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The prepositions à (' to, at ') and de (' of, from ') form contracted forms with the masculine and plural articles le and les: au, du, aux, and des, respectively.. Like the, the French definite article is used with a noun referring to a specific item when both the speaker and the audience know what the item is.
The third volume, Grammaire pour tous (Grammar for All) is a guide on French syntax, sentence structure, the application of proper grammar to sentences, and punctuation. Bescherelles (L'art de conjuguer in particular) are commonly used in French immersion schools, and it is often required for students to purchase one for class.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
A few adjectives have a fifth form, viz. an additional masculine singular form for use in liaison before a noun beginning with a vowel or a "mute h", e.g. un beau jardin, un bel homme, une belle femme, de beaux enfants, de belles maisons (a beautiful garden, a handsome man, a beautiful woman, beautiful children, beautiful houses).
For instance, some words have a different gender from standard French (une job, rather than un job). That is partially systematic; just as the difference in pronunciation between chien [ʃjẽɪ̯̃] (masc.) and chienne [ʃjɛn] (fem.) is the presence or absence of a final consonant, ambiguous words ending in a consonant (such as job ( /dʒɔb ...
French has a complex system of personal pronouns (analogous to English I, we, they, and so on). When compared to English, the particularities of French personal pronouns include: a T-V distinction in the second person singular (familiar tu vs. polite vous) the placement of object pronouns before the verb: « Agnès les voit. » ("Agnès sees ...
"in place (of)"; partially translated from the existing French phrase au lieu (de). léger de main (legerdemain) "light of hand": sleight of hand, usually in the context of deception or the art of stage magic tricks. Meaningless in French; the equivalent is un tour de passe-passe. maître d' translates literally as master o'.
French has a T-V distinction in the second person singular. That is, it uses two different sets of pronouns: tu and vous and their various forms. The usage of tu and vous depends on the kind of relationship (formal or informal) that exists between the speaker and the person with whom they are speaking and the age differences between these subjects. [1]