There are two reasons for this. Firstly, their importance, particularly in verbal communication, is vastly overrated. 

Secondly, and most importantly, it is the principal reason why many people give up trying to learn French in the first place. Mixing all the different subject areas, particularly masculine and feminine from the beginning is simply the wrong way to go about teaching French. 

We obviously haven’t covered every aspect of the language, but you should feel confident enough now to work with the foundations of the language (the verbs) and build on that. 

I also hope that we have covered enough ground in the areas of similar vocabulary in both languages to see that learning French is not such a great leap and it is worth sticking to. Enough said on that subject. 

So, let’s take a brief look at masculine and feminine, and singular and plural, before we come to the end. Almost everybody is familiar with the French word(s) le and/or la. 

‘Le’ is the masculine French equivalent of ‘The’ in English. 

‘La’ is the feminine French equivalent of ‘The’ in English.

To begin with our first example of applying these masculine and feminine articles;

‘Porte’ is the French word for door. Because we live in a slightly more evolved society, we are aware that a door is inanimate, generally made out of wood and has nothing to do with the characteristics of either men or women. Our loveable French brethren however have decided that doors should have feminine characteristics attributed to them. 

This is but one example of why the concepts of masculine and feminine are not covered at the beginning of this guide. I think you can see already that we are approaching the cutting edge of irrelevance here. Anyway, I digress. So, to say ‘The door’ in correct French you say ‘La porte’ (fem.) lu port and not ‘Le porte’ (masc.) le port. 

Remember the point being made in the Introduction about the French themselves not caring whether you get these grammatical details right or not? You are probably starting to see why already. 

To say ‘The doors’ (plural) we use ‘Les’ lay instead of La. This is the case regardless of whether the object we are talking about is masculine or feminine. Eg. Les portes. lay port 

One point to remember when pronouncing the difference between singular and plural, the French add an ‘s’ on the end of the noun to signify plural in the same way we do. They don’t pronounce that ‘s’ however. This simply signifies plural in the written form. 

The difference is in how we pronounce the article.

La porte          lu port           The door (one door)

Les portes      lay port          The doors (2 or more doors). 

.

At this point it is worth inserting a couple of simple tables. Like working with verbs, everything will become much more apparent when we are able to see a pattern emerging.

                         masc.   fem.             masc.     fem.                

                             singular                      plural                         

Je                      mon      ma                     mes                    

Tu                     ton        ta                       tes                    

Il                      son       sa                       ses                      

.

masc. fem. masc. fem.

singular plural

mine le mien la mienne les miens les miennes

yours le tien la tienne les tiens les tiennes

his/hers/theirs le sien la sienne les siens les siennes

mon/ma/mes - my 

mon camion              my truck  

ma voiture                 my car 

C’est a qui ce camion?       Who’s truck is this? 

C’est le mien                It’s mine 

.

ton/ta/tes                     your 

le tien/la tienne           yours 

ton livre                        your book 

ta chaise                       your chair 

Ne touche pas cette chaise, c’est la mienne             Don’t touch this chair, it’s mine.

.

son/sa/ses                     his/hers 

son pere                       his/her father

sa mere                           his/her mother 

C’est a qui ces livres?    Who’s books are these? 

Les siens                         His/Hers (indicating the person).

Le and La are what we call definite articles. THE being the equivalent definite article in English. 

Indefinite articles in French are the masculine un and feminine une. The English equivalent is a as in 'a door'. One point to remember with indefinite articles in French, UN and UNE are the equivalent of A and AN in English. One way of remembering the difference definite and indefinite articles is being able to point to a definite object and saying; The door, the car, the building etc. An indefinite object is something that is just that, indefinite, possibly imaginary, a book, a house, a mountain, something that may or may not be present. 

We have already covered how to signify plural when working with our verbs. Vous and Ils are used when referring to two or more people and ENT signifies plural at the end of a conjugated verb. 

Examples; 

Ils mangent chez nous ce soir          il mon’zh shay noo say swar          

They are eating at our place tonight.

