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In Spanish, for instance, subject pronouns do not need to be explicitly present, but in French, its close relative, they are obligatory. The Spanish equivalent to the French je suis (I am) can be simply soy (lit. "am"). The pronoun yo (I) in the explicit form yo soy is used only for emphasis or to clear ambiguity in complex texts.
French verbs are conjugated by isolating the stem of the verb and adding an ending. In the first and second conjugation, the stem is easily identifiable from the infinitive, and remains essentially constant throughout the paradigm. For example, the stem of parler ("speak") is parl- and the stem of finir ("finish") is fin-.
ser, 'to be (in essence)'. This is an Oy-Yo verb. Stem: s-, fu-, er-, se-. There are two ways to say "To be" in Spanish: ser and estar. They both mean "to be", but they are used in different ways. As a rule of thumb, ser is used to describe permanent or almost permanent conditions and estar to describe temporary ones.
Some nouns have two different diminutives, each with a different meaning: bloem (flower) → bloem pje (lit. "small flower") This is the regularly formed diminutive. bloem (flower) → bloem etje (lit. also "small flower", but meaning bouquet). pop (doll) → pop je (lit. "small doll", but it is also a term of endearment).
Conjugation is the variation in the endings of verbs (inflections) depending on the person (I, you, we, etc), tense (present, future, etc.) and mood (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, etc.). Most French verbs are regular and their inflections can be entirely determined by their infinitive form. If not regular, a verb may incur changes its ...
The passé composé (pronounced [pase kɔ̃poze]; 'compound past') is a past tense in the modern French language. It is used to express an action that has been finished completely or incompletely at the time of speech, or at some (possibly unknown) time in the past. It originally corresponded in function to the English present perfect, but now ...
Spanish verbs are a complex area of Spanish grammar, with many combinations of tenses, aspects and moods (up to fifty conjugated forms per verb). Although conjugation rules are relatively straightforward, a large number of verbs are irregular. Among these, some fall into more-or-less defined deviant patterns, whereas others are uniquely irregular.
French grammar is the set of rules by which the French language creates statements, questions and commands. In many respects, it is quite similar to that of the other Romance languages. French is a moderately inflected language. Nouns and most pronouns are inflected for number (singular or plural, though in most nouns the plural is pronounced ...