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Just like articles, French adjectives also have to match the nouns that they modify in gender and plurality. Generally, the final consonant is pronounced only when it comes before an -e. Most adjectives, such as those above, are affected by this rule. When these adjectives appear before an indefinite plural noun, they will change the article associated with it: When "grand" goes before a noun, it means "great". However, when it goes after the noun, it means "tall". Likewise, when "pauvre" goes before a noun, it means "unfortunate". When it comes after the noun, it means financially "poor".
This rule works most of the time, but be careful, "pauvre" can mean "financially poor" even when used before the nouns. These three adjectives behave differently when placed before a singular masculine noun starting with a vowel or silent h:.
In English, we say "her car" when the owner of the car is a woman and "his car" when the owner is a man. In French, they say "sa voiture" even if the owner is a male. It is not the owner who determines the gender of the possessive adjective but the object owned.
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First person singular - mon, ma, mes Second person singular informal - ton, ta, tes Third person singular - son, sa, ses. First person plural - notre, notre, nos Second person plural and polite form - votre, votre, vos Third person plural - leur, leur, leurs. When a feminine noun starts with a vowel or silent 'h', you should utilize "Mon" instead of "Ma". French adverbs, like their English counterparts, are used to modify adjectives , other adverbs, and verbs or clauses.
They do not display any inflection; that is, their form does not change to reflect their precise role, nor any characteristics of what they modify. In French, as in English, most adverbs are derived from adjectives. In most cases, this is done by adding the suffix -ment "-ly" to the adjective's feminine singular form. Some adverbs are derived from adjectives in completely irregular fashions, not even using the suffix -ment:. An adverb that modifies an Infinitive verbal noun generally comes after the infinitive:. But negative adverbs, such as pas "not" , pas plus "not any more" , and jamais come before the infinitive:.
The definite article agrees with a specific noun in gender and number. Like other articles indefinite, partitive they present a noun. In English, the definite article is always the the noun. Unlike English, the French definite article is used also in a general sense, a general statement, or feeling about an idea or thing. There are three definite articles and an abbreviation.
Le is used for masculine nouns, La is used for feminine nouns, Les is used for plural nouns both masculine or feminine , and L' is used when the noun begins with a vowel or silent h both masculine or feminine. It is similar to English, where a changes to an before a vowel. In English, the indefinite articles are a and an. While some is used as a plural article. In French, indefinite articles take on the gender of the noun it precedes if singular, but also has a plural form that is used for either gender.
Note that des , like les , is used in French before plural nouns when no article is used in English. For example, you are looking at photographs in an album. The English statement "I am looking at photographs. If it is a set of specific pictures, the French statement should be "Je regarde les photographies. On the other hand, if the person is just randomly browsing the album, the French translation is "Je regarde des photographies. The partitive article de indicates, among other things, the word some. As for prepositions, de le contracts combines into du , and de les contracts into des.
Also, de l' is used in front of words starting with vowels. When speaking about food, the partitive article is used sometimes, while the definite article le, la, les is used at other times, and the indefinite article un, une in yet another set of situations.
In general "de" refers to a part of food a piece of pie whereas the definite article le refers to a food in general I like pie in general. The indefinite article refers to an entire unit of a food I would like a whole pie. When speaking about eating or drinking an item, there are specific situations for the use of each article. If the noun taken in a partitive sense happens to be preceded by a qualifying adjective, or a negative verb, then de is used alone.
Wikipedia has related information at French articles and determiners. In French, all nouns have a grammatical gender ; that is, they are either masculin m or feminin f. Most nouns that express people or animals have both a masculine and a feminine form. For example, the two words for "the actor" in French are l'acteur m and l'actrice f. The two words for "the cat" are le chat m and la chatte f.
However, there are some nouns that talk about people or animals whose gender are fixed, regardless of the actual gender of the person or animal. For example, la personne f the person is always feminine, even when it's talking about your uncle! The nouns that express things without an obvious gender e.
This form can be masculine or feminine. For example, la voiture the car can only be feminine; le stylo the pen can only be masculine. There are many exceptions to gender rules in French which can only be learned. There are even words that are spelled the same, but have a different meaning when masculine or feminine; for example, le livre m means the book , but la livre f means the pound.
Some words that appear to be masculine like le photo , which is actually short for la photographie are in fact feminine, and vice versa. Then there are some that just don't make sense; la foi is feminine and means a belief, whereas le foie means liver. A pronoun replaces a noun in a sentence. Often used to prevent repeating the noun.
French has six different types of subject pronouns: Tu is informal and used only with well-known acquaintances.
