Veronique Mazet

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, you need to know the rules of French grammar.Some of the basics include making nouns plural, adding description by pairing adjectives correctly to nouns, and using pronominal verbs to talk about actions done to you or someone else.

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 to do so. They indicate: What action is being performed, through the choice of the infinitive Who performs it, through the choice of the subject When it is performed, through the choice of the tense French infinitive verb forms The infinitive is like the name of the verb.

When a French noun describes a live being, its gender (masculine or feminine) often reflects the gender of the being in question. For example: The word cheval (horse) is masculine, whereas jument (mare) is feminine, because they both reflect the gender of the animal. Makes sense? Good. But determining gender isn’t always that logical, especially with inanimate objects, like things and ideas.

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 phrase. For example: dans la cuisine (in the kitchen) and avec mes amis (with my friends) are prepositional phrases that add information to a sentence.

Depending on whether they modify a verb, an adverb, or an adjective, French adverbs move around quite a bit in the sentence. In English, adverbs are sometimes placed right after the subject of the verb, like she often sings. In French, you can never place the adverb after the subject. Place French adverbs with verbs in a simple tense When an adverb modifies a verb conjugated in a simple tense, the adverb follows the verb.

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. French nouns You should know three essential things about a French nom (noun): It refers to people, places, things, or concepts.

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 you get to try out a language, the faster you’ll learn. Here are ten common mistakes made in French grammar and how to avoid them.

The French indefinite article is the equivalent to a/an and some (but English often skips it). Do you ask about one thing, describe a couple of things that happened, and make plans for an outing that hasn’t yet been defined? If so, you’re an indefinite article kind of person, like the French! And as such, you should treat the article indéfini as the default article in French grammar.

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, and imperative for the simple tenses; and the present perfect, pluperfect, future perfect, and past conditional for the compound tenses.