to an English present perfect tense verb.
En ("in") indicates the length of time an action requires for completion and can be used with any tense.
Pour ("for") is the most limited choice and is only used with aller or partir for future events.
Use à to pinpoint exactly what time of day an event begins or to give the endpoint of a time range in conjunction with de.
En can also indicate that an action took place in a particular month, season, or year. The exception is spring, which requires au.
Dans also means "in", but it gives the amount of time before an action will take place.
However, to give the amount of time needed to perform an action, en will be used.
Chez can be combined with a pronoun or noun to refer to someone's home or workplace.
Entre means "between", both literally and figuratively.
Parmi means "among" and indicates that something is part of a larger group of assorted people, animals, or things.
However, if the larger group is uniform in some specific way, entre can also mean "among".
There are some situations where both entre and parmi are acceptable.
Devant and avant both mean "before", but devant is spatial while avant is temporal.
Using the word peu ("few"/"little") can be surprisingly complicated. By itself, peu is usually an adverb that diminishes what it modifies and is generally translated using "not very/much/well".
Appending de creates an adverb of quantity that modifies nouns.
However, peu can also be a noun, especially when preceded by an article.
Expressing locations in French can be tricky because many English prepositions don't have one-to-one French translations. This is especially true for "in", which can be dans, en, or à depending on how specific the location is.
Dans means "in" for specific, known locations. It is especially appropriate when the location name has an article or possessive.
Use à and its contractions for unspecific or vague locations.
When describing a location that doesn't require a determiner (usually a type of place), use en.
For all cities (and islands), use à for "to" or "in" and de for "from".
Countries, province, states and continents have gender-based rules. For feminine ones, en means "to" or "in" and de means "from". Luckily, all continents are feminine, as are most countries ending in -e.
For masculine countries, provinces and states that start with a consonant sound, use au and du.
If they start with a vowel sound, switch back to en and de for euphony.
For countries with pluralized names (the USA, the Netherlands, the Philippines, etc.), use aux and des.
In both French and English, the present tense can often be used to express the near future (le futur proche). In French, this usage is basically equivalent to aller + infinitive.
Most French nouns and adjectives can be pluralized by adding an ending -s, like in English. Those that can't be pluralized like this normally will have plural forms that end in -x. For instance, most nouns ending in -al or -ail change to -aux.
Similarly, masculine singular adjectives ending in -al take on -aux endings in the plural. However, feminine singular adjectives ending in -ale simply add an ending -s.
Add -x to the end of most nouns that end in -au, -eau, and -eu to pluralize them.
The plural forms of -au, -eau, and -eu words are homophones of their singular forms. In general, the best way to tell if a noun is plural is to listen carefully to its article or determiner. If you hear les or des, or the possessives mes, tes, ses, nos, vos, leurs, or the demonstrative ces, it's plural. Otherwise, it's probably singular.
Compound verbs contain at least two words: a conjugated auxiliary and a participle. In this unit, we will cover the passé composé (PC), which can translate to the English present perfect.
In both languages, the compound verb begins with a conjugated auxiliary verb (avoir and "to have" here) that agrees with the subject. A past participle (e.g. vu or "seen") follows the auxiliary.
In English, the active present perfect has only one auxiliary verb ("to have"), but the PC has two: avoir and être. Most verbs use avoir.
A handful of verbs use être. The mnemonic "ADVENT" may help you remember these.
| Initial Verb | Opposite Verb | Related Verbs |
|---|---|---|
| Arriver (arrive) | partir (leave) | |
| Descendre (descend) | monter (ascend) | |
| Venir (come) | aller (go) | devenir (become), revenir (return) |
| Entrer (enter) | sortir (leave) | rentrer (re-enter) |
| Naître (be born) | mourir (die) | |
| Tomber (fall) |
The remaining verbs are passer (pass), rester (stay), retourner (return), and accourir (run up). Notice that être verbs involve movement or transformation.
Also, all pronominal verbs use être.
Object pronouns, negations, and inversions appear around the auxiliary.
A participle is a special non-conjugated form of a verb. Most participles are formed by adding an ending to a verb's root.
| Group | Ending | Example |
|---|---|---|
| -er verbs | -é | manger ⇒ mangé |
| -ir verbs | -i | choisir ⇒ choisi |
| -re verbs | -u | vendre ⇒ vendu |
Unfortunately, most irregular verbs have irregular participles. For instance, the past participle of venir is venu.
Note that participles vary with gender and number just like adjectives.
| Gender | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | venu | venus |
| Feminine | venue | venues |
Adverbs appear right before the participle.
A participle that follows avoir is usually invariable.
However, if a Direct Object appears before avoir, its participle agrees with the DO. Below, vues agrees with the plural feminine robes because les precedes the verb.
A participle that follows être agrees with the subject.
However, if a pronominal verb has no DO, then the participle is invariable. For instance, compare s'appeler (transitive) to se telephoner (no DO).
Translating the past tense can be difficult because the English simple past (preterit) overlaps the French passé composé and imparfait (taught in the previous unit). The PC can translate to the preterit when it narrates events or states that began and ended in the past. In this usage, the PC often appears with expressions of time or frequency like il y a, which means "ago" when followed by a duration.
The PC can also translate to the present perfect for actions and states that started in the past and are still true.
A pronominal verb requires a reflexive pronoun, which is a special kind of pronoun that agrees with and refers back to the subject. They're identical to direct object pronouns except for the third-person se.
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | me | nous |
| 2nd | te | vous |
| 3rd | se | se |
One type of pronominal verb, the reflexive verb, describes an action being done by the subject to the subject.
Reflexive verbs include se in their infinitive forms (e.g. se promener). It isn't necessary to include the reflexive pronoun in the English translation. Also, the reflexive verb should come after ne in negations.
The other kinds of pronominal verbs are reciprocal, passive, and subjective. You will learn these later.
When two object pronouns modify the same verb, they always appear in a predefined order: me/te/nous/vous/se > le/la/les > lui/leur > y > en.
As you learned previously, à or de can appear after a verb to introduce an infinitive or object. You should consider such a preposition to be an integral part of the verb that completes or changes its meaning.
However, recall from "Verbs: Present 1" that semi-auxiliary verbs can introduce other verbs without needing a preposition.
For verbs appended with à (like penser à), the adverbial pronoun y can replace à + a thing.
To replace à + a person or animal, use an indirect object pronoun instead.
In "Places", you learned that the present tense can be used to express the near future. Similarly, the present tense can also express the recent past in the construction venir de + infinitive, but these should be translated to the simple past or present perfect in English.
Demander à means "to ask to" when followed by an infinitive.
However, when used with nouns, demander is particularly confusing because its direct and indirect object are the opposite of its English counterpart, "to ask".
Écouter means "to listen" in the literal sense of intentionally listening or paying attention to something.
Entendre can mean "hear", "listen", or (rarely) "understand".
Manquer means "to miss", but the pronouns are flipped from its English counterpart. If it helps, you can think of manquer as "to be missed by".
Plaire à is commonly translated as "to like", but for grammatical purposes, think of it as "to please" or "to be pleasing to".
Se lever ("to get up") means to physically get up from a non-standing position, not to wake up, which is se réveiller.
