Grammar
Être and avoir: to be and to have
Être (to be) and avoir (to have) are the two most important French verbs. Careful: your age, hunger and fear go with avoir.
Topics
All topics
Choose a topic. Every topic starts from a real situation, shows a picture to play with or listen to, explains the rule and lets you practise.
18 topics
Grammar
Être and avoir, verbs in -er, aller, faire, prendre and venir, negation, questions, the futur proche and the passé composé.
- Grammar
Verbs in -er in the present tense
Almost all French verbs end in -er. You take off -er and add -e, -es, -e, -ons, -ez, -ent: je parle, nous parlons.
- Grammar
Aller, faire, prendre and venir
Four irregular verbs you need every day: to go, to do, to take and to come. They share patterns: -ons and -ez, and a double n in prennent and viennent.
- Grammar
Negatives: ne ... pas
You make a sentence negative with a clip around the verb: ne before it, pas after it. Je ne parle pas. Before a vowel n', and un or du becomes de.
- Grammar
Asking questions
You can ask one question three ways: with your voice (Tu viens ?), with est-ce que (Est-ce que tu viens ?) or with inversion (Viens-tu ?). Plus the question words.
- Grammar
Futur proche: what you are going to do
You talk about later and tomorrow with aller + infinitive, just like going to + verb in English: Je vais manger. Nous allons partir.
- Grammar
Passé composé with avoir
You tell what happened with avoir + past participle: j'ai mangé, nous avons fini, ils ont pris. Just like have + past participle in English.
- Grammar
Passé composé with être
A fixed group of verbs, mostly about going and coming, forms the passé composé with être: je suis allé. Then the participle agrees: elle est allée.
Words
Articles and gender, adjectives that agree, possessives and the partitive article.
- Words
Articles and gender: le, la, l', les
Every French noun is masculine or feminine. You see it in the article: le chat, la maison, l'école, les livres, un, une, des.
- Words
Adjectives: form and place
An adjective agrees: -e for feminine, -s for plural. It mostly stands after the noun (une robe verte), a few short ones before it (une petite maison).
- Words
Possessives: mon, ma, mes
My, your, his: mon, ton, son. The form follows the thing you own, not the owner: sa maison is his house or her house.
- Words
The partitive article: du, de la, de l', des
Some bread, some water: du pain, de l'eau. After pas and after a quantity it simply becomes de: pas de pain, un kilo de pommes.
Listening and speaking
Numbers with septante and soixante-dix, the clock and the calendar, and short conversations at the bakery, in a café and in the street.
- Listening and speaking
Numbers: from zéro to deux mille
Counting in French, with the Belgian septante and nonante next to the French soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix. Both are right.
- Listening and speaking
Clock and calendar: what time and which day
Telling the time with Il est trois heures et quart, in everyday speech and on the 24-hour clock, and dates like le lundi 3 mars.
- Listening and speaking
Everyday situations: bakery, café, asking the way and introducing yourself
Short conversations you really have: buying bread in Namur, having a drink in Brussels, asking the way in Montréal and introducing yourself at school. With tu or vous.
Reading and writing
False friends for Dutch speakers, writing a short message or an email and reading a text for the main idea.
- Reading and writing
False friends: words that trick you
Some French words look like Dutch but mean something else. La librairie is a bookshop, rester means to stay and brave means brave, not well-behaved.
- Reading and writing
Writing a message: to a friend or politely
A short message or an email in French: greeting, content and closing. To a friend with tu and Bisous, politely with vous and Cordialement.
- Reading and writing
Reading for the gist: understanding without knowing every word
Understanding a French text without knowing every word: read the title, the first and the last sentence, look for the key words and the words that look like Dutch.