Download Grammar 2 study guide

Grammar 2 study guide
Articles- an article marks a noun. In French, the article also
shows whether the next noun is masculine, feminine or plural.
A, An, Some
“A, an, some” are indefinite articles in English.
In French, the indefinite articles are: un, une, des.
Use them to refer to one of a larger group or a group of an indefinite number.
Masc.
un
C’est un poster.
That’s a poster.
Fem. une
Montrez-moi un livre!
Show me a book!
Plural (both masc. and fem.)
des
To make any noun plural, start with the article. Once you change that to the
plural form, most of the time you add “s” to the end of the noun (even though you
cannot pronounce it!)
un cahier – des cahiers
une fenêtre–des fenêtres
A couple of exceptions to adding “s” are :
Any noun that ends in the letters –eu, -au, -eau
un tableau –des tableaux
A noun that ends in “eu”, “au” or “eau” takes an X instead of S to make it plural.
un DVD – des DVD
Nouns that are just abbreviations have a plural article but add nothing to the noun
itself.
Un lecteur de DVD – des lecteurs de DVD
A compound noun should only add S to the base part of the noun. Just like in
English, (We say Classrooms – not classesrooms, right?).
Conjugating verbs
Conjugation- to adapt the verb to each new subject.
In French, each verb is conjugated 6 times.
There are both regular and irregular conjugations.
Infinitive- the un-conjugated form of any verb.
In English, infinitives are to + any verb.
In French, all infinitives end in the letters ER, IR or RE.
Avoir- to have
J’___________ Nous ______________
Tu___________Vous_______________
On
__Ils________________
Il, Elle
Elles
If your sentence starts with a noun instead of one of these pronouns,
choose the one that equals the noun. See examples below:
Suzanne ________ une chaise.
Suzanne a une chaise.
Suzanne is one girl so she equals “elle”.
Watch for compound subjects:
Paul et Monique ______ des hamburgers. Paul et Monique ont des hamburgers.
One boy plus one girl equals “ils”.
Chloé et moi ____ des cartes.
Chloé et moi, nous avons des cartes.
A name combined with “moi” equals “nous”.
A name combined with “toi” equals “vous”
Negation
A sentence in French becomes negative by adding 2 words: ne…pas. As
you can see, do not put them next to each other!
The “ne” goes after the subject + the “pas” goes after the verb.
In the sentence : Suzanne a la chaise. Suzanne is the subj and a is the verb.
The negative:
Suzanne n’a pas la chaise
Pas de training!
If the noun has le, la or les with it, it stays the same.
If the noun has un, une or des with it, it changes to de.
Suzanne a une chaise.
Suzanne n’a pas de chaise.