French has a few past tenses, one of which is the imperfect (imparfait). You can construct it by taking the present indicative nous form of any verb and replacing the -ons with the imperfect ending. Notice that all the conjugated forms except the nous and vous forms have the same sound.
| Subject | Ending | Être | Parler | Manger |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| je (j') | -ais | étais | parlais | mangeais |
| tu | -ais | étais | parlais | mangeais |
| il/elle/on | -ait | était | parlait | mangeait |
| nous | -ions | étions | parlions | mangions |
| vous | -iez | étiez | parliez | mangiez |
| ils/elles | -aient | étaient | parlaient | mangeaient |
The only irregular imperfect verb is être, which takes on an ét- root. However, for spelling-changing verbs that end in -ger or -cer (e.g. manger), add an "e" to the root so the consonant remains soft.
Translating the past tense between English and French can be difficult because there is no simple mapping between the English past tenses and the two main French past tenses, the imparfait and the passé composé (taught in the next unit). When choosing a tense, pay close attention to what you're trying to express.
The imperfect describes situations, states of mind, and habits in the past. In a story, it sets the scene or background; thus, it often translates to and from the English past continuous tense.
For repeated actions or habits, you can also use constructions with "used to" or "would".
A lot of confusion stems from the versatile English preterit (simple past), which overlaps both French tenses. For instance, the preterit can also be used for habits.
As you learned in "Verbs: Present 2", stative verbs (e.g. "to be", "to think") usually can't be used in English continuous tenses. When used in past tenses, they should translate to the preterit.
The Imperfect conveys three things from the past:
Use the preterit here to describe mental or physical conditions, scenes, date or times, weather, etc. Remember that you should never use English continuous tenses for stative verbs. In the examples below, "looked", "smelled", and "understood" are stative verbs.
Also, when using il y a in other tenses, conjugate avoir to match. For the Imperfect, it becomes avait.
The continuous past can be used here to set up a scene by describing an action or process.
Note that when "was" and "were" are the preterit forms of "to be", but they are also auxiliary verbs for the continuous past when used before another verb.
Note that you shouldn't use the past continuous here, but as mentioned before, you may use the preterit, "used to", or "would".
Compound verbs contain at least two words: a conjugated auxiliary and a participle. In this unit, we will cover the passé composé (PC), which can translate to the English present perfect.
In both languages, the compound verb begins with a conjugated auxiliary verb (avoir and "to have" here) that agrees with the subject. A past participle (e.g. vu or "seen") follows the auxiliary.
In English, the active present perfect has only one auxiliary verb ("to have"), but the PC has two: avoir and être. Most verbs use avoir.
A handful of verbs use être. The mnemonic "ADVENT" may help you remember these.
| Initial Verb | Opposite Verb | Related Verbs |
|---|---|---|
| Arriver (arrive) | partir (leave) | |
| Descendre (descend) | monter (ascend) | |
| Venir (come) | aller (go) | devenir (become), revenir (return) |
| Entrer (enter) | sortir (leave) | rentrer (re-enter) |
| Naître (be born) | mourir (die) | |
| Tomber (fall) |
The remaining verbs are passer (pass), rester (stay), retourner (return), and accourir (run up). Notice that être verbs involve movement or transformation.
Also, all pronominal verbs use être.
Object pronouns, negations, and inversions appear around the auxiliary.
A participle is a special non-conjugated form of a verb. Most participles are formed by adding an ending to a verb's root.
| Group | Ending | Example |
|---|---|---|
| -er verbs | -é | manger ⇒ mangé |
| -ir verbs | -i | choisir ⇒ choisi |
| -re verbs | -u | vendre ⇒ vendu |
Unfortunately, most irregular verbs have irregular participles. For instance, the past participle of venir is venu.
Note that participles vary with gender and number just like adjectives.
| Gender | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | venu | venus |
| Feminine | venue | venues |
Adverbs appear right before the participle.
A participle that follows avoir is usually invariable.
However, if a Direct Object appears before avoir, its participle agrees with the DO. Below, vues agrees with the plural feminine robes because les precedes the verb.
A participle that follows être agrees with the subject.
However, if a pronominal verb has no DO, then the participle is invariable. For instance, compare s'appeler (transitive) to se telephoner (no DO).
Translating the past tense can be difficult because the English simple past (preterit) overlaps the French passé composé and imparfait (taught in the previous unit). The PC can translate to the preterit when it narrates events or states that began and ended in the past. In this usage, the PC often appears with expressions of time or frequency like il y a, which means "ago" when followed by a duration.
The PC can also translate to the present perfect for actions and states that started in the past and are still true.
Expressing locations in French can be tricky because many English prepositions don't have one-to-one French translations. This is especially true for "in", which can be dans, en, or à depending on how specific the location is.
Dans means "in" for specific, known locations. It is especially appropriate when the location name has an article or possessive.
Use à and its contractions for unspecific or vague locations.
When describing a location that doesn't require a determiner (usually a type of place), use en.
For all cities (and islands), use à for "to" or "in" and de for "from".
Countries, province, states and continents have gender-based rules. For feminine ones, en means "to" or "in" and de means "from". Luckily, all continents are feminine, as are most countries ending in -e.
For masculine countries, provinces and states that start with a consonant sound, use au and du.
If they start with a vowel sound, switch back to en and de for euphony.
For countries with pluralized names (the USA, the Netherlands, the Philippines, etc.), use aux and des.
In both French and English, the present tense can often be used to express the near future (le futur proche). In French, this usage is basically equivalent to aller + infinitive.
The imparfait and passé composé can work together in the same sentence. A verb in the imparfait may be used as a background for an action given by a verb in the passé composé.
Remember that while you shouldn't use English continuous tenses for stative verbs (such as "to be"), any French verb can take the imparfait. Thus, you may often need to translate the imparfait into the English preterit when dealing with verbs that describe background feelings or states.
Six être verbs can be used transitively with a direct object: monter, descendre, sortir, rentrer, retourner, and passer. When used transitively, they switch from être to take avoir as an auxiliary.
Notice that the transitive versions of these verbs have a different meaning than the intransitive versions.
Just like in English, past participles can be used as adjectives in French.
You learned in the first compound verb lesson that participles that follow an avoir auxiliary are invariable unless a direct object (often a pronoun) precedes the verb.
An avoir participle also agrees with any form of quel + a noun as long as the noun is the object of the compound verb.
This is also true for lequel (plus its other forms) and combien.
Participles do not agree with indirect objects, y, nor en.
In the present indicative tense, c'est can be used to identify or describe nouns. In the passé composé, être takes avoir as an auxiliary. One consequence of this is that ce actually becomes ç' because it must elide before the vowel beginnings of all forms of avoir while still retaining its original soft consonant sound.
Since this form is somewhat awkward, many Francophones prefer to use the imparfait instead.
In informal writing, you may also see the ungrammatical form Ça a été. When spoken, both "A" sounds fuse into one long vowel. Erudite Francophones may also use ce fut as a subsitute. This alternative uses the passé simple tense, one of French's literary tenses.
