Archive for 'Grammar'
French Grammar – Answering Questions Posted by Transparent Language on May 18, 2009
Questions in French can be expressed in the negative form, which brings up a few issues when answering correctly. If you want to confirm the negative in the question, then you answer with ‘Non‘, but if you want to respond affirmatively to the question, then you answer with ‘Si‘. Here are some examples: Il n’y…
French Time Posted by Transparent Language on May 14, 2009
These days, with all the rushing and schedules to stay on, telling the time and understanding the time is so very important in any language and anywhere you are. So, today, we’ll talk about telling time in French. First of all, the very important question is: Quelle heure est-il? (What time is it?) And the…
French Spelling Posted by Transparent Language on May 5, 2009
Many times when speaking to others either in person (at a hotel, at the airport, at customs, etc.) or over the telephone, we have to spell out words, especially our names. So, today I’ll try to give you some help in this area. First of all, here is how you pronounce the letters in the…
French Grammar – The Partitive Article Posted by Transparent Language on Apr 29, 2009
The partitive article in French is the English equivalent of ‘some’ and ‘any’. So, it is very often used and thus, very important to learn. First, let’s talk about the form: Before a masculine noun – du Before a feminine noun – de la Before a masculine or feminine plural noun – des Before a…
French Vocabulary – Word Building Posted by Transparent Language on Apr 19, 2009
Building funny French phrases is a way to learn more vocabulary and even improve your grammar. The challenge lies in finding a root word and then expressing the same word as a noun, adverb, verb and adjective all in the same sentence. Here are some examples: La commode commode a été accommodée commodément. Le commentateur…
French Language – Negation Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 28, 2009
In the French language, there are different ways to be negative…to express negativity. Perhaps the most common is when you want the sentence to be negative. In that case, you place ne before the main verb and pas after it. Or, if you want to say that you never do something, you place ne before…
French Language – Semi Auxiliaries Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 27, 2009
In the French language, semi-auxiliaries are the same as in the English language. They are multi-word verbs that occur before main verbs. In English, these semi-auxiliaries include: have to, get to, be about to, used to, mean to, be going to, etc. In French, many of the semi-auxiliaries are the same as the English ones…