French Grammar For Dummies

Part I

Getting Started with French Grammar

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In this part . . .

check.png Discover how to sound out French words.

check.png Get the scoop on nouns, including their gender and the articles to use with them.

check.png Match adjectives to the nouns they describe and place them properly in sentences.

check.png Start counting with cardinal and ordinal numbers, and then talk about dates and times.

Chapter 1

French Grammar in a Nutshell

In This Chapter

arrow Getting to know French parts of speech

arrow Building and embellishing sentences

arrow Moving through verb tenses and moods

French grammar is somewhat complex, and this book gives you plenty of material to dig into, little by little. I start you off easy in this chapter, providing an overview of what’s to come so you’ll feel a little more familiar with the topics throughout the book. If you take the time to read this chapter, you get a good grammar primer to help you through the journey you’re about to embark on.

The Parts of Speech

Learning a language is easier if you know what it’s made of. 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. The following sections give you the scoop.

Nouns

remember.eps You should know three essential things about a French nom (noun):

check.png It refers to people, places, things, or concepts.

check.png It has a gender (masculine, he, or feminine, she), and a number (singular or plural). You need to know the noun’s characteristics to make other elements of a sentence match it. That’s called agreement in gender and number.

check.png It can have different roles (called functions) in a sentence:

• It can be the subject of the verb, as the noun professeur in this sentence: Le professeur parle. (The professor speaks.)

• It can be the object of the verb, as the noun lune in: Nous regardons la lune. (We watch the moon.)

See Chapter 3 for full details on French nouns.

Articles

An article (un article) is a small but essential little word that introduces a noun and takes its gender and number. Articles come in three types:

check.png The definite articles: le, la, l’, and les (the). For example: les enfants (the children).

check.png The indefinite articles: un and une (a/an), des (some), and de and d’ (no/not any). For example: un chat (a cat).

check.png The partitive articles: du, de la, de l’, and des (some). For example, de l’eau (some water).

Chapter 3 covers these articles in more detail and explains how to choose the correct article for any sentence.

Adjectives

remember.eps An adjective adds some color to a noun. For example: un étudiant sérieux (a hard-working student). To use les adjectifs correctly in French, you need to know a couple of things:

check.png An adjective is a chameleon; it changes to match the noun it describes. It can be masculine singular, masculine plural, feminine singular, or feminine plural. Matching an adjective to the noun it describes is called the agreement of the adjective.

check.png Most French adjectives are placed after a noun, not before like in English. For example you say une voiture rouge (a red car). Rouge (red) goes after voiture (car).

Get the lowdown on adjectives in Chapter 4.

Verbs

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:

check.png What action is being performed, through the choice of the infinitive

check.png Who performs it, through the choice of the subject

check.png When it is performed, through the choice of the tense

Identifying the infinitive

The infinitive is like the name of the verb. It also tells you the type of a verb: regular verbs are grouped into three types, according to the ending of their infinitive. They are:

check.png Verbs ending in -er, like parler (to talk)

check.png Verbs ending in -ir, like finir (to finish)

check.png Verbs ending in -re, like vendre (to sell)

And then there are the irregular verbs, like avoir (to have), aller (to go), faire (to do, to make), and être (to be), to name only a few. These verbs follow different patterns when they’re ­conjugated (changed to reflect the subject and tense). (See the later section "Starting with a conjugated verb" for more information.)

Establishing subject-verb agreement

To start putting a verb into action (to conjugate it) you need a subject (who or what is doing the action). In French, you always say who the subject is, except in commands (English is the same way).

Each subject corresponds to a matching form of the verb. These differences in the forms happen at the end of the verb itself. For example, you say tu chantes (you [singular informal] sing) but nous chantons (we sing), changing the form of the verb on the ending, according to the subject.

Moving an action in time

An action can be expressed in a variety of tenses, such as the past tense, future tense, conditional tense, and many more. Here are some examples of different tenses for parler (to speak):

check.png Present: nous parlons (we speak/are speaking)

check.png Imperfect: nous parlions (we used to speak)

check.png Future: nous parlerons (we will speak)

Tenses come in two types: simple tenses and compound tenses.

check.png A simple tense is a one-word verb form, like vous parlez (you speak).

check.png A compound tense involves two words, like tu as parlé (you spoke).

Some tenses express a mood, like the conditional and the subjunctive. But to simplify, you can just look at those so-called moods as other tenses. See the later section "Many Tenses and Moods" for more information.