In French, most numbers are structurally similar to their English counterparts. They start as single words.
| Number | French |
|---|---|
| 0 | zéro |
| 1 | un |
| 2 | deux |
| 3 | trois |
| 4 | quatre |
| 5 | cinq |
| 6 | six |
| 7 | sept |
| 8 | huit |
| 9 | neuf |
| 10 | dix |
| 11 | onze |
| 12 | douze |
| 13 | treize |
| 14 | quatorze |
| 15 | quinze |
| 16 | seize |
| 17 | dix-sept |
| 18 | dix-huit |
| 19 | dix-neuf |
After seize (16), French starts combining a multiple of ten (e.g. dix) with a single digit (e.g. sept) to form a hyphenated compound number (e.g. dix-sept). English also does this starting after 20. This pattern remains in French numbers up to 60, but notice the et in the middle of 21, 31, 41, and 51.
| Number | French |
|---|---|
| 20 | vingt |
| 21 | vingt-et-un |
| 22 | vingt-deux |
| 23 | vingt-trois |
| 24 | vingt-quatre |
| 25 | vingt-cinq |
| 26 | vingt-six |
| 27 | vingt-sept |
| 28 | vingt-huit |
| 29 | vingt-neuf |
| 30 | trente |
| 31 | trente-et-un |
| ... | |
| 40 | quarante |
| 41 | quarante-et-un |
| ... | |
| 50 | cinquante |
| 51 | cinquante-et-un |
For 60 through 79, French combines soixante (60) with the numbers from 1 to 19. There is no separate word for 70.
| Number | French |
|---|---|
| 60 | soixante |
| 61 | soixante-et-un |
| 62 | soixante-deux |
| 63 | soixante-trois |
| 64 | soixante-quatre |
| 65 | soixante-cinq |
| 66 | soixante-six |
| 67 | soixante-sept |
| 68 | soixante-huit |
| 69 | soixante-neuf |
| 70 | soixante-dix |
| 71 | soixante-et-onze |
| 72 | soixante-douze |
| 73 | soixante-treize |
| 74 | soixante-quatorze |
| 75 | soixante-quinze |
| 76 | soixante-seize |
| 77 | soixante-dix-sept |
| 78 | soixante-dix-huit |
| 79 | soixante-dix-neuf |
The same thing happens from 80-99, except notice that quatre-vingts (80) has an ending -s while the rest of the set does not. Also, notice that there is no et in 81.
| Number | French |
|---|---|
| 80 | quatre-vingts |
| 81 | quatre-vingt-un |
| 82 | quatre-vingt-deux |
| 83 | quatre-vingt-trois |
| 84 | quatre-vingt-quatre |
| 85 | quatre-vingt-cinq |
| 86 | quatre-vingt-six |
| 87 | quatre-vingt-sept |
| 88 | quatre-vingt-huit |
| 89 | quatre-vingt-neuf |
| 90 | quatre-vingt-dix |
| 91 | quatre-vingt-onze |
| 92 | quatre-vingt-douze |
| 93 | quatre-vingt-treize |
| 94 | quatre-vingt-quatorze |
| 95 | quatre-vingt-quinze |
| 96 | quatre-vingt-seize |
| 97 | quatre-vingt-dix-sept |
| 98 | quatre-vingt-dix-huit |
| 99 | quatre-vingt-dix-neuf |
This pattern does not appear in Swiss and Belgian French, which instead use septante (70), huitante or octante (80), and nonante (90) with the original pattern.
From 100 to 999, put the number of hundreds first, just like in English. Notice that multiples of 100 have an ending -s, but there is no ending -s if cent is followed by another number.
| Number | French |
|---|---|
| 100 | cent |
| 108 | cent huit |
| 144 | cent quarante-quatre |
| 200 | deux cents |
| 233 | deux cent trente-trois |
Numbers in the thousands are also similar to English in structure. Note that French separates every three digits with a space or period instead of a comma and that mille is never pluralized.
| Number | French |
|---|---|
| 1 000 | mille |
| 1 597 | mille cinq cent quatre-vingt-dix-sept |
| 4 181 | quatre mille cent quatre-vingt-un |
| 317 811 | trois cent dix-sept mille huit cent onze |
Million (million) and milliard (billion) do pluralize, and they keep their ending -s even when followed by other numbers. Also, unlike cent and mille, million and milliard must be preceded by a number.
| Number | French |
|---|---|
| 1 000 000 | un million |
| 4 000 000 | quatre millions |
| 9 227 465 | neuf millions deux cent vingt-sept mille quatre cent soixante-cinq |
| 1 000 000 000 | un milliard |
A noun can usually directly follow a number, but de must appear before nouns for million and milliard.
Possessive pronouns replace a possessive adjective + a noun. Like most other pronouns, they agree in gender and number with the noun they replace. You first encountered these in "Possessives 2".
Possessive pronouns take different forms depending on how many things are possessed. First, let's take another look at the forms used when a single thing is possessed.
| Owners | Person | English | Masc. Sing. | Fem. Sing. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| singular | 1st | mine | le mien | la mienne |
| singular | 2nd | yours | le tien | la tienne |
| singular | 3rd | his/hers | le sien | la sienne |
| plural | 1st | ours | le nôtre | la nôtre |
| plural | 2nd | yours | le vôtre | la vôtre |
| plural | 3rd | theirs | le leur | la leur |
To change these to the forms used when multiple things are possessed, simply add an -s to the end of the pronoun and change the definite article to les.
| Owners | Person | English | Masc. Plur. | Fem Plur. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| singular | 1st | mine | les miens | les miennes |
| singular | 2nd | yours | les tiens | les tiennes |
| singular | 3rd | his/hers | les siens | les siennes |
| plural | 1st | ours | les nôtres | les nôtres |
| plural | 2nd | yours | les vôtres | les vôtres |
| plural | 3rd | theirs | les leurs | les leurs |
Note that the plural forms here are invariable with gender.
Possessive pronouns act like modified nouns, so you must use ce/c' when referring to them with être.
Demonstrative pronouns (e.g. "this one" or "those") replace and agree with a demonstrative adjective + noun. You learned four such pronouns in "Demonstratives 2".
| Type | Adj + Noun ⇒ Pronoun | English |
|---|---|---|
| Masc. Sing. | ce + noun ⇒ celui | the one / this one / that one |
| Masc. Plur. | ces + noun ⇒ ceux | the ones / these / those |
| Fem. Sing. | cette + noun ⇒ celle | the one / this one / that one |
| Fem. Plur. | ces + noun ⇒ celles | the ones / these / those |
Demonstratives like ce and celui are ambiguous and can mean either "this" or "that". To remove this ambiguity, you can add a suffix to the end of each pronoun. Add -ci for "this/these" and -là for "that/those".
These suffixes can also be used with demonstrative adjectives in many situations.
In conversations, be aware that using demonstrative pronouns like celui-là to refer to people who aren't present can be considered condescending.
The French past participle, which you learned in "Verbs: Compound Past", can often be used as an adjective. Conveniently, this also occurs in English, though we may sometimes use the present participle instead of the past.
The adjective neuf ("new") describes something that has just been created or manufactured. Don't confuse it with nouveau, which describes something that has just been acquired by a new owner but may already be quite old. Remember that nouveau becomes nouvel in front of vowel sounds.
While neuf (new) and neuf (9) are homonyms, you can often distinguish them based on context. For instance, neuf (9) comes before its noun, isn't accompanied by any articles, and is invariable.
A pronominal verb is always paired with a reflexive pronoun that agrees with the subject and (almost) always precedes its verb. In "Verbs: Present 3", you learned about reflexive verbs, which describe actions being done by the subject to the subject.
