French Adverbs

French Adverbs

adverbs ending:

French Adverbs usually add (-ment) to their feminine adjective form, the equivalent of (-ly) in English, for example: the adjective slow in French is (lent for masculine, and lente for feminine) now we only need the feminine to form an adverb, we will add (-ment) to it, so (slowly) would be (lentement). Easy!

Well there are some exceptions though, like if an adjective ends in an (i), then (-ment) is added to the masculine singular form, instead of to the feminine singular form: poli becomes poliment (politely)

If the adjective ends in (-ant) or (-ent), then the adverb ends in (-amment) or (-emment) which will be added to the root, and not to the whole adjective:

récent becomes récemment (recently)

Some other adjectives make odd adverbs like: gentil becomes gentiment (nicely).

Just like in English, not all the time an adverb has (-ly) at the end. And so is the case in French, some adverbs take an irregular form like:

bon becomes bien (well), mauvais becomes mal (badly)

The position of an adverb is almost like the position of an adjective sometimes it comes before or after the element it modifies. An adverb that modifies an adjective or adverb comes before that adjective or adverb. J'ai été immédiatement convaincu … (I was immediately convinced…).

When the adverb is modifying a verb, it is placed after the verb: J’ai bien domi (I slept well).


The list below contains many irregular adverbs as well as regular ones, but note that the irregular adverbs are the most used, so they would come handy if you memorize them by heart:

List of French Adverbs:

french Adjectives

french Adjectives

adjectives ending:

Just like in English, French adjectives describe or modify nouns and pronouns, but unlike English, French adjectives should agree in gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural) with the noun or pronoun they modify. The feminine is usually formed by adding an      “-e” to the masculine form, for example: a big restaurant = un grand restaurant/ a big house = une grande maison. (“house” in French is feminine, so the adjective “big/ grand” will add an extra “e”)

To form adjectives in the plural usually an “s” should be added to the singular masculine: the big restaurant: le grand restaurant, the big restaurants: les grands restaurants. Remember that the feminine plural will take an “es”: a big house = une grande maison, big houses: des grandes maisons.

French adjectives usually follow the noun they modify: a white house: une maison blanche. But when it comes to some characters like: beauty, age, good or bad, and size usually the adjective comes first: (an old frined: un vieux ami), (a beautiful girl: une jolie fille)

Some adjectives can be placed either before or after depending on the meaning: un grand acteur: a great actor/ un acteur grand: a tall actor.

French adjectives list:

French Articles

French Articles

Definite Articles:

French Articles must agree in gender and number with their nouns, so looking at the definite articles for example, to express “the” in French you need to know what gender and number the noun is using, to say “the house” you need to figure out its gender, “house/ maison” in French for some reason is feminine, and of course we’re talking here only about one house (singular), so the proper article to use is “la”, the house = la maison.

Milk is masculine in French, to say “the milk” we need to use the definite article for masculine/singular “le” with “lait/ milk” we get “le lait”

Sometimes you may need to use the definite article (l’) instead of (le/ la) when the noun starts with a vowel, like (a, e, o, u, h…), the school: l’école.

Finally to form the definite article in the plural we use “les”, “the kings = les rois”.

Note that French sometimes uses the articles in places where English don’t. for example in English you can simply say “kings are ….” without “the” but in French you have to use the definite article “les” with the word “rois = kings” les rois …”. Same thing with “milk”…you can say “milk is very rich in calcium” but in French you have to use the “le” before “lait” “le lait est très riche en calcium”.

Indefinite Articles:

French indefinite articles are gender/number sensitive as well, so to express “a” in French you need to know what gender and number the noun is using, to say “a house” you need to figure out its gender, “house/ maison” in French is feminine, and we’re talking here only about one house (singular), so the proper article to use is “une”, a house = une maison.

“Computer” in French is masculine, to say “a computer” we need to use the indefinite article for masculine/singular “un” with “ordinateur” we get “un ordinateur”.

Note, unlike English, where you don’t use the indefinite article in the plural, French does use it in the plural with the expression “les”, the closest equivalent in English is “some”, (I have a pencil, an eraser, and (some) books = j’ai un crayon, une gomme, et des livres”.

Partitive Articles:

The partitive in French is used to indicate a part of a whole, since it’s not used in English the closest would be “some” or “a piece of”,

So to say “I have (some) meat, oil, and (some) bread” you need to use the proper partitive articles: “J’ai de la viande, de l'huile, et du pain”.

This is an overview of the French articles:

Demonstrative Articles:

Again French demonstrative articles have to agree in gender and number with the noun they precede.

In French you don’t really have to specify if something is near (this) or far (that), they’re all understood by context, but still in some cases you need to, when there some confusion, so the solution is to add -ci (here) and -là (there) after the noun. Below is a table showing the exact equivalent, which you need to use when you think there is a need for it:

Example: cette maison-là {that house (there)}, A ce moment-ci (at this very moment), ces gens-là (these people).

