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THE FRENCH LANGUAGE
& FRENCH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES
Use this button to access information about
France, French-speaking countries, their peoples, history, culture, etc.
THE BASICS OF GRAMMAR
SELECT FROM THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES:
1) Nouns
2) Articles
3) Gender
4) Adjectives
5) Verbs
6) Infinitives
7) Conjugating Verbs
8) Pronouns
9)
French Grammar Links on the Web
Nouns:
A noun is the name of a person, place, or thing. It can also be an abstract thing such as a thought, for example.
All nouns in French have a gender, i.e. they are either masculine or feminine.
Examples:
le mur = the wall ("mur" is masculine, singular)
les murs = the walls ("mur" is masculine, plural)
la table = the table ("table" is feminine, singular)
les tables = the tables ("table" is feminine, plural)
un mur = a wall ("mur" is masculine, singular)
des murs = some walls ("mur" is masculine, plural)
une table = a table ("table" is feminine, singular)
des tables = some tables ("table" is feminine, plural)
Articles:
In the examples above, I have underlined the "le", "la","les", "un", "une" and "des". These are called the "articles" and they indicate the gender of the noun.
"Le" and "Les" mean "the" and are masculine definite articles.
"Un" means "a" and "des" means "some" and are masculine indefinite articles.
"La" and "Les" mean "the" and are feminine definite articles.
"Une" means "a" and "des" means "some" and are feminine indefinite articles.
There are two types of articles:
1) Definite ones which mean "the" in English and are "le", "la" and "les" in French.
2) Indefinite ones which mean "a" in English and are "un" and "une" in French. "Des" means "some" in French.
"Le", "les", "un" and "des" are used with masculine nouns.
"La", "les", "une" and "des" are used with feminine nouns.
Gender:
All nouns in French have a gender.
This means the noun is either masculine or feminine. If a noun is masculine, its gender is masculine. If a noun is feminine, its gender is feminine. Usually there is no way to guess whether a noun is masculine or feminine, you just have to memorize it.
Adjectives:
These are words which describe nouns, for example: "big", "round", "yellow", and "kind".
Examples:
le mur noir = the black wall
les murs noirs = the black walls
la table noire = the black table
les tables noires = the black tables
Notice that in French the adjective is usually placed after the noun it describes.
"noire" (black) describes the table ("table") and "noir" (black) describes the wall ("mur").
Notice also that the adjective "noire" has an extra "e" on the end. This is because "la table" is feminine and singular.
Notice also that the adjective "noires" has an extra "es" on the end. This is because "les tables" is feminine and plural.
"Noir" does not need an extra "e" since its noun is masculine and singular.
But it requires an "s"on the end to go with "murs" since the noun is now plural.
The adjective must "agree" with the noun it describes. "Agree" means that the adjective must fit its noun both in gender (masculine or feminine)and number (singular or plural).
If the noun is masculine, then so is its adjective.
If the noun is feminine, then so is its adjective.
If the noun is singular, then so is its adjective.
If the noun is plural, then so is its adjective.
Verbs:
These are "action" words. In English "to play", "to run", "to do" are examples of verbs.
Notice that English verbs have "to" in front of them. This is called the "infinitive" form.
French verbs are also found in the dictionary under their infinitive form.
The infinitive form has no subject, i.e. we don't know who is doing the action. If we only see "to" we don't know who is doing the action. But if we see a subject such as "Jean", "Marie", "I", "you", "she", "we", and "they", then it is clear to us who is doing the action.
Infinitives:
French verbs are found in three groups:
1) verbs which end in "-er"
for example: chanter = to sing
2) verbs which end in "-ir"
for example: choisir = to choose
3) verbs which end in "-re"
for example: rire = to laugh
Conjugating Verbs:
When we change the subject of a verb in English, we rarely have to change the ending on the verb. For example, we say "I write", "you write", "we write" and "they write". But we say "he or she writes.
In French, we must change the verb ending as we change the subject for each and every subject.
Notice how the endings of the verb "chanter" (to sing)change as we change its subject:
I sing = je chante
you (familiar) sing = tu chantes
he sings = il chante
she sings = elle chante
we sing = nous chantons
you (formal), you-all sing = vous chantez
they (masculine) sing = ils chantent
they (feminine) sing = elles chantent
Pronouns:
Pronouns replace nouns. For instance if you had a series of sentences with a noun that was always repeated it would soon become tedious to say these repetitions.
For example, instead of repeating the noun "grandfather" every time you want to say something about him, you can say "he".
"He is a pronoun, it takes the place of the noun "grandfather".
It is much faster to say "he" rather than to say "grandfather".
There are different types of pronouns, but I shall deal only with one here: the subject pronoun. The subject pronoun tells who is doing the action (verb) in the sentence.
Example: "Grandfather is going to the market. Grandfather is going to buy some fruit. Grandfather is wearing a pair of jeans. Grandfather is wearing a white shirt. Grandfather is wearing black shoes."
By the time you have said "grandfather" five times your listener/ reader will get pretty tired of the word. So what we can do is replace "grandfather" with "he". So our example above would look like this:
Grandfather is going to the market. He is going to buy some fruit. He is wearing a pair of jeans. He is wearing a white shirt. He is wearing black shoes."
"He" is the pronoun used because it replaces the noun "grandfather".
Similarly the words "I", "you", "she", "we", and "they" are also pronouns used to replace nouns.
French Grammar Links on the Web:
-French Grammar Central A very thorough grammar explanation site from globegate.utm.edu.
-French Vocabulary French vocab and pronunciation, from www.travlang.com
-French Grammar A cute explanation of basic grammar terms from www.btinternet.com.
-French Grammar A quick explanation of most grammar terms from www.frenchgrammar.org.uk.
-French Grammar Help Good site for grammar help from french.about.com
-French for Beginners Good help with verbs, grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, alphabet,etc.
-Verb Conjugator Good help with conjugating just about any French verb in any tense or mood, from french.about.com.
-Parlez-vous? Great site, lots of links from members.yourlink.net
-French for Beginners Good site, has much basic information from About.com
-French grammar explanations Good resource for grammar explanations by category, from www2.lamc.utexas.edu/frgr
-French Grammar explanations Another good resource for grammar explanations by category, from www.frenchlesson.org/index.htm
-French Course A short French course with sound bites by a native Frenchman, from www.jump-gate.com.
-Verb Conjugator From humanities.uchicago.edu
-Learning French From french.miningco.com
-Babel Site Help with Foreign language learning.
-Learn French Misc info: 100 most used verbs; vocabulary of: the house, clothes, shops and public places, prepositions of place, jobs and professions; from www.geocities.com.
-French Grammar Basic and advanced French grammar explained by categories, from web.ukonline.co.uk.
-French Favorite Foreign Language Web Resources Lots of useful sites, info is in French, from member.aol.com/maestro12/web/topfrench.html
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