Laura K. Lawless

Keep this Cheat Sheet handy as you're learning French. It's a great quick reference when you need to check definite, indefinite, and partitive articles; personal pronouns, identify être verbs, and need help with other particulars of French grammar.Definite, indefinite, and partitive articlesYou use articles with nouns to indicate something about those nouns.

If you’re ready to move beyond the basics in French and want to improve your skills at reading, writing, or speaking in French, start by reviewing the three types of French articles, the French contractions formed with à and de, and French personal pronouns.Learning the correct object pronoun word order and identifying verbs that use être as their auxiliary verb will boost your confidence when speaking French.

In French, the passé compose is a compound verb tense, meaning it has two parts: an auxiliary verb and a past participle. French has two auxiliary verbs, avoir or être, and most main verbs use avoir. Memorize the following short list of verbs, which refer to coming and going (both literally and figuratively) that use être: aller (to go) arriver (to arrive) descendre (to descend ) entrer (to enter ) monter (to climb) mourir (to die) naître (to be born) partir (to leave) passer (to pass [by, in front of, behind] ) rester (to stay ) retourner (to return) sortir (to go out ) tomber (to fall ) venir (to come) In addition, pronominal verbs use être: je me suis levé (I got up.

Everyone makes mistakes, but you can avoid many, if not most, of them by paying extra attention to typical problem areas. Following are three things you should avoid doing if you want to write French like a native. Don't translate word for word One of the worst things you can do is translate word for word. Some French words have more than one English equivalent, and vice versa, and some words have no true equivalent.

A basic, singular noun refers to just one of something: a book, the cheese, my house. In English, that's about all there is to know about singular nouns. French, however, adds a little more to it: Every noun has a gender (genre), either masculine or feminine. Determining the gender of nouns In French, all nouns have a gender.

In French, there are three kinds of articles (small words you can only use with nouns): definite, indefinite, and partitive. The purpose of an article is to present a noun and indicate its gender and number. This chart represents articles and how to use them in French writing and language: Gender/Number Defin

To effectively use French object pronouns, you need to understand what they mean and where they go in the sentence. In the affirmative imperative, direct-object pronouns (like reflexive pronouns) follow the verb and are attached to it with hyphens; in addition, me changes to moi and te changes to toi. This ch

Simply put, pronouns replace nouns. Pronouns refer to people, places, things, and ideas, without having to use the same nouns over and over. The French language uses five types of personal pronouns. These French pronouns are the equivalents to I/me, you, or he/him/it: Person Subject Pronoun Direct Object Pronoun Indirect Object Pronoun Reflexive Pronoun 1st person singular je me me me 2nd person singular tu te te te 3rd person singular (masc.