Introduction(fr)

French is an official language in 29 different countries! Let's get started with the basics. Welcome and bienvenue to the French course.

Genders

French has two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine. All nouns have a gender, and most nouns have a fixed gender. For instance, la pomme is always feminine and un bébé ("a baby") is always masculine, even for baby girls.

All nouns have a gender that you must memorize.

French		French
Le garçon	boy	la fille	girl
L'homme	man	La femme	woman
L'enfant	child can be a boy or a girl	l'eau	water
le lettre	letter	la lettre	letter, alphabet
le café	coffee	la pomme	apple
le français		la Chine	China
le Petit Prince		la bière	beer
le menu	menu	la orange	orange

However, some nouns can have multiple genders depending on the situation, and many masculine nouns can be changed to a feminine form simply by adding an -e to the end. Your male friend is un ami and your female friend is une amie. Some nouns, like l'élève ("the student"), have the same spelling and meaning for both gender forms.

Other nouns may have the same spelling, but different genders and meanings. For instance, un tour (masculine) is a tour, while une tour (feminine) is a tower.

One of the most difficult aspects of learning French is memorizing noun genders. However, by spending some time now memorizing the following patterns, you may be able to guess most nouns' genders and save yourself a lot of trouble in the future.

Some genders depend on a noun's classification. For instance, languages, days of the week, months, seasons, metals, colors, and measurements are mostly masculine.

Otherwise, memorizing word endings is the best way to guess genders. We'll learn these ending patterns in four steps:

• First: Nouns ending in -e tend to be feminine. All others, especially nouns ending in consonants, tend to be masculine. This is true for over 70% of all nouns.

• Second: Nouns that have the endings -ion and -son tend to be feminine, even though they end in consonants.

• Third: Nouns with these endings are usually masculine, although they end in -e:

  -tre, -ble, -cle (think "treble clef") -one, -ème, -ège (think "OMG") -age, -isme

• Fourth: Watch out for these complications:

  -é is masculine, but -té is feminine.

  • le résumé (masc) — the resumé la liberté (fem) — the liberty

  -de is masculine, but -ade, -nde, and -ude are feminine.

  • le guide — the guide la parade — the parade

  -ste and -me tend to be masculine, but there are dozens of exceptions. Words for people ending in -ste are often gender-neutral, e.g. le/la cycliste.

  -eur is masculine for most professions or technical terms, but it's feminine for some emotions and abstract things.

  • le chauffeur — the driver la peur — the fear

That's it! Memorize these, and you'll be able to guess most noun genders.

Articles

Articles (e.g. "the" or "a") provide context for a noun. In English, articles may be omitted, but French nouns almost always have an article.

French has three types of articles:

• Definite articles (the) : nouns that are known to the speakers / the general sense of a noun

• Indefinite articles (a/an/one) : countable nouns that are unspecified or unknown to the speakers

• Partitive articles (some/any) : quantity of something uncountable

Le and la become just l' if they're followed by a vowel sound. This is an example of elision, which is the removal of a vowel sound in order to prevent consecutive vowel sounds and make pronunciation easier.

Elisions are mandatory—for instance, je aime is incorrect. It must be j'aime. These other one-syllable words can also elide: je, me, te, se, de, ce, ne, and que.

Tu can also be elided in casual speech, but not in writing.

Article	Masculine	Feminine	Plural	Example
Definite	le/l'	la/l'	les	le chat — the cat
Indefinite	un	une	des	une femme — a woman
Partitive	du/de l'	de la/de l'		de l'eau— (some) water

In a contraction, two words combine to form one shortened word. For instance, the partitive article du is a contraction of the preposition de with le.

• du pain — (some) bread

  However, since du can create vowel conflicts, when it would appear in front of a vowel sound, it takes the elided de l' form instead. This is also the case for de la.

• de l'ananas [masc.] — (some) pineapple

• de l'eau [fem.] — (some) water

Personal Subject Pronouns

The subject is the person or thing that performs an action or is being described.

This is often a noun, but a personal subject pronoun(e.g. "I", "you", or "he").

Notice above that the verb manger (as well as its English equivalent, "to eat") changes form to agree grammatically with the subject. These forms are called conjugations of that verb.

subject	Être (To Be)	Avoir (To Have)	Mang|er (To Eat)	Parl|er(To Speak)	Li|re(To Read)	Boi|re (To Drink)	écri|re(To Write)
je	suis	(j')ai	mange	parle	lis	bois	(j')écris
tu/vous	es	as	manges	parles	lis	bois	écris
il/elle/on	est	a	mange	parle	lit	boit	écrit
nous	sommes	avons	mangeons	parlons	lisons	buvons	écrivons
vous	êtes	avez	mangez	parlez	lisez	buvez	écrivez
ils/elles	sont	ont	mangent	parlent	lisent	biovent	écrivent

French has two words for the subject pronoun "you": tu and vous. For a singular "you", tu should only be used for friends, peers, relatives, children, or anyone else who's very familiar to you.

