Learn French Grammar Online
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Learning French Grammar Online helps you to learn fast and at your convenient time. Going to classes and spending hours on that is still cool, but if the classes are available at home, invest your time in more practice.
Today we are going to learn French Grammar and how it works? French Grammar is very big in comparison to English Grammar. Before we start the French Grammar with examples, let’s take some introduction to it. So read till the end to learn French faster.
Introduction to French Grammar:
Well, the French Grammar lessons are designed uniquely, so any beginner and intermediate learner can learn the French language easily with the help of this article.
Like the English language, the French language also has three parts Subject, Verb, and Object. The Subject is known as Sujet in the French accent, Verb is Verbe in French, and Object is known as Objet in the French language.
But there are many different things in both the languages, such as nouns, adjectives, and determiners are different in both the languages.
In French, nouns, adjectives, and determiners are modified according to gender, masculine & feminine, and numbers singular & plural.
The French verbs are also divided according to gender (masculine or feminine), number (singular or plural), tense (In French, they are three main tenses: past, present, and future), mood (In French, there are 4 moods: indicative, imperative, conditional and subjunctive) and voice (in French, they are 3 main voices: active/passive/middle or reflexive).
French verbs are hard to learn, and most people get stuck on them. I also get stuck on it, but when you learn that stuff, it gets easier to make the sentences and read them.
Like all other languages, the French language has 2 types of articles: definite and indefinite. Before we move forward with French Grammar, let’s know something about pronunciation. Without pronunciation, you cannot speak French Grammar. So let’s begin with it.
French Pronounciation:
There are five types of French Accents that you can see below.
- Aigu
- Grave
- Cedille
- Trema
- Circonflex
Aigu:
Accent Aigu refers on this vowel “É” and changes the sound to “AY”. You can see below examples are given for Aigu accent.
Vélo (cycle)
Zéro (zero)
Étudiant (student)
École (school)
Été (summer)
Grave:
Accent Grave is also used in vowels “è,” “à,” and “ù” and changes the sound differently in each vowel. Here are some examples.
Fièvre (fever)
Infirmière (nurse)
Très (very)
Là (there)
Où (where)
Cédille:
Accent cédille comes with a hook in only “C” alphabet like this “Ç”. Here are below examples.
çava (ok)
Français (French)
Ça (this)
Tréma:
Accent tréma has two dots over the alphabets just like this “ä”, “ë”, “ï”. Check out below examples.
Canöe (canoe)
Maïs (corn)
Noël (Christmas)
Circonflex:
Accent circonflex has shapow over the alphabets like this “ĉ”, “â”, “î”, “û”, “ô”. Here are the examples.
Gâteau (cake)
Chômage (unemployment)
Île (island)
Dû (past participle of the noun devoir)
French Phonics:
Do you feel that what is the word phonic? Well, phonics means how the word speaks with or without a nasal sound. Here we have some French phonics that is used in daily life. So check out the list.
- Oi: moi,boir,voir
- Ch: châise, chemise,châpeau
- Gn: allemagne , espagne, ligne
- Eau: bateau,châpeau,l’eau
- An: chanteur , anglais,
- En: enchanté, encore,entrer
- In: infirmière, indien,
- Eur: acteur, cœur, peur
- Euse: pareseuse,
- Ou: pour, jour, pouvoir
- ille: travaille, veille, taille
These are the basic French phonics used in the language in daily life. Let’s learn these phonics in detail.
OI:
The “OI” give the sound “UA” such as MOI, TOI, VOIR, BOIR.
CH:
The “CH” give the sound of “SH” such as châise, chemise, châpeau.
GN:
The “GN” give the sound of “NY” such as allemagne , espagne, ligne.
EAU:
The “EAU” give the sound of “O” such as bateau, châpeau, l’eau.
AN:
The “AN” give the sound of “ON” without nasal such as chanteur, anglais.
EN:
The “EN” give the sound of “ON” with nasal such as enchanté, encore, entrer.
IN:
The “IN” give the sound of “EN” such as infirmière, indien.
EUR:
The “EUR” give the sound of “UR” such as acteur, cœur, peur.
EUSE:
The “EUSE” give the sound of “UZ” such as CHANTEUSE, PARESEUSE, MENTEUSE.
AILLE:
The “AILLE” give the sound of “AIY” such as travaille, veille, taille
Well, phonics is finished here; you can hear the French phonic video and understand it much better.
