Archive for 'Grammar'
Using “de” with French Verbs Posted by Josh Dougherty on May 29, 2015
One of my biggest problems when I started learning French was prepositions (quoi?? a preposition is a word showing relation to another word in the clause. Par exemple: I always color outside the lines.). They can be very tricky because new learners will always want to translate their native language into French, and it just…
More Mistakes: Thinking in English Posted by John Bauer on May 27, 2015
Learning from des fautes (mistakes) is always useful. Les Français make many fautes when using French that can make learning the language faster and easier! En même temps (at the same time), there are many fautes that language learners make when their langue maternelle (native language) interferes. I wrote about des fautes French speakers make…
Sorry For Le Temps: Lessons From Mistakes Posted by John Bauer on May 20, 2015
There are many fautes (mistakes) that francophones make in French that are useful. The complicated conjugations also hide how easy things are. Cependant (however), there’s another easy French lesson that is often overlooked! When francophones speak English, they make fautes that show how they are thinking in French and directly translating their thoughts into English…
Spoken French: What Conjugations? Posted by John Bauer on May 13, 2015
Speaking French is easy! Sure, there’s a ton of conjugaisons, but they don’t always matter when you speak. I’ve touched on des fautes (mistakes) francophones make when writing French and how ces fautes can be useful in learning how to speak like un vrai français (a real French person). This time we’re not going to…
I Invoke The Right of Parley Posted by John Bauer on May 6, 2015
Do some fautes (mistakes) people make in English annoy you? Mixing up then and than or effect and affect? Des fautes that make no sense grammatically, but still happen all the time. Ces fautes might be annoying, but they provide a lot of insight into how people really parlent (speak). La semaine dernière (Last week)…
The French Equivalent of Mixing Up “There”, “Their”, and “They’re” Posted by John Bauer on Apr 29, 2015
Un phénomène intéressant (an interesting phenomenon) when learning your native language is mixing up words that sound the same. Learning the rules can be tough and time consuming, and mistakes happen as often as misplacing une virgule (a comma). There are many homonymes that native French speakers often mix up or have trouble remembering when…
French Punctuation: How Different Could It Be? Posted by John Bauer on Apr 22, 2015
Something as basic as how to use a period, a comma, and a colon doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you’d need to learn how to use en français. A period goes at the end of the sentence, a comma separates clauses or lists, and a colon introduces a title or a list or…