In all other cases and also for plurals, the more polite vous should be used to show respect. When in doubt, use vous.

Plurals

Many French words have plural forms. Plural nouns and adjectives can be formed by appending an -s to the singular, but remember that this -s is usually silent.

• homme ("man") ⇒ hommes ("men")

• femme ("woman") ⇒ femmes ("women")

• chat noir ("black cat") ⇒ chats noirs ("black cats")

Pronouns, adjectives, and articles must agree with their nouns in both gender and number. Consider the examples below and note how the article and adjective change to agree with each noun.

• Masculine singular: Le chat noir — The black cat

• Masculine plural: Les chats noirs — The black cats

• Feminine singular: La robe noire — The black dress

• Feminine plural: Les robes noires — The black dresses

Notes : Not all adjectives change forms. For instance, riche is the same for both masculine and feminine singular nouns.

Gallicism

A gallicism is a phrase or grammatical construction peculiar to the French language.

When describing people and things with a noun after être in French, you usually can't use the personal subject pronoun like il, elle, ils, and elles. Instead, you must use the impersonal pronoun ce, which can also mean "this" or "that". Note that ce is invariable, so it can never be ces sont.

	Impersonal Subject Pronoun	Personal Subject Pronoun
Singular	c'est	il/elle est
Plural	ce sont	ils/elles sont

These pronouns aren't interchangeable. The basic rule is that you must use ce when être is followed by any determiner—for instance, an article or a possessive adjective(my, your...). Note that c'est should be used for singulars and ce sont should be used for plurals.

• C'est un homme. — He's a man. / This is a man. / That is a man.

• Ce sont des chats. — They're cats. / These are cats. / Those are cats.

• C'est la fille. — She is the girl. / This is the girl. / That is the girl.

• Ce sont les femmes. — They are the women. / These are the women. / Those are the women.

  If an adjective, adverb, or both appear after être, then use the personal pronoun.

• Elle est belle. — She is beautiful. (Or "It is beautiful.")

• Il est très fort. — He is very strong. (Or "It is very strong.")

  As you know, nouns generally need determiners, but one important exception is that professions can act as adjectives after être. This is optional; you can also choose to treat them as nouns.

• He is a doctor. — Il est médecin. / C'est un médecin.

  However, c'est should be used when using an adjective to make a general comment about (but not describe) a thing or situation. In this case, use the masculine singular form of the adjective.

• C'est normal ? — Is this normal?

• Non, c'est étrange. — No, this is strange.

To Be and To Have

Être and avoir are the most common verbs in French. Like many common verbs, they have irregular conjugations.

There should be a liaison between ils or elles and ont ("il-zon" or "elle-zon"). The "z" sound is essential here to differentiate between "they are" and "they have", so be sure to emphasize it.

These two verbs are very important because they can act as auxiliary verbs in French, but they differ from their English equivalents. "I write" and "I am writing" both translate to j'écris, not je suis écris.

Another important distinction is that avoir means "to have" in the sense of "to possess", but not "to consume" or "to experience". Other verbs must be used for these meanings.

One of the most common idioms in French is the use of the verb avoir in certain places where English would use the verb "to be". This is especially common for states or conditions that a person may experience.

• Elle a chaud. — She is warm. (Or "She feels warm.")

• Il a froid. — He is cold.

• Elle a deux ans. — She is two years old.

• J'ai peur ! — I am afraid!

Continuous Tenses

English has two present tenses: simple ("I write") and continuous ("I am writing"), but French has no specialized continuous verb tenses. This means that "I write", "I am writing", and "I do write" can translate to j'écris (not je suis écris) and vice versa.

However, the idiomatic phrase « être en train de » is often used to indicate that someone is in the process of doing something.

• Je suis en train de manger. — I am [in the process of] eating.

When translating, remember that English stative verbs have no continuous forms. For instance, « j'aime un garçon » cannot be translated as "I am loving a boy".

Excerpt

un journal (a newspaper)

Tu es riche.(He is rich.)

Le chat noir est calme.(The black cat is calm.)

La fille a un livre.(The girl has a book.)

Le garçon mange une pizza. (The girl is eating a pizza.)

La fille a une robe rouge.(The girl has a red dress. )

C'est une fille et elle est calme. (She is a girl and she is calm. )

Mnemonic learning trick：Men have education. Women have all the money. (La livre is the pound, lb or £.) )