Pronominal verbs always take être as an auxiliary in compound tenses like the passé composé.
When a pronominal verb is inverted in a formal question, its reflexive pronoun stays before the verb.
Another type of pronominal verb, the reciprocal verb, is used with plural subject pronouns and describes when multiple people act upon each other.
Recall from "Pronouns 1" that you can distinguish between reflexive and reciprocal meanings by appending certain pronouns.
Subjective (or idiomatic) pronominal verbs have a reflexive pronoun because they are idiomatic; they do not have a reflexive or reciprocal meaning. Examples include se souvenir, se taire, se marier, and s'enfuir.
A pronominal verb can be used in a passive sense with an inanimate subject in the third-person, often the indefinite pronoun ça.
This construction may sound unusual to Anglophones, but it is a common alternative to using the passive voice when one wishes to avoid naming an agent.
Pronominal verbs have the same transitivity as their non-pronominal forms. For instance, appeler is transitive, so s'appeler is also transitive. When a pronominal verb is transitive, the reflexive pronoun is its direct object.
When a pronominal verb is intransitive, se is its indirect object.
Some verbs can have both direct and an indirect objects, in which case the reflexive pronoun is the indirect object.
When describing actions on parts of the body, Francophones avoid using possessive pronouns; instead, they use reflexive verbs with definite articles whenever possible.
Notice that the past participles of the previous two examples do not agree with the reflexive pronoun. While pronominal verbs take être as an auxiliary, they behave like avoir verbs because their participles actually only agree with preceding direct objects. In those examples and the next two, the reflexive pronouns are indirect objects and the direct objects follow the verb, so the participles are still invariable.
In the next examples, the participles agree with preceding direct objects.
As you learned in "Verbs: Infinitive 1", verbs in the infinitive mood are not conjugated and are not paired with a subject pronoun. The infinitive is more versatile in French than in English. For instance, an infinitive can act as a noun (where gerunds might be used in English).
In French, the infinitive is also used for generalized instructions like those in product manuals, public notices, recipes, and proverbs.
Conjugated verbs are the only verbs that can appear inside a negation, so when a negation is used with an infinitive, both parts of the negation come before the infinitive.
An infinitive can also be used to pose a question. These sentences may not translate literally to English.
Recall that the subject in the impersonal construction il est + adjective + de must be a dummy subject. If it's a real subject, you must use à instead of de.
Communication in French can occur at several different levels of formality, which are called registers. Different registers may vary in word choice, sentence structure, and even pronunciation. For instance, the use of liaisons is relatively formal. By comparison, English verbal formality is arguably less intricate.
The most obvious indication of register is pronoun choice. As you know by now, addressing someone with the pronoun vous is considered more formal. This is described by the French verb vouvoyer.
The more familiar tu form should be used with friends, peers, relatives, or children. If you're not sure who's a vous and who's a tu, consider matching the register of your interlocutor. Alternatively, you can directly ask if you can speak informally by using the verb tutoyer.
Question structure is another key ingredient of register. Inversions are considered formal.
Use the conditional forms of aimer and vouloir for polite requests. More on this in the "Verbs: Conditional" unit.
In "Verbs: Present 1", you learned about the causative faire, which can indicate that the subject has directed someone to perform an action. Notice that faire is followed by an infinitive here.
The verb rendre ("to make") can also indicate that the subject has caused something to happen, but it's used with adjectives instead of verbs.
There are many different ways to express need or obligation in French, but there is no single expression that works in all situations. In "Verbs: Present 1", you learned the essential semi-auxiliary verb devoir, which means "must", "have to", or "need to" when placed before another verb.
Remember that the impersonal expression il faut + infinitive can also express a need or obligation.
You can also use the impersonal construction from the last unit, il est + adj + de.
Another way to express obligation is avoir à, though this is rarely used by French speakers because it tends to create vowel conflicts.
What about when you want to say that you need something (instead of having to do something)? One way you learned previously is to use il faut with a noun instead of a verb.
A more common expression for need is avoir besoin de quelque chose. While this literally translates as "to have need of something", a better translation is "to need something".
You can also use this expression with verbs.
Notice that besoin is invariable in this expression, but the noun besoin ("need") is just a standard masculine noun that does have a plural form.
Consider the difference between "I don't have to" and "I must not". The former expresses a lack of obligation, while the latter expresses an obligation to avoid an action. In French, to express a lack of obligation, use a negation with avoir besoin de or avoir à.
To express "must not" in French, use a negation with devoir or il faut.
In a compound tense like the passé composé, adverbs normally come between the auxiliary verb and its participle.
Also, in expressions of quantity not all adverbs are paired with "de".
Be careful about the faux amis that appear in this unit. Many of them look like English adverbs with a different ending, but they may have an entirely different meaning.
The French adverb actuellement means "currently" or "at the moment", not "actually".
To translate "actually", use en fait ("in fact") or en réalité ("in reality"). This conveys the notion that the rest of the sentence should be surprising to the listener.
Alternatively, effectivement or réellement can translate as "actually", but these are more confirmatory than contradictory in tone.
Effectivement is also misleading because it means "really" or "indeed". To say "effectively" or "efficiently", use efficacement.
There is a difference between the adverbs "definitively" and "definitely". Most commonly, "definitively" describes a conclusive ending or final resolution. The French adverb définitivement also carries this meaning.
"Definitively" and définitivement can also describe an authoritative action.
Conversely, "definitely" is used for conditions that are true beyond a doubt. For this, use certainement or a close synonym, like absolument or sûrement.
A pronominal verb is always paired with a reflexive pronoun that agrees with the subject and (almost) always precedes its verb. In "Verbs: Present 3", you learned about reflexive verbs, which describe actions being done by the subject to the subject.
Pronominal verbs always take être as an auxiliary in compound tenses like the passé composé.
When a pronominal verb is inverted in a formal question, its reflexive pronoun stays before the verb.
Another type of pronominal verb, the reciprocal verb, is used with plural subject pronouns and describes when multiple people act upon each other.
Recall from "Pronouns 1" that you can distinguish between reflexive and reciprocal meanings by appending certain pronouns.
Subjective (or idiomatic) pronominal verbs have a reflexive pronoun because they are idiomatic; they do not have a reflexive or reciprocal meaning. Examples include se souvenir, se taire, se marier, and s'enfuir.
A pronominal verb can be used in a passive sense with an inanimate subject in the third-person, often the indefinite pronoun ça.
This construction may sound unusual to Anglophones, but it is a common alternative to using the passive voice when one wishes to avoid naming an agent.
Pronominal verbs have the same transitivity as their non-pronominal forms. For instance, appeler is transitive, so s'appeler is also transitive. When a pronominal verb is transitive, the reflexive pronoun is its direct object.
When a pronominal verb is intransitive, se is its indirect object.
Some verbs can have both direct and an indirect objects, in which case the reflexive pronoun is the indirect object.
When describing actions on parts of the body, Francophones avoid using possessive pronouns; instead, they use reflexive verbs with definite articles whenever possible.
Notice that the past participles of the previous two examples do not agree with the reflexive pronoun. While pronominal verbs take être as an auxiliary, they behave like avoir verbs because their participles actually only agree with preceding direct objects. In those examples and the next two, the reflexive pronouns are indirect objects and the direct objects follow the verb, so the participles are still invariable.