Conjunctions

Conjunctions (les conjonctions) are small invariable words used to link parts of a sentence or just words. For instance, in Tu sors ou tu rentres? (Are you going out or are you coming in?), ou (or) is a conjunction.

Adverbs

An adverb (un adverbe) is a little word that can modify a verb (usually), an adjective, or another adverb by telling you how the action in question is done: slowly, quickly, seriously (lentement, vite, sérieusement). Here’s an example of what adverbs can do to a sentence:

check.png Without adverbs: Julie parle et Paul écoute. (Julie talks and Paul listens.)

check.png With adverbs: Julie parle lentement et Paul écoute attentivement. (Julie talks slowly and Paul listens attentively.)

Get the scoop on adverbs in Chapter 10.

Prepositions

A préposition (preposition) is a little word placed between a verb and a noun or between two nouns to indicate a relationship of space/direction, time, or manner. A preposition introduces a prepositional phrase that adds information to the sentence, as in Nous allons au cinéma (We go to the movies). In this example, au is the preposition.

tip.eps A French preposition keeps its meaning, no matter what surrounds it, unlike English prepositions that can adopt a different meaning with different verbs. For instance, the English preposition after indicates time — unless you join it to the verb to look, and to look after has nothing to do with time!

Check out Chapter 11 for help with using prepositions.

Pronouns

A pronoun (un pronom) can replace a noun when you want to avoid repetition. A pronoun is also a chameleon word that must match not only the gender (most of the time) and number of the noun it replaces but also its function in the sentence: subject or object. Here’s a list of all the pronoun types you may come across in this book:

check.png The subject pronouns precede a conjugated verb, like this: tu parles (you speak) and nous écoutons (we listen). They are je (I), tu (you [singular informal), il (he), elle (she), on (one), nous (we), vous (you [singular formal or plural formal and informal), ils (they, masculine), and elles (they, feminine).

check.png The direct object pronouns replace nouns that are the direct object of the verb. For example: je l’ai vu (I saw it/him). The DOPs are: me (me), te (you), le (him/it), la (her/it), l’ (him/her/it before a vowel), nous (us), vous (you), and les (them).

check.png The indirect object pronouns replace nouns that are indirect objects of the verb. For example: tu lui parles (you speak to him/her). They are: me (to me), te (to you), lui (to him/her/it), nous (to us), vous (to you), and leur (to them).

check.png The direct object y replaces a noun that indicated a place (most of the time). For example: elle y va (she’s going there). Y is alone in its kind.

check.png The object pronoun en replaces a noun that was the object of the verb and indicated a quantity. For example: tu en manges beaucoup (you eat a lot of it). En is also one of a kind.

check.png The stress pronouns replace nouns that refer to people, after certain prepositions. For example: viens avec moi (come with me). They are: moi (me), toi (you), lui (him/it), elle (her/it), nous (us), vous (you), eux (them, masculine), and elles (them, feminine).

check.png The reflexive pronouns help conjugate pronominal verbs that express an action done to oneself. For example: elle se regarde dans le miroir (she looks at herself in the mirror). The reflexive pronouns are: me (myself), te (yourself), se (himself/herself/itself), nous (ourselves), vous (yourselves), and se (themselves).

Chapter 13 has more information on most of these pronouns; in addition, check out Chapter 6 for details on subject pronouns and Chapter 7 for details on reflexive pronouns.

The Basics of Composing Sentences

After you know the parts of speech in French, you can put them together to compose a sentence. The following sections explain how to start with a verb and then add embellishment.

Starting with a conjugated verb

remember.eps To function properly in a sentence, a verb needs to be conjugated, which means:

check.png Matching the subject in person (first, second, or third) and number (plural or singular)

check.png Expressing when the action takes place through the use of a tense (now, in the past, in the future, and so on)

To do either one of those two operations, you need to know the pattern of conjugation for your verb. It is usually made up of a stem and an ending. Here’s an example: To get the present tense pattern of a regular verb with an -er infinitive, drop the -er and replace it with the following endings that correspond to the subjects:

check.png For je, add -e to the stem.

check.png For tu, add -es to the stem.

check.png For il/elle/on, add -e to the stem.

check.png For nous, add -ons to the stem.

check.png For vous, add -ez to the stem.

check.png For ils/elles, add -ent to the stem.

