French 1 Chapitre 1 Grammaire 2

Indefinite articles Indefinite articles in English are a, an, and some and go before nouns. Ex: a dog, an apple, some chairs Indefinite articles in French are un, une, and des and go before nouns. Ex: un garçon, une fenêtre, des posters

Indefinite articles In French all nouns have gender (meaning they are either masculine or feminine) and number (meaning they are either singular or plural). The gender of nouns must be memorized. The article used with nouns must be the same gender as the nouns.

Indefinite articles un – a, an (masculine) une – a, an (feminine) des – some (plural) de/d’ – only used in negative sentences Ex: un garçon – a boy ***You must use the masculine article “un” because garçon (boy) is masculine and singular.

Plural nouns To make most nouns plural, add an –s to the end of the noun. The final –s will be silent. Ex: un garçon – a boy des garçons – some boys Ex: une fenêtre – a window des fenêtres – some windows

Plural nouns Some nouns have plurals that are formed differently. un tableau  des tableaux un bureau  des bureaux un CD/DVD  des CD/DVD (no change) un lecteur de CD/DVD  des lecteurs de CD/DVD

Indefinite articles in negative sentences *To say there aren’t any of an item, remember to use il n’y a pas de/d’. Ex: Il y a des cartes dans la classe. - There are some maps in the class. Ex: Il n’y a pas de cartes dans la classe. - There aren’t any maps in the class.

Verbs In order to use a verb in a sentence, it must change forms to agree with the subject. We call this conjugating a verb. In its simplest form, a verb is in the infinitive form. In English, an infinitive is a verb with the word “to” in front of it. Ex: to eat, to run, to walk, to talk, to write, to speak, to listen, to watch, etc.

Verbs In French, infinitives will either end in –er, –ir, or –re. Verbs can either be regular (meaning they follow a pattern) or irregular (meaning they do not follow a pattern).

Verbs All languages have a large number of irregular verbs, and all forms of those verbs must be memorized. Ex: to be I am we are you are you are he is they are she is it is

avoir – to have j’ ai nous avons tu as vous avez il, elle, on a ils, elles ont

Verbs Noun subjects (such as Pierre et Jean) use the same verb form as the pronoun you would use to replace them. In English you would replace Pierre and Jean with the subject pronoun They. In French you would replace Pierre et Jean with the subject pronoun Ils. Ex: Pierre et Jean ont deux chaises. Ils ont deux chaises.

Negative sentences To make a sentence negative, add ne…pas around the verb. Notice that ne become n’ before a vowel sound. Ex: Ça va. Ça ne va pas. It’s going fine. It’s not going fine. Ex: Cléo a un poster. Cléo n’a pas de poster. Cléo has a poster. Cléo does not have a poster.