In the next examples, the participles agree with preceding direct objects.
As you learned before, an infinitive can act as a noun (where gerunds might be used in English).
When you use the impersonal construction il est + adjective + de, keep in mind that il must be a dummy subject. If it's a real subject, you must use à instead of de.
In informal usage, c'est can replace the impersonal il est.
Recall from "Verbs: Infinitive 1" that faire may precede a verb to indicate that the subject causes that action to happen. This is especially common when describing food preparation.
Faire can also be used to indicate that the subject has caused someone else to perform an action.
As you learned in "Verbs: Compound Past", the passé composé is formed with an auxiliary verb (e.g. avoir) and a past participle (e.g. terminé).
Normally, auxiliaries should be conjugated to agree with their subjects. However, if an auxiliary is part of a double-verb construction with a semi-auxiliary (e.g. sembler), the auxiliary verb will be an infinitive.
However, past participles can sometimes also act as adjectives in both French and English.
Keep this in mind for the next unit, where you will learn the passive voice.
Remember from "Verbs: Present 3" that manquer means "to miss", but with flipped pronoun positions as compared to English. If it helps, you can think of manquer as "to be missed by".
As you learned in the "Pronominal Verbs" unit, Francophones avoid using possessive pronouns with parts of the body. Whenever a specific person who has the body part has already been mentioned, the definite article is used instead of a possessive adjective and the verb of the sentence becomes reflexive.
The most common grammatical voice is the active voice, which describes a clause whose subject is also the agent of the verb in the clause. For instance, when "Hugo throws a ball", Hugo is both the subject of the clause and the agent that performs the verb.
On the other hand, the passive voice describes any clause where the subject is not the agent of the verb in the clause. For instance, when "The ball is thrown by Hugo", the subject ("the ball") is actually the direct object of the verb. The passive voice in both English and French is constructed using the copula "to be" and the past participle of the action verb. The past participle must agree with the subject here.
Notice that the agent of a verb in the passive voice can be introduced by the preposition par ("by"). However, you can also use de with verbs expressing emotions or feelings, like aimer or respecter.
The passive voice is useful for emphasizing a verb's object or avoiding naming a verb's agent.
However, Francophones often avoid the passive voice by using the imprecise pronoun on in the active voice.
Remember that when multiple verbs are combined in a single construct, only the first verb can be conjugated; any following verbs must be infinitives or participles. When using the passive voice in the passé composé (or another compound tense), être takes avoir as an auxiliary. Thus, avoir must be conjugated, followed by être and the action verb in past participle form.
Note that the past participle of the action verb still must agree with the subject (as usual for être verbs).
Note that être is intransitive and cannot have a direct object, so its past participle été is always invariable.
You have already seen the past participle, which is used in compound tenses, in the passé composé units. The other type of participle in French is the present participle (participe présent), which is formed by taking the present indicative nous form of a verb and switching the -ons ending to -ant.
| Nous Form | Translation | Present Participle | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| faisons | (we) do/make | faisant | doing/making |
| disons | (we) say | disant | saying |
| agissons | (we) act | agissant | acting |
| voyons | (we) see | voyant | seeing |
The verbs être, avoir, and savoir have irregular present participles: étant, ayant, and sachant, respectively.
Although English also has present participles, they're used differently and more often than their French counterparts, so it would be wise to avoid trying to make comparisons between the two languages here. In particular, the French present participle cannot be used after another verb, including the auxiliary être.
The French present participle can be used as an adjective; a noun; a verb; or a gerund (when combined with the preposition en).
Present participles can be used as adjectives that agree with the noun they describe.
Many nouns are derived from the present participle of a verb.
Present participles are invariable when used as verbs. When used as a simple verb, the present participle expresses a state or action that is simultaneous with and performed by the same subject as the main verb.
Past participles and present participles can be combined in two ways: the perfect participle and the passive voice.
The perfect participle indicates that one action was completed before another. In this compound tense, a past participle follows the present participle of its usual auxiliary—étant for être verbs and ayant for avoir verbs. This is basically a present participle version of the passé composé.
Remember that all compound tenses (including the perfect participle and the passé composé) follow the same agreement rules. Refer to the "Compound Past" lessons for more information.
When used in the passive voice, the past participle always follows a form of the passive marker être. In the present tense, this form will be étant.
In the past tense, être usually takes its perfect participle form, which is ayant été.
Adding en before a present participle creates a gerund (gérondif) that can describe how one action is related to another. They might be related by time, condition, manner, or cause.
Whenever an expression of measurement is used with the verb être, the preposition de must follow it.
Unlike the English subjunctive, the French subjunctive mood is common and required, in writing and in speech, even in informal conversations.
Je suis désolé qu'il soit ici. — I am sorry that he is here.
Je regrette qu'il soit ici. — I regret that he is here. (Subject differs => Subjunctive)
Je déteste être ici. — I hate being here. (Subject is the same => Infinitive)
Usually, the subordinate clause is introduced by the conjunction que, or other conjunctions, like avant que, bien que, afin que, pour que, quoique.
Some impersonal expressions automatically prompt a subjunctive, the most common being il faut que. Others include : il est bon que, c’est bien que, il est nécessaire que, il est important que.
Some verbs that are usually constructed with the indicative switch to the subjunctive when they are in the negative, like penser and croire.
Some relative clauses can be found in subjunctive, when the main clause has such expressions as le seul qui/que, le premier qui/que, le dernier qui/que.
The French subjunctive has 4 tenses : present, imperfect, past and pluperfect. There is no future tense and among the 3 past tenses, only the subjunctive past is commonly used.
The subjunctive present endings are the same for all verbs:
| Pronoun | Ending |
|---|---|
| Je | -e |
| Tu | -es |
| Il/Elle | -e |
| Nous | -ions |
| Vous | -iez |
| Ils/Elles | -ent |
In most cases, the subjunctive is formed by removing the –ent ending from the ils/elles indicative present form, and then adding the subjunctive endings.
-er verbs:
For je, tu, il, elle, on, ils, elles, the subjunctive present form and pronunciation are identical to those of the indicative present :
manger — stem = mang-ent
| Subject | Verb |
|---|---|
| que je | mange |
| que tu | manges |
| qu’il/elle/on | mange |
| qu’ils/elles | mangent |
For nous, vous, the subjunctive present form and pronunciation are similar to those of the indicative imperfect :
| Subject | Verb |
|---|---|
| que nous | mangions |
| que vous | mangiez |
-ir and –re verbs:
For je, tu, il, elle, on, the subjunctive present is different from the indicative present, because the stem is different. Yet the pronunciation is the same as that of the ils/elles indicative present.
