French Language Blog

French You Already Know

Posted on 19. May, 2012 by Sean Young in Vocabulary

As an English speaker, you know more French than you realize. The French language is the great-great-great grandchild of Latin. And after the year 1066 the English language has borrowed hundreds and hundreds of words from Latin (through French). So believe it or not, French and English share literally thousands of cognates (words that are shared by two languages that are identical or similar in form and meaning).

This will definitely make learning French a lot easier. French cognates are formed by learning a few simple rules and applying them to many of the English words without a problem.

One thing to keep in mind though is although these French words may look similar to the English words, the pronunciation is different. Always try to watch for the differences. You’ll see that many cognates are formed by changing just one or two letters at the end of the word:

secret, médecine, information, direction, adresse, client, destin, professeur, distance, littérature, famille

Nouns

Originally, the Latin word for noun was the same as the Latin word for name – nominum. A noun is a name of a person, place, thing or abstract quality. French speakers like to use the word nom (notice it’s a shortened form of nominum?)

Take a look at the following nouns. Safe to say, almost anyone with the most basic knowledge of French can see what they mean. And that’s the beauty of it – you don”t have to learn them, you already know them!

art, brave, bureau, client, concert, condition, content, courage, cousin, culture, différent, excellent, garage, guide, important, journal, machine, message, moment, nation, nièce, orange, parent, possible, principal, probable, question, radio, restaurant, rose, rouge, route, science, secret, service, signal, silence, solitude, sport, station, statue, suggestion, surprise, table, taxi, tennis, train, urgent, violet, voyage, zoo

Nouns – Feminine gender

Trying to remember the gender of a noun may seem almost impossible with the rules and exceptions to the rule, grammar needs, etc. But if you look closely, you will see that French actually tells you what gender is used for each noun, pronoun or adjective. The end of a word is a great way to find out what gender you need.

Here are some words that are of the feminine gender. I have highlighted the endings that commonly indicate the feminine gender: promenade, lemonade, naissance, difference, mémoire, victoire, impression, condition, saison, maison, liberté, idée

Here are some masculine nouns with the gender endings highlighted: fromage, auteur, capitalisme, féminisme, appartement, cinema*, bureau*.

If you keep these in mind (feel free to print this out if you need), you’ll see that memorizing every word’s gender the traditional way is too much work. You can pretty much guess the gender and correctly use il and elle. Of course, you will find exceptions to this rule. You will see nouns that end in -e that are not feminine, but masculine, and take a different type of definite article. Let’s take a look at this now.

*Note: if a noun ends in a vowel other than –e, it is masculine

The Articles

All French nouns are preceded by either definite or indefinite articles. The definite articles are equivalent to the English word the. This means the noun you’re speaking about is a definite item you’re indicating. For example, if I need a hammer and I ask you to reach into the toolbox to hand it to me, I will say “Please hand me the hammer” (as opposed to the screwdriver, wrench or any other tool).

The definite article for masculine nouns is le: le bureau, le client, le concert, le courage, le cousin, le garage, le guide, le journal, le message, le moment, le parent, le restaurant, le secret, le service, le signal, le silence, le sport, le taxi, le tennis, le train, le voyage, le zoo

For feminine nouns we have la: la condition, la culture, la machine, la nation, la nièce, la question, la radio, la rose, la route, la science, la solitude, la station, la statue, la suggestion, la surprise, la table

Check Yourself – Put the correct article on the following words:

______ brave, ______ bureau, ______ client, ______ concert, ______ condition, ______ content, ______ courage, ______ cousin, ______ culture, ______ différent, ______ excellent, ______ garage, ______ guide, ______ important, ______ journal, ______ machine, ______ message, ______ moment, ______ nation, ______ nièce, ______ parent, ______ possible, ______ principal, ______ probable, ______ question, ______ radio, ______ restaurant, ______ rose, ______ rouge, ______ route, ______ science, ______ secret, ______ service, ______ signal, ______ silence, ______ solitude, ______ sport, ______ station, ______ statue, ______ suggestion, ______ surprise, ______ table, ______ taxi, ______ tennis, ______ train, ______ urgent, ______ violet, ______ voyage, ______ zoo

The Indefinite Article

The indefinite article does not refer to any specific object or person. As an example in English, we have: A cat ran across the road; A woman called this morning. In these sentences, there is not specific cat or woman identified. The English indefinite article is represented by the words ‘a’ and ‘an’.

The indefinite articles in French are un (masculine) and une (feminine); these are all equivalent to the English words a, an, or some.

Let’s take the same list, and put in the correct indefinite article:

______ brave, ______ bureau, ______ client, ______ concert, ______ condition, ______ content, ______ courage, ______ cousin, ______ culture, ______ différent, ______ excellent, ______ garage, ______ guide, ______ important, ______ journal, ______ machine, ______ message, ______ moment, ______ nation, ______ nièce, ______ parent, ______ possible, ______ principal, ______ probable, ______ question, ______ radio, ______ restaurant, ______ rose, ______ rouge, ______ route, ______ science, ______ secret, ______ service, ______ signal, ______ silence, ______ solitude, ______ sport, ______ station, ______ statue, ______ suggestion, ______ surprise, ______ table, ______ taxi, ______ tennis, ______ train, ______ urgent, ______ violet, ______ voyage, ______ zoo

Plural Nouns

How did you do? Pretty easy so far, isn’t it? But we’re not done yet. Let’s look at talking about more than one item – plural nouns. In English, we have all kinds of rules to form a plural word: add an -s, add an -es, change -f- to -v- and add -es, change the vowel in the middle of a word…..that’s enough to give you a headache if you think about it. The good news is, forming a plural noun in French is very easy. For most (not all) nouns you simply put an -s on the end. That’s it, nothing more to do. Let me show you how it’s done.

garcon – garcons
fille – filles

Words that end in s, x and z don’t change:
prix – prix
fils – fils

Plural Articles

Hold on, plural articles? The words ‘the’, ‘a’ and ‘an’ can be made plural in French? That’s right. French has a rule that if the noun is in the plural form, then the article is also in the plural form – this is what’s called “agreement”. For the definite article, it is les: les garcons, les filles, les prix, les fils

For the indefinite article, it’s des: des garcons, des filles, des prix, des fils

Easy Translation Work

Would you like to try out some very easy translating work? You’ll find that English has many hundreds of words that are practically the same in French! So translating these should be a piece of cake

calcular la distance.
participer en classe avec enthousiasme.
séparer la classe en deux groups (deux = two)
cultiver la plante.
accentuer le positif, éliminer le négatif
estimer le coût.
tolérer l’insulte.
évaluer la situation
négocier le contrat
accélérer l’automobile.
déléguer la responsabilité à la police.
des études de sociologie à l’Université
déclarer la possibilité de progrès dans la communauté.
identifier la nationalité d’une personne.
éliminer la difficulté.
célébrer la liberté
participer à une activité
aggraver la situation.
voter à une élection
commémorer l’occasion.
capter l’attention de l’auditoire
la résistance à l’attaque
participer à une conférence.
condamner la violence
célébrer l’anniversaire de l’indépendance

Always keep an eye out for these words that don’t require a lot of learning. It will help to speed up your French learning tactics.

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About Sean Young

Learning languages since 1978 and studying over 50 (achieving fluency in 10). Sean L. Young loves giving tips, advice and the secrets you need to learn a language successfully no matter what language you're learning. Currently studying Hindi and blogging his progress right here at Transparent Language - http://blogs.transparent.com/language-news.

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