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Building Negative Sentences in French
In French, you need two negative words, ne (no) and pas (not), to make a sentence negative. Pas can be replaced by other negative words, such as jamais [more…]
Checking Out the Conditional in French
In English, the conditional allows you to express a daydream, a wish, or a hypothetical situation, such as I would go to Hawaii tomorrow if I could. In French, the conditional is used in the same way but [more…]
Putting Prepositions in French Sentences
In French grammar, les prépositions(prepositions) are little words that can answer questions like where, when, and with whom. They are used in combination with other words in a sentence to form a prepositional [more…]
Ten Common French Grammar Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)
This list assumes that you’re going to make French grammar mistakes. You know it’s true. In fact, the best way to learn a language is to try it out and get corrected when necessary! And the more chances [more…]
Understanding French Pronominal Verbs
In French grammar, verbs called pronominal verbs use an extra pronoun. The extra pronouns are reflexive, meaning they typically reflect the subject of the verb, like [more…]
How to Make French Nouns Plural
Create plural nouns in French by adding an s or x,or by substituting –aux for –al. Making French nouns plural, however, takes a different tack when it comes to family names and nouns that end in – [more…]
Matching French Adjectives to the Nouns They Describe
In French grammar, adjectives have to reflect both the gender (masculine or feminine) and the number of the nouns (singular or plural) they modify. Have a look: [more…]
French Grammar For Dummies Cheat Sheet
French grammar is all about using French words in the correct way so people can understand your meaning. You can learn a lot of French words by browsing an English-French dictionary, but to make sense, [more…]
French Parts of Speech
To grasp the fundamentals of any language, your native language as well as French, you need to recognize the parts of speech, the various types of words that compose a language and how they work. [more…]
The Basics of French Verb Forms
Just like in English, the French verb provides the action in a sentence. Verbs (les verbes) are the core element of a sentence because they provide essential information. They take many different forms [more…]
The Basics of Composing French Sentences
After you know the parts of speech in French, you can put them together to compose a sentence. The following information explains how to start with a verb and then add embellishment. [more…]
Tenses and Moods for French Sentences
When you need to move beyond the present, you need new tenses! French has about 18 tenses/moods to choose from. The ones you will use the most are present, imperfect, future, conditional, subjunctive, [more…]
How to Pronounce Individual Vowels in French
French vowels are all pure and short. (French doesn’t have diphthongs, which are modulations of sounds, kind of like a wave, as in the English words face [more…]
How to Pronounce Combined Vowels in French
Several vowel combinations are possible in French: two or three vowels together or a vowel and a consonant. But each time the sound produced is a vowel sound, even when a consonant is included. [more…]
French Accents and the Cedilla
French uses accents on certain vowels for various reasons, and emphasis has nothing to do with it. An accent can change the sound of a vowel or help distinguish between two different words that would otherwise [more…]
The Gender of French Nouns
When a French noun describes a live being, its gender often reflects the gender of the being in question. For example: The word cheval (horse) is masculine, whereas [more…]
French Indefinite Articles
The French indefinite article is the equivalent to a/anand some (but English often skips it). Do you ask about one thing, describe a couple of things that happened, and make plans for [more…]
French Definite Articles
A sure way to know the gender of a noun is to look at its article — when it’s available, of course! Like English, French has definite articles, indefinite articles, and partitive articles. The French definite [more…]
Common French Possessives
The word possession implies an owner and an object owned. French takes everything into consideration: who the owner is (yourself, him, them), like in English, and also the gender and number of the object [more…]
How to Introduce Things and People in French
Sometimes, an English she does not translate to elle in French. For example, to say She is my friend,you’d say c’est mon amie. What happened to she? [more…]
How to Form Irregular French Adjectives
Some French adjectives have irregular feminine singular endings. To form the feminine singular form, some masculine singular adjectives require a little more than just adding [more…]
How to Place of French Adjectives Correctly
Most French adjectives that describe the characteristics of a noun are placed after that noun. Some adjectives, however, must be placed before the noun they describe, and still others can go either before [more…]
How to Use French Subject Pronouns
In order to put a verb in motion, you need to know who performs the action: the subject. French has nine possible subjects. Here is the list of French subject pronouns with their English equivalents. [more…]
How to Use Infinitives and Conjugations in French
An infinitive is a verb form in which no one is performing the action. In English, the word to always precedes the infinitive; for example, to speak and [more…]
How to Conjugate Regular French Verbs
To simplify things, French has classified regular verbs into three types, based on the ending of their infinitives. Think of all the things you can possibly do in one day. That’s also a lot of verbs to [more…]