finir — stem = finiss-ent
| Subject | Verb |
|---|---|
| que je | finisse |
| que tu | finisses |
| qu’il/elle/on | finisse |
| qu’ils/elles | finissent |
dormir — stem = dorm-ent
| Subject | Verb |
|---|---|
| que je | dorme |
| que tu | dormes |
| qu’il/elle/on | dorme |
| qu’ils/elles | dorment |
comprendre — stem = comprenn-ent
| Subject | Verb |
|---|---|
| que je | comprenne |
| que tu | comprennes |
| qu’il/elle/on | comprenne |
| qu’ils/elles | comprennent |
For nous, vous, the subjunctive present form and pronunciation are similar to those of the indicative imperfect :
finir — stem = finiss-ent
| Subject | Verb |
|---|---|
| que nous | finissions |
| que vous | finissiez |
dormir — stem = dorm-ent
| Subject | Verb |
|---|---|
| que nous | dormions |
| que vous | dormiez |
comprendre — stem = comprenn-ent
| Subject | Verb |
|---|---|
| que nous | comprenions |
| que vous | compreniez |
Other common and irregular verbs:
| Subject | Être | Avoir | Aller |
|---|---|---|---|
| que je/j' | sois | aie | aille |
| que tu | sois | aies | ailles |
| qu’il/elle/on | soit | ait | aille |
| que nous | soyons | ayons | allions |
| que vous | soyez | ayez | alliez |
| qu’ils/elles | soient | aient | aillent |
| Subject | Pouvoir | Vouloir | Savoir | Faire |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| que je | puisse | veuille | sache | fasse |
| que tu | puisses | veuilles | saches | fasses |
| qu’il/elle/on | puisse | veuille | sache | fasse |
| que nous | puissions | voulions | sachions | fassions |
| que vous | puissiez | vouliez | sachiez | fassiez |
| qu’ils/elles | puissent | veuillent | sachent | fassent |
The imperative (l'impératif) mood is used to give orders or to make a suggestion or a request.
To form the imperative, simply take the present tense forms of tu, nous, or vous. See the chart below. For -er verbs, the -s is dropped for the tu form.
Note that according to French typographic rules, an extra space is required before the exclamation mark at the end of a sentence in the imperative.
| Regarder | Choisir | Attendre | Boire | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (tu) | Regarde ! | Choisis ! | Attends ! | Bois ! |
| (nous) | Regardons ! | Choisissons ! | Attendons ! | Buvons ! |
| (vous) | Regardez ! | Choisissez ! | Attendez ! | Buvez ! |
Note that the nous form of the imperative corresponds to the command in English "let's" + verb.
In affirmative commands, object pronouns are placed after the verb and connected with a hyphen.
Note that the indirect or direct object me is changed to its stressed pronoun form when inverted in the imperative.
You will need back the -s in the tu form of -er verbs if the verb is followed by the pronoun en or y. The -s creates a Z-sound liaison and avoids the vowel sound conflict.
There are some commonly used irregular forms of the imperative, namely the imperative forms for être, avoir, savoir, and vouloir.
| Être | Avoir | Savoir | Vouloir | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (tu) | Sois ! | Aie ! | Sache ! | Veuille ! |
| (nous) | Soyons ! | Ayons ! | Sachons ! | Veuillons ! |
| (vous) | Soyez ! | Ayez ! | Sachez ! | Veuillez ! |
The imperative form veuillez, which comes from vouloir, is very polite and formal. This is translated in English with the word "please." Veuillez is common in official letters, public signage, and correspondence, for example.
In the negative form, the negation elements ne and pas are placed around the verb. Object pronouns are placed before the verb.
For pronominal verbs, the pronouns are placed after the verb. The reflexive pronoun "te" takes the stressed pronoun form "toi" in this case. However, in the negative imperative, the reflexive pronoun is placed before the verb, and the "te" remains as "te." Observe how the imperative of se lever is formed below.
Note that for the formal singular or plural "vous", just like for "nous", the subject, object, reflexive and stressed pronoun forms are the same.
Here is another example: the nous form of s'arrêter.
written by georgeoftruth (11 avr 2018)- Rev Sitesurf 12 avr & 15 June 2018
Grammar skills use only
From the Tips and Notes in Subj. Pres, you have already learned that :
Unlike the English subjunctive, the French subjunctive is common and required, in writing and in speech, even in informal conversations.
A subjunctive is required if the main clause has verbs of likes/dislikes, fear, wish, doubt, regret, order, obligation or necessity.
In most cases, the subject in the subordinate clause is different from that in the main clause (otherwise you will use an infinitive).
Usually, the subordinate clause is introduced by the conjunction que, or other conjunctions, like avant que, bien que, afin que, pour que, quoique. (Yet après que needs an indicative.)
Some impersonal expressions automatically prompt a subjunctive, like: il faut que, il est bon que, c’est bien que, il est nécessaire que, il est important que.
Some verbs that are usually constructed with the indicative switch to the subjunctive when they are in the negative, like penser and croire.
Some relative clauses can be found in subjunctive, when the main clause has such expressions as le seul qui/que, le premier qui/que, le dernier qui/que.
The French subjunctive has 4 tenses : Present, Imperfect, Past and Pluperfect. There is no future tense and of the 3 past tenses, only the Subjunctive Past is commonly used.
The Subjunctive Past is a compound tense and as such, the verb uses the same auxiliary être or avoir as in the indicative mood, and the same rules of agreement are applied in the past participle (Re. Tips and Notes in V Compound Past & V Compound Past 2).
To form a subjunctive past, the auxiliary is conjugated in subjunctive present, and the past participle of the verb is added.
Avoir verb:
| Subject | Verb |
|---|---|
| que j’ | aie mangé |
| que tu | aies mangé |
| qu’il/elle | ait mangé |
| que nous | ayons mangé |
| que vous | ayez mangé |
| qu’ils | aient mangé |
Être verb:
| Subject | Verb |
|---|---|
| que je | sois allé(e) |
| que tu | sois allé(e) |
| qu’il | soit allé |
| qu’elle | soit allée |
| que nous | soyons allé(e)s |
| que vous | soyez allé(e)s |
| qu’ils | soient allés |
| qu’elles | soient allées |
Since there is no Subjunctive Future and the Subjunctive Imperfect and Pluperfect are no longer used in contemporary French, you will have to use :
To pick the suitable subjunctive tense in the subordinate clause, you will compare the subordinate clause’s time of event with that of the main clause.
Let's compare with the indicative:
| Time in main to time in subordinate | Indicative | Subjunctive: [TENSE vs MEANING] |
|---|---|---|
| Present to future | Je crois que tu viendras. - I think that you will come. | J'attends que tu viennes. [PRESENT with a FUTURE meaning] - I am waiting for you to come. |
| Present to present | J’espère que tu vas bien. - I hope that you are doing well. | Je doute que tu ailles bien. [PRESENT with a PRESENT meaning] - I doubt that you are doing well. |
| Past to simultaneous past | Je croyais qu'il faisait froid. - I believed that the weather was cold. | Je ne croyais pas qu'il fasse froid . [PRESENT with a SIMULTANEOUS PAST meaning] - I did not believe that the weather was cold. |
| Past to earlier past | Je pensais que tu avais mangé assez. - I thought that you had eaten enough. | Je doutais que tu aies mangé assez. [PAST with an EARLIER PAST meaning] - I doubted that you had eaten enough. |
Unlike English adjectives, French adjectives must agree in number and gender with the nouns that they modify. A black dog is un chien noir, but a black dress is une robe noire. Also, remember that some adjectives have the same masculine and feminine form, especially those ending in a silent -e (e.g. riche).
When used with pronouns, adjectives agree with the noun that has been replaced. This is particularly tricky with the formal vous: to a singular man, you would say vous êtes beau, but to plural women, you would say vous êtes belles.
In French, most adjectives appear after the nouns they modify. For instance, le chat noir. However, some adjectives precede the noun. You can remember these types of nouns using the mnemonic BANGS.
