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.
à | 'to, at' |
de | 'of, from' |
dans | 'in' |
sur | 'on' |
par | 'by' |
parmi | 'among' |
entre |
'between' |
pendant avec |
'during' 'with' |
|
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