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.

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.

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 (to) oneself does to a verb in English. The verbs fall into three categories: Reflexive verbs: Express an action done by the subject to itself, such as Je me regarde (I look at myself).

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: Gender: All French nouns have a gender. If you want to describe a masculine noun, like le vélo (the bicycle), you need a masculine adjective to match, like le vélo noir (the black bicycle).

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.

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.

Two common French verbs: écrire (to write) and mettre (to put) misbehave very much like the irregular verbs lire, dire, and conduire, but for one small difference that sets them in a different group. Proceed like this to conjugate écrire in present tense: Drop the -re of the infinitive to find the stem. Add the ending for the correct subject: -s, -s, and -t for the singular and -vons, -vez, and -vent for the plural.

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 its conjugation is quite different. To form the conditional of regular -er and -ir verbs, follow these steps: Start from the complete infinitive, without dropping any part of it.