Here they are for the verb danser (to dance).

danser (to dance)

tip.eps All regular -er verbs follow this pattern for the present tense, so if you memorize it, you’ve mastered about 80 percent of French present tense conjugation, because -er verbs count for over 80 percent of French verbs. For regular -ir and -re verbs, the endings to use for the present tense are different but their stem is formed the same way, by dropping the infinitive endings -ir and -re. (Check out Chapter 6 for the scoop on the present tense.) Other tenses, like the present perfect, the imperfect, and the future, use different stems and endings but also follow conjugation patterns. Parts IV and V talk about the conjugation patterns of other tenses in detail.

Adding details

You can develop your sentences by adding as much information as you want. Saying les enfants chantent (the kids sing) is a good start on conveying information, but it’s lacking in detail, don’t you think? What are they singing? Where? And when exactly do they sing?

check.png To say what they sing, use a direct object like une chanson de Noël (a Christmas carol) and place it after the verb, like this: Les enfants chantent une chanson de Noël. (The kids sing a Christmas carol.)

check.png To say where they sing, use a prepositional phrase like à l’école (at school), or an adverb like ici (here): Les enfants chantent une chanson de Noël à l’école. (The kids sing a Christmas carol at school.)

check.png To say when they sing, use a prepositional phrase like après le goûter (after the afternoon snack), or an adverb like maintenant (now), like this: Les enfants chantent une chanson de Noël à l’école, après le goûter. (The kids sing a Christmas carol at school after the afternoon snack.)

You can also beef up the nouns with adjectives, but make sure they match the nouns they describe in gender and number. For example: Les petits enfants chantent une jolie chanson de Noël à l’école, après le bon goûter. (The little kids sing a pretty Christmas carol at school after the good afternoon snack.)

Fun Stuff You Can Do with Your Sentences

You can jazz up your French sentences in a few more ways. You can make them negative, turn them around to ask questions, and compare all their elements.

Going negative

remember.eps To make a negative sentence in French, you don’t need to change or add anything to the verb (like I just did in English with don’t). All you need are two little negative words: ne and pas (which together mean not) in basic negations, or a more specific one, like jamais (never), rien (nothing), personne (no one), or nulle part (nowhere) instead of pas. Here are a few examples that illustrate where these words go in the sentence.

Pierre n’écoute pas le prof. (Pierre doesn’t listen to the teacher.)

Tu ne prends jamais le bus. (You never take the bus.)

Elle ne fait rien. (She doesn’t do anything.)

Nous n’irons nulle part pour les vacances. (We will not go anywhere for the holidays.)

Chapter 8 has more information about negative words and expressions.

Asking questions

Like in English, you can ask a simple yes-no question like Aimez-vous les huitres? (Do you like oysters?). If you need more information, use question words like quand (when), qui (who), où (where), pourquoi (why), comment (how), or qu’est-ce que (what).

Both types of questions can be phrased in two ways:

check.png Inverting the normal word order of subject-verb to verb-subject (called inversion), as in Aimez-vous les huitres? (Do you like oysters?) which doesn’t exist in English, as opposed to Vous aimez les huitres (You like oysters).

check.png Keeping the normal word order and using the tag est-ce que at the beginning of the question or right after the question word, if there is one. For example: Est-ce que vous parlez français? (Do you speak French?) or Où est-ce que vous parlez français? (Where do you speak French?)

Check out Chapter 9 for more on handling questions.

Making comparisons

French makes the same kinds of comparisons that English does.

check.png Comparative of superiority: For example, Il est plus grand que moi. (He is taller [more tall] than me.)

check.png Comparative of inferiority: For example, Il est moins intéressant que toi. (He is less interesting than you.)

check.png Comparative of equality: For example, Il est aussi grand que moi. (He is as tall as me.)

Flip to Chapter 12 for more about making comparisons.

Many Tenses and Moods

When you need to move beyond the present, you need new tenses! French has about 18 tenses/moods to choose from. In this book I focus only on the ones you will use the most: 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.

The past

To express a past action, French has two main tenses to choose from. The passé composé (present perfect) names past actions that occurred, and the imparfait (imperfect) describes what it was like when the past action occurred. The imparfait also describes how things used to be, in your childhood for example, without focusing on a specific date. Here they are in action:

check.png Passé composé: Naming a past action: Hier nous sommes allés au ciné. (Yesterday we went to the movies.)

check.png Imparfait: What it was like when something happened: Quand je suis sorti ce matin, il faisait beau. (When I went out this morning, the weather was nice.)

check.png Imparfait: How things used to be: Quand nous étions petits, nous jouions au parc. (When we were little, we used to play in the park.)