French Numbers

French Numbers

French Cardinal Numbers:

French Numbers are easy to learn, cardinal numbers are a piece of cake if you understand the logic behind them, from 0 to 16 you will find unique words, that you just need to memorize as is. 17-18-19 are composed words meaning (10-7) (10-8) (10-9).(check the table above). So now you can easily count to 20.

The logic that number from 20- 100 follow is just like English, for example {23= twenty (vingt)- three (trois) note that there is a hyphen (-) in between… there are only some exceptions:

Numbers 21, 31, 41, 51...should have an extra “et” in between, it’s like saying (20 et 1) or (twenty and one) (thirty and one). It happens only when you add the number “1”.

Another exception is that if you want to say 70 or 90 in French you would say it like: 60-10 for 70, and 80-10 for 90, all the numbers from 70 to 79 and from 90 to 99 are formed that way, so to say 73 you will need to think of what the number 60 is in French, then think of what 13 is in French put them together and that’s it.

Same thing with 90 …99, to say 92 you need to think of what is 80 in French then 12 as well, in other words we don’t say: Soixante-dix-trois for 73, but Soixante-treize.

Finally when the numbers 5, 6, 8, and 10 are used before a number beginning with a consonant, their final consonants are not pronounced, for example Cinq cent (500) is pronounced as if the “q” doesn’t exist.

It’s easy to master this your first day if you look at the table above and read the notes following it carefully.

French Ordinal Numbers:

Once you have mastered the cardinal numbers, you will have no problem at all learning ordinal numbers, because they simply add -ième to the cardinal numbers. Some small exceptions are: numbers ending in an “e” must drop it and add -ième, for example quatre = 4, quatrième = 4th. Also for pronunciation reasons you have to add a “u” after numbers ending in “q” like cinq = 5, cinquième = 5th. Finally numbers ending in “f” take a “v” instead like: 9 = neuf. Neuvième = 9th.

Note that first has two forms, masculine (premier), and feminine (première) with an extra “e” as you have noticed.

Don’t confuse 2nd = deuxième with 12th = douzième.

French Alphabet

French Alphabet

French Alphabet has the same number of letters as English 26, but some of them have “accents” and “cedilla”, that doesn’t make their pronunciation different, only to distinguish them from other similar looking words except the cedilla ç, which is pronounced as “S” and never as “k”. The table below shows how the French letters are pronounced.

French Alphabet:

Aa as in the word “ask” and never as in the word “able”

Bb same as in English

Cc like “s” before "i" or "e" and when it has the cedilla “ç”; otherwise like "k” in Creole.

Dd same as in English (many words in French alphabet are the same)

Ee as in “elevated”

Ff same as in English

Gg like the "s" in the word “pleasure” before "e" or "i"; otherwise like the "g" in "God", never pronounced as “dj”.

Hh silent most of the time.

Ii as in the word “ink” never as in the word “island”

Jj as in Job, but without the “d” pronounced before the J, never as {djob} but {job}

Kk same as in English

Ll same as in English

Mm same as in English

Nn same as in English

Oo same as in English “Old” never as in “Hot” which is pronounced somehow like {hat}

Pp same as in English

Qq same as in English

Rr same as in English but slightly like as in “gh” as in Merci

Ss same as in English

Tt same as in English not as sharp.

Uu as in the “ultra”, never as in the word “up” or “university”

Vv same as in English

Ww as in English although rare (mainly found in borrowed words)

Xx same as in English

Yy same as in English although rare.

Zz same as in English

As you may have noticed, many letters in French alphabet are the same as English, the pronunciation is a little bit different sometimes, but in general French letters look the same, and sound the same, so learning them would be a breeze!

Language Tools

Language Tools

Memory:

Since vocabulary occupies a large place in every language, it can make or break your learner quest, vocabulary is often a matter of associating a meaningless collection of syllables with a word in your own language. Usually people associate these words by repetition or by saying the word in their own language and the foreign language many times over. You can improve on this tedious way of learning by using for example the following technique:

Mnemonics to link words, this method is based on using images to link a word in your own language with a word in a foreign language. For example, if you're learning Spanish, and learned that bread in Spanish is "el pan", to make it easy to memorize this new word, imagine bread on a frying , which will help you one connect one thing to another in case you forgot. This is called the LinkWord technique, it can speed up your memorization efficiency and therefore save you a lot of time, but you have to be creative and make a good association that you may not forget.

Practice:

it's what keeps you in the right path, first because it allows you to "play" with what you already know, and discover what you don't know, also it helps you learn new things and best of all it prevent you from forgetting what you already learned. Practice lets you know your level, and by knowing your actual level you can determine your next level would be.

Motivation:

it's what keeps you going, and that's something you really need more than anything, because many language learners lose interest within the first stages of their learning quest, that will not only mean that there will be no improvement, but also may put everything you learned before at risk, because lack of motivation leads to lack of practice, and gradually you will forget most of what you know.