All determiner adjectives (e.g. possessives, interrogatives, and demonstratives) appear before the noun, e.g. mon livre ("my book") and ce cochon ("that pig"). You will learn these later.
A few adjectives can come both before and after the noun depending on their meaning. The most common example is grand, which is a BANGS adjective for everything but people. For people, it comes before a noun when it means "important" and after the noun when it means "tall". For instance, Napoleon was un grand homme ("a great man"), but not un homme grand ("a tall man").
Usually, figurative meanings will precede the noun, while literal meanings will follow the noun.
As you have already learned, elisions, contractions, liaisons, and enchaînements are all designed to prevent consecutive vowel sounds (which is called hiatus). This quest for harmonious sounds is called euphony and is an essential feature of French. It has, however, created some unexpected rules.
For instance, the masculine beau ("beautiful") changes to bel if its noun begins with a vowel sound. A beautiful man is un bel homme. The other two common changes are vieux to vieil ("old") and nouveau to nouvel ("new").
Note that this doesn't occur to feminine adjectives because they usually end in silent vowels.
Pres Tense 1
When multiple adjectives modify a noun, they should come before or after the noun based on the same rules as if they were the only adjective. This means that adjectives may straddle the noun if one is a BANGS adjective.
When arranging multiple adjectives on the same side, concrete adjectives should usually be placed closer to the noun than abstract ones.
You can add conjunctions and adverbs to break up multiple adjectives.
When there are multiple nouns being described by one adjective, that adjective takes the masculine plural by default.
However, if the nouns are all feminine, then they can take the feminine plural.
Grand and gros can both mean "big", but they're only partly interchangeable.
Grand tends to be used for:
Gros tends to be used for:
Many English and French words look alike and share meanings. This is because English is heavily influenced by French and Latin. However, there are faux amis ("false friends") that look similar but do not have the same meaning. For instance, gros looks like "gross", but their meanings are not the same. Be careful before assuming a French word's meaning based on its English lookalike.
French nouns for persons of a certain nationality are capitalized, but in French, national adjectives and language names are not capitalized.
Remember that nouns for nationalities (and also professions and religions) can appear after être without a determiner. In this usage, they are adjectives and are not capitalized.
Because French lacks continuous tenses, most French verbs can translate to either simple or continuous tenses in English (and vice versa).
However, as you learned in "Verbs: Present 2", English stative verbs cannot be used in continuous tenses. You can only use them in simple tenses.
Generally, if a verb refers to a process, it's a dynamic verb; if it refers to a state or condition, it's a stative verb. The most common stative verb is "to be", but here are some other common examples:
However, some verbs can be either stative or active depending on context. For instance:
This restriction on using stative verbs in English continuous tenses will be particularly important in the next few units.
As you may have noticed, a lot of English vocabulary (vocabulaire) comes from French. This has created many etymological patterns that you can use to your advantage when learning new words. Consider the following suffix patterns:
Unlike English, French does not have noun adjuncts, which are nouns that modify other nouns. Instead, you must use de or another preposition to make one noun modify another.
Between 0 and 20, most French numbers are constructed similarly to English numbers. The main difference is that French starts using hyphenated compound numbers, at dix-sept (17), while English continues with single-word numbers until 21.
| Number | French |
|---|---|
| 0 | zéro |
| 1 | un |
| 2 | deux |
| 3 | trois |
| 4 | quatre |
| 5 | cinq |
| 6 | six |
| 7 | sept |
| 8 | huit |
| 9 | neuf |
| 10 | dix |
| 11 | onze |
| 12 | douze |
| 13 | treize |
| 14 | quatorze |
| 15 | quinze |
| 16 | seize |
| 17 | dix-sept |
| 18 | dix-huit |
| 19 | dix-neuf |
| 20 | vingt |
The word un (or une in feminine) can be used in a number of ways:
Also, keep in mind that liaisons are forbidden before and after et.
As you learned in "Basics 1", French has two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine. All nouns have a gender, and most nouns have a fixed gender. For instance, la pomme is always feminine and un bébé ("a baby") is always masculine, even for baby girls.
However, some nouns can have multiple genders depending on the situation, and many masculine nouns can be changed to a feminine form simply by adding an -e to the end. Your male friend is un ami and your female friend is une amie. Some nouns, like l'élève ("the student"), have the same spelling and meaning for both gender forms.
Other nouns may have the same spelling, but different genders and meanings. For instance, un tour (masculine) is a tour, while une tour (feminine) is a tower.
One of the most difficult aspects of learning French is memorizing noun genders. However, by spending some time now memorizing the following patterns, you may be able to guess most nouns' genders and save yourself a lot of trouble in the future.
Some genders depend on a noun's classification. For instance, languages, days of the week, months, seasons, metals, colors, and measurements are mostly masculine.
Otherwise, memorizing word endings is the best way to guess genders. We'll learn these ending patterns in four steps:
First: Nouns ending in -e tend to be feminine. All others, especially nouns ending in consonants, tend to be masculine. This is true for over 70% of all nouns.
Second: Nouns that have the endings -ion and -son tend to be feminine, even though they end in consonants.
Third: Nouns with these endings are usually masculine, although they end in -e:
Fourth: Watch out for these complications:
That's it! Memorize these, and you'll be able to guess most noun genders.
In French, female animal nouns are generally formed as follows by taking the last consonant, doubling it, and adding a mute -e to the end.
Of course, there are many exceptions. For example:
Post comments, questions, and note errors here.
You learned in "Basics 1" that almost all nouns must be preceded by an article. This isn't entirely accurate. Rather, almost all nouns must be preceded by a determiner, which is a word that puts a noun in context. As of this unit, you will have encountered every type of determiner.
There are very few exceptions to the rule that nouns must have a determiner. A few are verb-based. For instance: names of professions, religions and a few nouns expressing a status with être; names of languages with parler; and most nouns with devenir.
Determiners are also omitted after some prepositions.
Recall that French does not have noun adjuncts, which are nouns that qualify other nouns. Instead, use de between two nouns to qualify the first one.
Indefinite adjectives like plusieurs, certains, quelques, and chaque references nouns in a non-specific sense, akin to the way indefinite articles reference nouns.
In "Adverbs 1", you learned that you can use plus as a comparative and le/la/les plus as a superlative.
Bon ("good"), bien ("well"), and mauvais ("bad") also have comparative and superlative forms, but they're irregular, just like their English counterparts.
To say "better" when referring to a noun, you can't just say plus bon. Instead, use meilleur, which is a BANGS adjective with four inflections.
| Gender | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | meilleur | meilleurs |
| Feminine | meilleure | meilleures |
For the superlative, just add a definite article before the adjective that agrees with it.
When "better" modifies an action or state of being, you must use mieux.
Add a definite article to create a superlative.
Unlike bon and bien, comparative and superlative forms of mauvais can either be regular (with plus) or irregular (with pire).
On is a versatile and ubiquitous French indefinite subject pronoun. Francophones usually say on to refer to "us", "them", or one or more unidentified persons. On is always masculine and third-person singular, which is why conjugation charts often list il/elle/on together.
On can also be used more formally in the passive voice or for general statements, much like the English "one".