In attributing masculine and feminine to inanimate objects, try to see the pattern in the following examples;

Un batiment (m.)       A building 

Une maison (f.)          A house 

Un camion (m.)          A truck 

Une voiture (f.)           A car 

Not every object that is large, heavy etc. will be masculine and some designations of masculine and feminine seem entirely arbitrary. An overall pattern can be seen however in the way that masculine and feminine articles have been attributed to many objects.

However successful you may be at asking the question from the phrase book the problem is then to understand what is being said back to you. We will begin by looking at the best way to ask a question and in such a way that we will understand what is being said back to us in return.

There are a number of ways to ask a question in French. What we want is the one that is the most clearly understood. One way is to use the ‘I do/Do I?’ example using the same grammar as English. 

When we are making a statement in English about something we are doing we use; I do (or I am doing). When we are asking a question about something we are doing, or are going to do, we simply swap them around; Do I? 

We obviously don’t use this system for all verbs. For example, we don’t turn ‘I go’ into a question by saying ‘Go I?’. In French however, we can use this system with most verbs to turn a statement into a question. Not that we always do in reality, but it can be used. 

So let’s have a look at some French examples using the verbs from the Big Six.  

Tu vas         You go or You are going

Vas-tu?        Are you going? 

Je suis          I am. 

Suis-je?        Am I?

Il a                He has      

a-t-il?            Has he?

Where did the ‘t’ come from in a-t-il? It is just added in to help articulate the phrase. It would sound awkward to say ‘a-il’ as the letter ‘a’ is a vowel as well as the letter ‘i’ in ‘il’. Phonetically it is pronounced as ‘u-til’.  

Tu fais          You do or You are doing

Fais-tu?         (What) are you doing? 

Let’s start combining the words we have looked at already to form phrases, questions and most importantly of all, understand why we are saying what we are saying. 

Comment tu vas le faire?         como tchoo var le fair                    

How (are) you going to do it? 

.

Quand vas-tu aller la-bas?       ko var tchoo u-lay lu-bar                

When are you going to go over there? 

.

Pourquoi as-tu fais ca?             pour-kwu u tchoo fay su                

Why have you done that/Why did you do that?

(although you are more likely to hear Pourquoi tu as fais ca?)

Something that has not been mentioned until now, but you are probably aware of from the preceding phrases is that French does not use ‘am’, ‘are’ and ‘is’ in the same way as English. They only exist with the verb ‘Etre’ (To be);

Je suis      I am 

Tu es       You are

Il est         He is

With the rest of our verbs such as Faire (Do), Aller (Go) etc. we only use the pronouns Je, Tu, Il .... (I, You, He) and the conjugated verb fais/fait (Je fais, Tu fais, Il fait etc.). 

As mentioned, in both French and English a simple statement can be turned into a question with the intonation of our voice. The French also have another way of clearly stating what they are saying is a question. Instead of using intonation or swapping verbs and pronouns around such as in the I do/Do I? example, they simply add ‘Qu’est-ce_que’, pronounced ‘kes-ke’ or Est-ce_que’, pronounced ‘Es-ke’ at the beginning of the phrase.

Examples; 

Qu’est-ce que tu fais?                kes-ke tu fay                

What are you doing? – referring to one person

Qu’est-ce que vous faites?         kes-ke voo fet              

What are you doing ? – referring to two or more people or somebody that we do not know well.  

‘Qu’est-ce que’ is roughly translated as ‘what?’ in most circumstances.

Qu’est-ce qu’il va faire demain apres l’ecole?         Kes-kil var fair de-mar

What is he going to do tomorrow?  

.

To ask ‘Can I?, Can you?’ or ‘Is he/She? we use ‘Est-ce_que’ 

Examples; 

Est-ce que tu peux le faire pour moi cette semaine?            

es-ke tchoo pe le fair pour mwar set se-mayn

Can you do it for me this week?

. 