Head to Chapter 15 for more about the present perfect and Chapter 16 for more about the imperfect.

The future

The future tense (le futur) describes what will probably happen down the road, like Je finirai ça plus tard. (I will finish this later.)

tip.eps To describe a future event that is certain to happen, and is almost imminent, French uses the futur proche (immediate future). For example: Il est 6h30, elle va préparer le diner. (It’s 6:30; she’s going to prepare dinner.)

tip.eps The future is probably the easiest tense to conjugate because its stem is the infinitive. The future endings are: -ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez, -ont. Here’s the complete conjugation of a regular -er verb in the future.

manger (to eat)

Chapter 17 has what you need to know about the future tense.

The conditional

The conditional is a simple tense, and its stem is derived from the infinitive, like the future tense (see the preceding section), so it’s a fairly easy one to conjugate, too. The conditional endings are: -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, and -aient.

French uses le conditionnel (the conditional) to express:

check.png Daydreams/hypothetical situations, in combination with the imperfect (see the earlier section "The past" for details). For example: S’il pleuvait, je resterais à la maison. (If it were raining, I would stay home.)

check.png Friendly advice, using the verb devoir (must). For example: Tu devrais manger moins de sucre. (You should eat less sugar.)

check.png Polite requests, using the verb pouvoir (can). For example: Pourriez-vous m’indiquer la poste s’il vous plait? (Could you please show me the post office?)

check.png Wishes, using the verb vouloir (want) or aimer (like). For example: Nous aimerions gagner le loto. (We would like to win the lottery.)

check.png The future in a past context. For example: Sherlock pensait qu’il découvrirait l’assassin. (Sherlock thought he would discover the murderer.)

Check out more of the conditional in Chapter 18.

The subjunctive

Le subjonctif (the subjunctive) is commonly used in French to say that you want someone to do something, that you’re happy or sad that something is happening, or that you fear something may happen. The subjunctive may seem difficult to native English speakers because it pretty much doesn’t exist in English. Here are some examples of the subjonctif:

Pierre veut que vous partiez. (Pierre wants you to leave.)

Il faut que tu prennes une décision. (It’s necessary that you make a decision.)

Les enfants sont contents que l’école finisse. (The children are happy that school is over.)

remember.eps A sentence with a verb in subjunctive begins with a trigger phrase and has two different subjects.

check.png In the three preceding examples, veut que, Il faut que, and sont contents que are examples of triggers for the subjunctive. There are quite a few different triggers, and I give you a long list of the most useful ones in Chapter 19.

check.png The three preceding examples are sentences with two clauses (parts) and two different subjects: Pierre and vous in the first example; il and tu in the second, and les enfants and l’école in the third.

Chapter 19 has the full scoop on the subjunctive.

The imperative

Use the imperative to tell one or several persons what to do or what not to do. It is not a regular tense, because the subject is not expressed, and it has only three forms that are borrowed almost exactly from the present tense conjugation for most verbs. (For details and exceptions flip to Chapter 20.)

For example, here are the three imperative forms for -er verbs:

check.png From the present tense tu form (you [singular]) of parler: Parle! (Speak!)

check.png From the present tense nous (we) form: Parlons! (Let’s speak!)

check.png From the present tense vous form (that is, the plural you): Parlez! (Speak!)

tip.eps The negative commands are formed the same way. You just add ne before the imperative and pas after it, like this:

check.png From the affirmative command parle (speak) to ne parle pas (don’t speak).

check.png From the affirmative command parlons (let’s speak) to ne parlons pas! (let’s not speak).

check.png From the affirmative command parlez (speak) to ne parlez pas (don’t speak).

Compound tenses

French compound tenses are two-word verb forms that always express an action that is more past than the main action. For instance, in He had already gotten up when his alarm finally went off, the pluperfect verb phrase is had gotten up. French has several compound tenses, and the most commonly used are: the present perfect, which I discuss earlier in this chapter, the pluperfect, the future perfect, and the past conditional.

A French compound tense is formed by putting together a conjugated form of one of the two auxiliary verbs (also called helper verbs) — être (to be) and avoir (to have) — and the past participle of the main verb. (Chapter 15 has full details on how to form past participles.)

English and French compound tenses are different in their form (English may use three-word forms) and in their usage. They occur more strictly and frequently in French. Here are some examples of compound tenses in French, with nonliteral English translations:

check.png The pluperfect: Il était déjà allé à la boulangerie. (He had already gone to the bread shop.)

check.png The future perfect: Je m’amuserai quand j’aurai fini mon travail. (I will play when I am finished with my work.)

check.png The past conditional: Si elle avait su, elle aurait choisi l’autre solution. (If she had known, she would have chosen the other solution.)