Definite Articles:
Now let’s begin the French grammar, where we start with definite articles. As we all know that in the English language, we use “A,” “The,” and other forms just like that; in French, also we use “le,” “la,” “l’,” and “les.”
The French definite article indicates either a particular noun or, contrarily, the general sense of a noun. First, you must identify whether that sentence is masculine, feminine, singular, or plural.
You need to understand that each definite article is used for a different purpose. The definite French article agrees with the noun in number and sometimes gender, and sometimes it contradicts with prepositions.
Le is used for masculine:
For example:
- Le ciel (the sky)
- Le chat noir (the black cat)
- Le port
La is used for feminine
For Example:
- La monnaie (the currency)
- La fête (the festival)
- La champagne (the champagne)
L’ is used for vowel in French language (a, e, i, o, u, h)
For example:
- L’eau (the water)
- L’ecole (the school)
- L’oiel (the eye)
Les is used for plural
For Example
- Les fromages (the cheese)
- Les yeux (the eyes)
- Les tomatoes (the tomatoes)
Indefinite Articles:
In French, you choose the indefinite article “un,” “une” or “des,” depending on whether the noun is masculine or feminine and singular or plural. Checkout French Indefinite Article video
Un is used as masculine or masculine singular, and it represents “A” in the French accent
For Example:
- Un bus (a bus)
- Un garcon (a boy)
- un stylo (a pen)
Une is used for feminine or feminine singular, and it also represents “A” in the French accent.
For Example:
- Une voiture (the car)
- Une fille (a girl)
- Une montre (a watch)
Des is used for plural, checkout below.
For example:
- Des bus (buses)
- Des garcons (boys)
- Des voiture (cars)
- Singular to plural
Note that in French plural, the final s is in most cases not pronounced, except when there is a “liaison” between two words.
Examples:
- Des maisons éloignées – / distant houses
- Des sommets enneigés – ( snowy peaks)
- The articles and verbs agree with the nouns.
French Prepositions:
| Singular | Plura
l |
|
| Definite articles | Le Masculine La Feminine
L’ In front of a vowel |
les |
| Indefinit e articles | Un Masculine
Une Feminine |
des |
| Partitive articles | Du Masculine de la Feminine de l’ In front of a vowel | des |
- Some singular nouns end in –s, in –x or –z, in this case there is no additional –s.
La souris – les souris (mice)
Le mois – les mois (months)
La voix – les voix (voices)
In French Le nez – les nez (noses)
Le gaz – les gaz (gases)
- There are also irregular nouns that don’t follow any rule:
- Examples:
Le ciel – les cieux (skies)
Un oeil – des yeux ( eyes)
- Nouns and adjectives ending eau – eu – ou – au – oeu have their plural ending in –x. Nouns ending in eau – eu – ou – au – oeu in their plural forms:
| Nouns ending in –bateau (boat) | bateau>bateaux ‘boats’ marteau>marteaux ‘hammers’ eau>eaux ‘waters’ |
| Nous ending in -jeu (game) | jeu>jeux ‘games’ neveu>neveux ‘nephews’ |
| A few nouns ending in –caillou (stone) | bijou>bijoux ‘jewels’ caillou>cailloux ‘pebbles’ chou>choux ‘cabbages’ pou>poux ‘lice’ genou>genoux ‘knee’ hibou>hiboux ‘howl’ joujou>joujoux ‘toy’ |
| Nouns ending in –tuyau (hose) | noyau>noyaux ‘stone (of fruit)/ (core of) tuyau>tuyaux ‘hoses or pipes’ |
| Nouns ending in –voeu (wish) | vœu>vœux ‘wishes’ |
Definite Article With Prepositions:
The definite article contracts with the prepositions “à” and “de” to create a “mutant” form:
À + le = au
Je vais au supermarché (to the supermarket)
À + les = aux
Je parle aux amis de ma soeur (to the friends of my sister)
À + l’ and à + la do not contract.
And
De + le = du
Je ne reviens pas du concert, je reviens de la bibliothèque (from the concert- from the library)
De + les = des
Je parle des amis de ma soeur (about my sister’s friends)
De l’ and de la do not contract.
Conclusion:
In this article, we provide the basics of French Grammar Online. Anyone willing to learn can easily read this and learn this. You can also check out various sources that I added to my article. We wil come up with other ideas in the future. Feel free to share your suggestions with us.
Diksha Jani is a blogger, writer and SEO expert. likes to read books on various topics such as philosophy, history, crime, mythology, psychology, and so on.