As you learned in "Verbs: Present 2", direct objects are things that are directly acted upon by a verb. For instance, in the sentence "Ben threw the ball", the ball is the direct object. French has a set of pronouns that can be used to refer to a direct object.
| English | Direct Object |
|---|---|
| me | me |
| you (sing.) | te |
| him | le |
| her | la |
| us | nous |
| you (plur. or formal sing.) | vous |
| them | les |
Direct object pronouns usually come before their verbs.
Me/te/le/la elide, so make sure you notice them when they hide in the first syllable of a verb.
Le and les only contract when they're articles, not when they're object pronouns.
The adverbial pronoun en can be used to replace objects introduced by de. For instance, it can replace a partitive article + noun.
En may replace nouns or pronouns in verb constructions that use de, like parler de ("to talk about").
Nouns in adverbs of quantity can also be replaced with en.
Notice that en always precedes the verb, but adverbs stay in place after the verb.
The adverbial pronoun y can refer to a previously mentioned or implied place, in which case it's usually translated as "there".
In English, "there" may be omitted, but the same is not true of y in French. Je vais is not a complete sentence without y.
Relative pronouns introduce relative clauses, which are subordinate clauses that elaborate upon a previously mentioned noun (the antecedent). Use que when the relative pronoun is the direct object ("whom" in English) and use qui when it's the subject ("who" in English).
If you have trouble figuring out whether to use qui or que, try rephrasing the sentence without the relative pronoun. Use qui if the antecedent is the subject; otherwise, use que.
A reflexive pronoun like se can be used to indicate that a verb acts upon the subject. Se is used with all third-person subjects, regardless of gender and number.
When se refers to a plural subject, it can also be reciprocal or mutual ("each other").
Certain pronouns can be added to the end of the sentence to differentiate between reflexive and reciprocal uses if necessary.
Adverbs are invariable words that can modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, and more.
If an adverb modifies a verb, it usually follows right after it.
An adverb comes before an adjective or other adverb that it modifies.
A long adverb that modifies a phrase can usually be relegated to the beginning or end of a sentence.
Imprecise quantities are expressed using adverbs of quantity, which are usually followed by the preposition de.
Recall that du, de la, and des cannot be used after expressions ending in de, such as adverbs of quantity. Thus, des does not appear before chiens and de la does not appear before bière. However, other articles can follow adverbs of quantity when the noun is specific.
The adverbs plus ("more") and moins ("less") can be used with the conjunction que in comparisons.
To express equivalence, use aussi...que ("as...as").
Adding a definite article before plus or moins creates a superlative. The definite article agrees with the noun being modified.
If the adjective should follow the noun, then the definite article must be repeated.
In French, we have to deal with the good (bon and bien), the bad (mauvais and mal), and the ugly (trying to decide which to use). Luckily, in most cases, bon and mauvais are adjectives while bien and mal are adverbs.
There are also a number of fixed expressions or special usages for bien. You are familiar with some of these from "Common Phrases".
Also, remember that aimer normally means "to love" when directed at people and animals, but adding bien reduces its meaning to "to like".
In English, many adverbs are constructed from adjectives by adding "-ly" to the end. For instance, "quick" becomes "quickly". In French, add -ment to feminine adjectives to create adverbs.
However, if the masculine form of an adjective ends in -nt, do not use the feminine form to construct the adverb, but replace the masculine ending with -mment.
In negative clauses, adverbs that would otherwise follow the verb usually appear after the negation.
As you learned in "Verbs: Reflexive", Francophones avoid using possessive pronouns with parts of the body. Whenever a specific person who has the body part has already been mentioned, the definite article is used instead of a possessive adjective and the verb of the sentence becomes reflexive.
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French has three sets of personal object pronouns: direct object pronouns (from "Pronouns 1"), indirect object pronouns, and disjunctive pronouns.
| English | Direct Object | Indirect Object | Disjunctive |
|---|---|---|---|
| me | me | me | moi |
| you (sing.) | te | te | toi |
| him | le | lui | lui |
| her | la | lui | elle |
| us | nous | nous | nous |
| you (plur.) | vous | vous | vous |
| them (masc.) | les | leur | eux |
| them (fem.) | les | leur | elles |
Notice that only the third-person pronouns differ between direct and indirect objects.
As you learned in "Verbs: Present 2", indirect objects are nouns that are indirectly affected by a verb; they are usually introduced by a preposition.
A personal indirect object pronoun can replace à + indirect object. For instance, the first two examples above could be changed to the following:
Also, il faut can take an indirect object pronoun to specify where the burden falls.
Disjunctive pronouns (a.k.a. stressed or tonic pronouns) must be used in certain situations. For instance, only disjunctive pronouns can follow prepositions.
Note that lui can be masculine or feminine when it's an indirect object, but it can only be masculine when it's disjunctive.
The construction être + à + disjunctive pronoun indicates possession.
However, using à + pronoun is incorrect when a verb can accept a preceding pronoun.
Disjunctive pronouns are also used for emphasis, for multiple subjects, or in sentence fragments without a verb.
For most verbs, personal indirect object pronouns like lui can only refer to people or animals, but you can use the adverbial pronoun y for inanimate things.
Some verbs allow personal pronouns like lui to be used with anything you can personify. These verbs are dire à, demander à, donner à, parler à, téléphoner à, and ressembler à.
Some French expressions don't allow any preceding indirect objects, notably être à, faire attention à, s’habituer à, penser à, revenir à, and tenir à.
Remember that y can also refer to locations.
The indefinite adjective quelque ("some") can be combined with pronouns or nouns to create indefinite pronouns. For instance, chose means "thing", so quelque chose means "something".
Quelque can combine and elide with un ("one") to give quelqu'un ("someone"), which is singular.
For multiple people or things, use the plural forms quelques-uns (masc) and quelques-unes (fem), which are normally translated as "a few", or perhaps "some".
While quelqu'un only refers to people, quelques-un(e)s can refer to anything.
Tu is not pronounced like the English "too". The French [u] (or German [ü]) is a sound that isn't found in English. A tip to learn this sound is to shape your mouth like you're about to say the "oo" (in "too"), but say "ee" (in "tee") instead. Practice this until it feels natural.
Duo isn't perfect, and you'll sometimes encounter incorrect translations or missing answers. When you do, please report these using the "Report a problem button". The best way to ensure that it gets fixed is to suggest an alternative translation or mark the given answer as awkward. Course editors often don't see comments in discussions.
French word endings tend to be particularly difficult for beginners, largely because ending consonants are usually silent, but they do affect preceding vowel sounds.
| Ending | Homophones | Example | English Approximation | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -er | -é, -ée, -ées | parler | cliché | [e] |
| -et | -ets, -è, -ê | poulet | pou-LAY | [ε] |
| -it | -its, -i, -ie, -ies, -is, -iz | lit | LEE | [i] |
| -at | -ats, -as, -a | chat | SHAH | [ɑ] |
The consonants C, R, F, and L are usually pronounced (you can use the mnemonic "CaReFuL"), with these main exceptions:
When a consonant is followed by a mute -e, then the consonant should be pronounced. This is a way of distinguishing masculine and feminine forms verbally. Any unaccented -e at the end of a word is always mute except in a single-syllable word like le, which sounds somewhat like "luh".
The letter E often becomes mute in the middle of a word, especially if it would add a syllable. For instance, most Francophones pronounce appeler ("to call") as "app-LAY", not "app-pe-LAY".