In case of unknown persons you have to use the polite form Vous. A good example, to explain that is the following: If two business acquaintances meet another, they say Vous. If they later fall in love, they say Tu. When unsure, it is better to say "vous.
However, when pronounced, they normally sound the same as "il" and "elle", so distinguishing the difference requires understanding of the various conjugations of the verbs following the pronoun. Ils is used with all-male or mixed groups, elles is only used when all members of the group are female.
French pronouns carry meanings that do not exist in English pronouns. The French third person "on" has several meanings, but most closely matches the English "one", except that it is not so formal, and is more common. It has a number of uses:. On does not have ordinary direct- and indirect-object pronouns, only the reflexive pronoun se. Similarly, its disjunctive-pronoun form, soi , is only used when on is the subject and soi refers to the same entity. The pronoun quelqu'un "someone" can fill some of the roles of on , in the same way that one and someone are sometimes interchangeable in English.
A direct object is a noun that receives the action of a verb. You have learned earlier that names and regular nouns can be replaced by the subject pronouns je, tu Similarly, direct objects, such as "la balle", can be replaced by pronouns. Indirect objects are prepositional phrases with the object of the preposition. An indirect object is a noun that receives the action of a verb. Lui and leur are indirect object pronouns. When used with the direct object pronouns le, la , and les , lui and leur come after those pronouns.
Note that while le, la , and les are used to replace people or inanimate objects, lui and leur are not used to replace innanimate objects and things. Also note that unlike le and la , which are shortened to l' when followed by a vowel, lui is never shortened. Note that lui and leur , and not y , are used when the object refers to a person or persons. The French pronoun y replaces a prepositional phrase referring to a place that begins with any preposition except de for which en is used.
When expressing positive commands, there are several rules one must remember when using object pronouns. Wikipedia has related information at French Pronouns. In the introduction of the book the description of a sentence, versus a phrase was outlined. A sentence, and not a phrase, is a grammatical unit, which may have nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. Like English, a sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a punctuation mark.
This word order is pretty much the same as English. While this is true in the literal sense, it doesn't mean you can't get the point across in another way. The French declarative sentence with direct and indirect object nouns must be in this order: In the second example you will see that the direct object and indirect object have been swapped. In order to translate an English statement like this, you would have to slide the indirect object to its proper place. Il aime les bonbons. Il aime les bonbons? Does he like sweets? To form a question, attach "Est-ce que Sometimes "que" has to be modified to "qu'" for elision.
Est-ce is actually the inversion of c'est "it is". Like all inversions a '-' dash is required. These questions in this form are typically mean't to elicit a "Oui" or "Non" answer.
If you want more than that, you must precede it with an interrogative: Quand est-ce que, Qui est-ce que, or Quel est-ce que, for example. Some of these later examples can more easily be said by just leaving the inversion off. If the question is negative, then the form is: N'est-ce pas qu'il fait beau temps? It is good weather, is it not? Il aime ce film. He likes this film. This is considered to be the most formal way to ask a question out of the three.
The indicative form of the following sentences will be placed in parentheses for comparison. To ask a question by inversion, simply invert the verb and the subject the pronoun and insert a hyphen un trait d'union in between. Do you like apples? Tu aimes les pommes. In the case where the verb ends in a vowel while the subject starts with one, a "t" needs to be inserted to avoid elision. Did she make the decision already?
She made the decision already. For third person plural verbs ending in "ent" , there is no need to insert the "t". Are they buying a house? They are buying a house. If the subject is a noun instead of a pronoun, invert the verb and the pronoun that represents the subject. Did Marie choose this shirt? Marie chose this shirt. Marie a choisi cette chemise. For negative such as "ne Didn't you eat the whole pizza? You didn't eat the whole pizza. Have you been there? You have been there. If you finish your homework, I'll give you some candies. Si tu finis tes devoirs, je te donnerai des bonbons.
If you are cold, close the window. If I had a million dollars, I would buy a house. If I had known or "had I known" computers were so useful, I would have taken a computer course. Pronominal verbs are verbs that include pronouns. These pronouns are me , te , se , nous , and vous and are used as either direct objects or indirect objects, depending on the verb that they modify.
Either the conjugated verb or the infinitive can be negated each with slightly different meanings. In perfect tenses, the past participles agree with the direct object pronoun, but not the indirect object pronoun, in gender and plurality. Therefore it would only agree when the reflexive pronoun is the direct object. Also remember that the past participle does not agree with the direct object if it goes after the verb.
Direct objects [ edit ] While the subject of a sentence initiates an action the verb , the direct object is the one that is affected by the action. A direct object pronoun is used to refer to the direct object of a previous sentence: Bellu une beast 2 1. Retrieved from " https: Pages with broken file links.
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