Archive for 'Grammar'
French Grammar: Ordinal Numbers: 1st – 100th Posted by Hichem on Aug 28, 2012
In today’s post, you will learn how to rank in French—the same way they do it in the Olympics, for example. It goes like this: le premier/la première (the first), deuxième (second), troisième (third), etc.—all the way up to centième (hundredth”)! These ranks are known by the fancy name of “ordinal numbers”, as opposed to the cardinal…
French Grammar: Transitive Verbs of Two Objects Posted by Hichem on Aug 20, 2012
You are already familiar with transitive verbs, meaning verbs that require an object. Now meet the less known breed called “ditransitive verbs.” It may sound complicated at first, but once you know what it stands for, it suddenly becomes très facile: As their name says, these are verbs which need one direct object and one additional object introduced by…
French Grammar: How to Use the Pronoun “On” Posted by Hichem on Aug 13, 2012
It’s time to turn French Grammar “ON” again here on the Transparent French Blog! And what a coincidence it is, because today you’ll be given a few precious pointers as to how to use the indefinite French pronoun “On“, which, as we know very well, can often cause some serious headache to the débutants learners of…
Comme vs. Comment in French Posted by Adir on Jul 16, 2012
Comme and comment are two similar words but are used differently. Let’s learn today how to use one or the other. Comme 1. Comme is used as a conjunction with the meaning of “as” and “since”. Le téléphone a sonné juste comme j’entrais dans mon appartement. [The phone was ringing as I was entering my…
How to say “I’m doing” in French Posted by Adir on Jul 13, 2012
Salut! Comment ça va? French doesn’t have a specific verb tense to say sentences like these: What are you doing? –> I’m doing my homework. What’s he doing? –> He’s cleaning his car. We have two ways of saying this. The first one is to use the present tense: Qu’est-ce que tu fais? Je fais…
The French RAP of the Participes PASSÉS Posted by Hichem on Jun 23, 2012
A French teacher from Canada has devised a fun and fantastic way to teach French grammar to her young students: A French Rap song that describes the rules of thumb of the “PP“—meaning les Participes Passés (Past Participles)! Pour plus de détails (For more details), go to: www.rapdespp.com ♦ LE RAP DES PARTICIPES PASSÉS (THE RAP…
Moving foward with the future in French Posted by Adir on Jun 15, 2012
There are two kinds of future tense in French: le Futur Simple and le Futur Proche. Today we’re going to start talking about the Futur Simple. It is used when you are talking about plans in the future, but nothing extremely definite, things may change. This would correspond to using “will” to express the future…