Archive for 'Grammar'
Which State/Province Are You From? Expressing Location in French Posted by Josh Dougherty on Sep 3, 2015
I’ve been writing about prepositions with certain verbs lately, but today I’d like to discuss prepositions referring to American states and Canadian provinces (still worth reading if you’re not from those places – can never have too much grammar 😉 ) A while back, we wrote a post on how to say you’re from, living…
Can You BRING Me to My French Class? No, but I Can TAKE You… Posted by Josh Dougherty on Aug 27, 2015
Unless you are already on the moon, I’m not going to say this to you! It doesn’t matter how much I want to go there. Logically speaking, ‘bring’ and ‘take’ shouldn’t cause too much confusion, but I hear native speakers make this mistake time and time again (talking about English, by the way). “I’m going to…
French Verbs with No Prepositions Posted by Josh Dougherty on Aug 14, 2015
Continuing with the verbs and prepositions series (miss the previous posts? here you go!), this week I’m going to be discussing an aspect that is right up the alley of those who translate word for word. Translating word for word can be dangerous, especially if you’re trying to use an idiom, but with verb phrases…
Using “à” with French Verbs Posted by Josh Dougherty on Aug 6, 2015
Those mean ol’ prepositions are back! In a previous post, I discussed how prepositions were a problem for me and many others when starting to learn a language. There’s no rhyme or reason as to why certain prepositions are used, and if you use the wrong one, the whole meaning can change. Think about it…
How to Guess the Gender of French Nouns Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Jun 29, 2015
One of the hardest things about French is memorizing the genders of nouns. In the beginning, it’s based on pure memorization. However, after a while, many non-native French speakers will tell you that they just have a feeling about a word, even if its one they’ve never heard before. But, as the band Boston puts…
French Adverb Spelling Tips! Posted by Josh Dougherty on Jun 25, 2015
Adverbs are a fun little part of a language – they’re used to modify adjectives, prepositions, verbs, and even other adverbs. La bonne nouvelle (the good news)? They’re invariable! No need to worry about all those tricky agreement rules. La mauvaise nouvelle (the bad news)? They sometimes follow pretty specific placement rules. Ok, the rules…
Where Does The French Muffin Man Live? Posted by John Bauer on Jun 10, 2015
Il habite Chemin de Drury. I incorrectly said where I lived many times when I was learning French. The most important thing to remember is that it is not habiter à. En fait (in fact), the most common way to say where you live, when talking about a particular street, is to not use a…