Tag Archives: French grammar
In the eye of the beholder Posted by Tim Hildreth on Jun 20, 2017
Belle isn’t just the name of the main character in Disney’s latest film. Belle is also a French adjective that means beautiful, lovely, pleasant, or agreable (unlike joli/jolie – pretty, belle doesn’t only pertain to appearances). Ok, so that’s not entirely true. In another oddity of the French language, belle is technically not its own…
Back to the Basics: French Definite Articles Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on May 22, 2017
Last week, we went over the basics of French articles. This week, we are going to dive more into French definite articles and the ways in which they can change when they are combined with prepositions such as à and de. In French, the preposition à means “to” and the preposition de means “from.” When they are combined with definite articles…
Back to the Basics: French Articles Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on May 15, 2017
Today we will be going back to the basics of French grammar. The very building blocks of the French language require articles. What are they? Well, in English, they would be words like the or a. In any language, articles are used to show whether a noun is specific or unspecific. For example, in English, you could say “After the…
A question of size Posted by Tim Hildreth on May 9, 2017
The results are in! I’m sure you all have heard, but as discussed last week, France held the second tour of the presidential elections dimanche (Sunday). And dimanche prochain (next Sunday) Emmanuel Macron will be sworn in as the youngest French president. There has been so much coverage of the topic, I didn’t think it worth…
Problematic Prepositions: De (Part Trois) Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on May 8, 2017
Last week on the blog, we went over the rules regarding de when used as an expression of quantity. This is typically very confusing for French learners, as it can be difficult to pick out what exactly an expression of quantity is. We’ll delve a bit more into the grammatical nitty-gritty of what constitutes an expression of…
Problematic Prepositions: De (Part Deux) Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on May 1, 2017
Last week we explored some of the most common usages of the French preposition de. In addition to a preposition that can express possession, relation, and direction, or to link verbs, de can be used to express quantity, either alone or as part of an expression of quantity. Once again, the rules governing how de changes depends on its usage—and this can…
What would you do? Posted by Tim Hildreth on Apr 25, 2017
Last summer I asked ‘what I did‘ and ‘what you are going to do‘ (looking at the past and future tenses in song). This week, a look at another French tense – and a new song – to learn about le conditionelle (the conditional). Le conditionelle is not actually a tense, but a mood…