Archive for 'Grammar'
Quoi de neuf?* Posted by Tim Hildreth on Oct 4, 2016
It’s not always easy to keep up with the news, but a number of recent stories out of France and Canada caught my eyes and I thought I’d share some of them with you this week. Up first, some exciting news about one of the world’s great villes francophones (French-speaking cities). Québec has just been…
MDR* Posted by Tim Hildreth on Sep 27, 2016
Sometimes all you want to do is laugh. Au bureau la semaine dernière (Last week at work), I was introduced to a very funny video that I thought I’d share with you, chers lecteurs (dear readers). A collègue (coworker) over heard me speaking French with another collègue and thought we’d get a kick out of…
The French Causative Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Sep 19, 2016
The causative construction in French is somewhat self-explanatory. This kind of grammatical construction occurs when the subject causes something to happen rather than doing the action themselves. So, for example, a causative construction would be needed if you are describing that someone else will do the action of the sentence besides the subject of the sentence…
Never Ever be Confused by This French Word Again! Posted by Josh Dougherty on Sep 15, 2016
Bonjour, tout le monde ! As a French student, you already know that the language is beautiful, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a little tricky. When you learn a second language, you start to notice a few things about your native tongue that you may have never considered before. Why is our grammar…
Les Adjectifs Démostratifs (Demonstrative Adjectives) Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Sep 13, 2016
What are demonstrative adjectives, you may ask? While the term may sound scary, we use them all of the time. Demonstrative adjectives are adjectives that “demonstrate” or point out a particular noun. In English, these include this, that, these, and those. In French, there are only four adjectifs démonstratifs: ce, cet, cette, and ces. As with most adjectives in French, they must agree…
French Compound Prepositions: Part 2 Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Aug 29, 2016
Last week, we went over some common compound prepositions in French that situate people or objects in relation to one another (particularly in regard to place/location). This week, let’s focus on compound prepositions that create a different link between nouns. As described last week, some prepositions directly situate one object compared to the location of…
French Compound Prepositions: Part 1 Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Aug 22, 2016
In previous posts, the French team has explored different kinds of French prepositions, including a basic overview of prepositions and proper preposition use with different countries. Prepositions (prépositions) are words or groups of words that show a relationship between one thing and another in a sentence. For example, a preposition might link the location of one…