Summary Chapters 1 & 2

Cognates: The French you already know!

Gender Studies: articles, nouns and adjectives are masculine or feminine in French, how to combine them

and teach them to get along ("agreement").

• in English, many nouns can be used without an article; this is less often the case in French

• in French, articles indicate the gender and number of nouns (animate or inanimate)

• in French, adjectives normally follow the nouns they describe

• in French, all parts of the noun group -- article, noun, adjective -- reflect (and 'agree' based on) the gender and number of the noun

Action ! :

a. infinitives: in English to go, to find, etc. In French, infinitives are single words ending either -er, -ir (occasionally '-oir), or -re: trouver ('to find'), finir ('to finish'), vendre ('to sell'). To a certain degree, these infinitive endings tell us about the conjugation (specific forms) of the verb.

b. conjugation of regular -er verbs (present tense):

example: trouver ('to find')

                      singular                  plural

1st person     je trouve                 nous trouvons

2nd person    tu trouves               vous trouvez

3rd person     il/elle trouve           ils/elles trouvent

Linguistic space: basic French prepositions used with nouns and contrasted with English.

NB: prepositions are among the most idiomatic parts of any language. The above translations are simply the most direct and common equivalents in English. As we go along, we will find some additional, unexpected meanings for these words. À and de, in particular, are asked to play purely grammatical roles that defy automatic translation -- and are sometimes not translated at all.

Grammatical building blocks:

subject pronouns ("I, you, he…"): je, tu, il, elle, on; nous, vous, ils, elles

indefinite articles ('a, an, some'): un (masc. sing.), une (fem. sing.); des (m./f. plural)

definite articles ("the"): le (m.s.), la (f.s.), l' (m./f.s., before a vowel), les (m./f. pl.)

direct object pronouns: le (m.s.), la (f.s.), l' (m./f.s., before a vowel), les (m./f. pl.)

[how do we know if these words are articles or pronouns?]

mandatory contractions: 

de + le [article] = du

de + les [article] = des

à + le [article] = au

à + les [article] = aux

NB: le, la, l', les as pronouns never contract