See Chapter 21 for full details on compound tenses.

Chapter 2

Sounding Out French Words

In This Chapter

arrow Pronouncing vowels and consonants

arrow Adding accents and cedillas in the right places

arrow Getting the hang of the liaison

arrow Understanding French stress and syllables

French and English share the same alphabet, but the way each language pronounces letters, especially vowels, is very different. When you learn a language, mastering the pronunciation is crucial because all the vocabulary in the world won’t mean a thing if it isn’t pronounced correctly! The main challenges of French pronunciation are

check.png The articulation of the vowels, including u and the nasal sounds

check.png The relationship between spelling and sound, including how the same sound can have different spellings and how accents and other diacritical marks can change the way some letters are pronounced

check.png The rhythm of a sentence, or how syllables are grouped and how words link to one another through sounds that sometimes don’t even appear in the written text

This chapter explains how to pronounce vowels and consonants in French, gives you the scoop on different accent marks (including the cedilla), introduces the concept of the ­liaison for pronunciation, and helps you understand French stress and syllables.

tip.eps You have several wonderful tools at your disposal as you discover how to sound out French words, some of which you may not even know about! I'm talking of your own vocal organs. Every time you say hi or good morning to someone, you're moving your jaws, your tongue, your lips, and your vocal cords, all at the same time. Your jaws can open more or less depending on the sounds you want to produce; your lips can shape different sounds when puckered, rounded, or stretched out; your tongue helps direct air flow by going up or down against your palate; and your throat releases more or less air to produce various sounds. As you work on sounding out words, I suggest you use a mirror so you can look at the articulation of your mouth and your lips. Also, you can check out numerous websites where you can hear French words (such as www.frenchlanguageguide.com/french/pronunciation/lettere.asp or www.forvo.com/languages-pronunciations/fr), as well as books on French phonetics (the official term for the rules of pronunciation).

Starting with Vowels

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 and mule.) In fact, French has no long sounds at all like you hear in the English words beach and freeze. The following sections review the pronunciation of each vowel and then move on to combining vowels to create new sounds. I even throw in the nasal sounds — I think you can handle them.

Pronouncing individual vowels

Each of the vowels in French has one or more sounds, as you find out in the following sections.

The vowel a

The French a has the sound ah, as in father, with the jaws slightly tenser but the mouth very open (your jaw should go lower than when you say the a in father). It never sounds like the diphthongued (modulated) a of the word face. French words that feature this sound include machine (mah-sheen) (machine), madame (mah-dahm) (Mrs.), and façade (fah-sahd) (facade).

The vowel e

The letter e has several sounds in French, To pronounce it by itself, bring your lips almost together and slightly forward, with the tip of your tongue inside your lower front teeth, like for the e of the (not thee). It’s used in two main ways in French:

check.png e is mostly silent when it ends a singular or plural word, like la table or les tables (the table; the tables), and all the -er verb endings of the present tense, like je parle (I speak), tu manges (you eat), il joue (he plays), and elles écoutent (they listen). You stop your voice just before the e when you say these words. So for instance, the word table is pronounced tah-bl in French. (Flip to Chapter 6 for more about -er verbs in the present tense.)

check.png e is pronounced as uh, like the, in two situations:

• At the end of eight short French words: de (of), le (the), je (I), me (me), se (oneself), que (that), ce (this), and ne (not).

• In the middle of words. Examples of words that feature this sound include: venir (vuh-neer) (to come), jeter (zhuh-tey) (to throw away), and leçon (luh-soh) (lesson).

check.png e is pronounced as eh, like in the word get, when it precedes a double consonant. Examples of words that feature this sound include: belle (behl) (beautiful), cette (seht) (this), and chaussette (shoh-seht) (sock).

The vowel i

The French i has the sound ee, like in ski or sea but very brief and with the lips stretched way out to the side. It never sounds like the diphthongued i in cries. Examples of French words that include this sound are petit (puh-tee) (small) and assis (ah-see) (seated).

tip.eps To make the i sound, place the tip of your tongue inside your lower front teeth and stretch your lips sideways, as in a giant fake smile!

The vowel o

The French o has two sounds:

check.png The vowel o is pronounced as ohh (like in glove), with the lips somewhat rounded, like the first o in in October (which is short) but