Tag Archives: grammaire francaise
French Grammar – Back to the future Posted by Tim Hildreth on Mar 27, 2018
Last week I kicked off a short series of posts on useful French grammar topics that sometimes get ignored. This week we head back to the future* with a look at a way to talk about upcoming actions and events that is as easy as the passé récent that we looked at last week. Le…
French Grammar – Sometimes even être needs a vacation Posted by Tim Hildreth on Mar 13, 2018
Back in décembre (December) I shared a post about how sometimes the famous “House of être” needs to make room for guests. This week we’re going to look at some examples of the opposite… when verbs that usually take the verb être to from the passé composé switch teams and take the verb avoir…
French Grammar – Putting an addition on the “the house of être” Posted by Tim Hildreth on Dec 5, 2017
êFrench uses helping verbs to form the past tense form known as the passé compose (the composed past)*. Most verbs use avoir as their helping verb while a select group though use être. While this rule is generally true, there is a special case when even verbs that usually take avoir use être to form…
French Writer – Anatole France Posted by Tim Hildreth on Oct 17, 2017
When I’m in Paris, I love to flâner sur les quais de la Seine et faire les bouquinistes (stroll along the quais of the Seine and visit the antique book sellers/stands). During my last trip I found a little book by an author about whom I had often heard but who I had never read…
Describing people in French, Part 2 Posted by Tim Hildreth on Aug 8, 2017
A few weeks ago we looked at some common expressions for describing people. This week, I’ll expand a bit on that lesson and share another of my favorite French songs that – while maybe it doesn’t perfectly illustrate the concepts – is definitely related to the topic! First, the lesson! Earlier we looked at how…
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…
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…