Language Components

Language Components

Vocabulary:

You will be amazed to know that normal people use only about 4000 words as their vocabulary source, even though a language could contain a million word, still only a very small part of it is used in the every day life, which is a good news. Another good and surprising new is that 50% of the words used everyday make only between 100 to 200 words. So my advice to you is that when you memorize words, try to prioritize based on your needs, give priority to words you think you may need in a normal conversations ... A smart way around vocabulary can save you a lot of time and enables you to speed up your learning process. You may want to memorize a number of words everyday, the number would depend on how much time you can dedicate to that and also how fast you want to learn the language. Let's say you decided to memorize 20 words everyday, remember that the more you memorize the harder it gets, once you memorized today's 20 words, tomorrow you will have first to see if you still remember today's vocabulary, then you can add tomorrow's 20 new words, and so on.

Grammar:

it's the element that helps you manipulate the vocabulary you already learned. It doesn't make sense to have a car without knowing how to drive it; grammar shows you how to "drive" your vocabulary. How to play with words, which word to place first or last, how to shape a word depending on the situation and needs, also it helps you enrich your vocabulary, and show you tricks that can double the number of words you know just by simply showing you a rule to follow, for example,you learned some words (adjectives) like: natural, historical, exact, proud ... Grammar will tell you that if you add "-ly" to these words you will get an adverb that can work in a whole different situation, that would allow you to use what you already memorized and "create" others words from the original ones such as "naturally, historically, exactly, proudly... this rule could apply to thousands of adjectives, that's a lot of time saved,This exists in all languages not just English. Grammar will help you shape your vocabulary the way you want, just like clay, you can make different shapes out of one piece of soft clay, and so can you with one word.

Writing:

now you reached the part where you can combine vocabulary and grammar, and putting what you learned into practice. For example  you have memorized the German words: Freund, aus, Deutschland, and you learned in grammar how to use the possessive (mein/e, dein/e, sein/e...) also how to use the verb (kommen: komme, kommst, kommt...), that will help you write a sentence like: mein Freund Gerhard kommt aus Deutschland (my friend Gerhard is from Germany).

Basically writing is your first practice of what you have learned from vocabulary and grammar. There are many ways you can write and learn at the same time, chatting or writing letters to penpals is a good way to start.

Listening & Speaking:

when listening you're the "receiver", so always pay attention to "what" is said and "how" it's said. Because before speaking you need to know how things are pronounced, if you're a new learner it may seem that the speaker is speaking very fast, the more you improve the more your ears get adjusted, because your brain will be processing the words at a faster pace due to some experience you gained. And since you're the receiver you will be able to learn new things that you can add to your vocabulary list as well as to your grammar.

Speaking is just like writing; the one difference is that you need to use your mouth instead of your pen. This will test all what you learned (vocabulary, grammar, writing and listening), it takes more effort and your brain works harder because in addition to "putting all your skills into practice" you will have to do that way faster. When you write you have enough time to write ideas and see if they're well organized, check for errors, change ideas ... but you don't have that comfort when you speak, Speaking is more straightforward. The good news is that after enough practice, speaking will become natural, almost like your native language, you will be using some efforts but subconsciously, and maybe speaking will become the easiest thing to do.

How to learn a foreign

How to learn a foreign language

How to learn a foreign language is the one million dollar question, but actually there is no magic answer, it is suggested that many aspects should be taken into consideration, as well as some tools used to learn a new language, the good news is that there are methods and techniques that could be used for that purpose.

Language Components                        Language Tools  

Vocabulary                                                                    Memory 

Grammar                                                                       Practice 

Writing                                                                          Motivation

Listening & Speaking

you will Learn

In this blog you will Learn:

French Grammar

Alphabet

Numbers

Articles

Adjectives

Adverbs

Verbs

Present Tense

Past Tense

Future Tense

Imperfect

Imperative

Nouns

Pronouns

Conjunction

Negation

Subjunctive

Conditional

Comparative

Prepositions

Vocabulary & Writing

French Vocabulary

Food Terms

Basic Phrases

French Expressions

Write a French Letter

French Test 

French How-To's

How To Order Properly In A Restaurant

How To Deal With Law Enforcement

How To Go To A Game Or Show

How To Make A Reservation

How To Make Conversation

How To Never Get Lost And Ask For Directions

How To Shop

How To Write a Letter

How To Make a Phone Call  

Learn French

Learn French

To learn French is very important because it's spoken by about 265 million people in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada, Switzerland, Italy, the U.S, Lebanon, French Guiana, north, west and central Africa, Madagascar and many other countries.

You will learn how to speak French for free, we will cover French grammar, French vocabulary and phrases and the blog will always add new features and subjects to help learners expand their knowledge constantly.

French is a great language to learn. It is considered the most romantic language by many. It is also widely spoken.

French is the primary or secondary language of about 265 million people in the world. Most people know that French is spoken in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada, and Switzerland, but did you know French is used in many other places around the world, such as French Guiana, many parts of Africa, and Haiti?

French played a big role as an international language in diplomacy and commerce as well as among educated people during the last few centuries. It still enjoys great prestige culturally and is one of the languages used officially by the United Nations.

In general French is considered an elegant language, not hard to learn as long as you have a strong determination. In this section you will learn how to speak French. We will cover French grammar, vocabulary, French phrases, and more!