Est-ce que je peux faire quelque chose pour toi ?                

es-ke zhe pe fair kel-ke-shoyz pour twar                                        

Can I do something for you? 

.

Est-ce qu’il est a la maison?

es-kil e u lu may-zon’*

Is he in the house/at home?  

.   

Est-ce qu’il faut reserver une table?

es-kil for re-zer-vay oon tubl’

Is it necessary to reserve une table?

. 

Est-ce que vous avez une chamber ce soir?                            

es-ke vooz u-vay oon chombr’ say swar                                          

Do you have a room (available) tonight?

.  

Est-ce que je dois tourner a gauche?                                        

es-ke zhe dwu tour-nay a goosh

Must I/Do I have to turn left?

.

To understand what is the response to your question there is one golden rule. Tell them that you are not French. This may be stating the obvious, but it is a clear message telling the person helping you to slow down. It also a polite way of saying that you don’t understand the bastardized local dialect. Repeat back numbers and basic directional terms such as left (gauche), right (droite), straight ahead (tout droit) etc. In short, insist on them answering the question in the same way that you have asked the question using similar vocabulary.

Let’s start with the correct way first. ne .. verb .. pas, pronounced ne .... par. 

Je fais                            zhe fay                           I am doing. 

Je ne fais pas               zhe ne fay par                I am not doing.

We put ne in front of the verb and pas (pronounced ‘par’) after the verb.

Another example combining our verbs ALLER and FAIRE

Je vais le faire               zhe vay le fair                 I am going to do it

Je ne vais pas le faire   zhe ne vay par le fair    I am not going to do it.  

To apply this negative to the futur simple let’s take a look at ‘I will do it’

Je le ferai                      zhe le fe-ray                     I will do it

Je ne le ferai pas          zhe ne le fe-ray par        I will not do it (or, I won’t do it) 

This is the grammatically correct way of using NOT in French and we will continue with further examples in the following chapters. 

On va continuer                   We are going to continue

On ne vas pas continuer     We are not going to continue. 

As you may have guessed there is a shorter way of saying NOT in verbal communication. Even though grammatically it is not strictly correct, normally we only use the PAS after the verb. 

Instead of saying ‘Je ne vais pas le faire’, the common way is to just say' 

‘Je vais pas le faire’    I am not going to do it. 

For the Anglophone mind this does seem strange at first. It is like saying we are going to do something and then say NOT afterwards as if we have just contradicted what we have just said. Remember that it is a short cut. 

If you were using correct grammar, you would have already used a negative, ne, before using your verb. We won’t go into it in this text but the ne ...... pas format actually gives a lot of flexibility to forming different phrases. 

One brief example, using just ne with plus, the French word for either ‘plus’ or ‘more’; 

Il ne veut plus le faire        il ne ve ploo le fair            He doesn’t want to do it anymore

‘Pas’ (without being preceded by NE) is however the correct way to say NOT in all other circumstances.  

Pourquoi pas                      pour-kwu par                      Why not? 

Pas encore                          par encore/parz encore     Not yet 

Pas maintenant                  par ma-te-non’                   Not now  

Pas vrai                                par vray                              Not true 

Before moving on to our next Chapter we need to start building some basic vocabulary. It will also give us more room to move in working with our verbs.

Se Raser 

Je me rase          zhe me rarz              I shave myself 

Tu te rase         tu te rarz                    You shave yourself  

Il se rase             il se rarz                     He shaves himself 

On se rase         on’ se rarz                   We shave ourselves 

In English we don’t say 'I am shaving myself'. If somebody says ‘I am shaving’ it is taken for granted that he is shaving himself. French however, is often more literal (and precise) than English.

Laver 

Je lave la voiture             zhe lav lu vwartur       I am washing the car. 

Tu laves le chien             tu lav le shee-u           You wash the dog. 

Il lave les vetements       il lav lay vet-mo’         He is washing the clothes. 

On lave par terre             on’ lav par tair            We’re washing the floor.   

Se Laver 

Je me lave les mains        zhe me lav lay mar     I am washing my hands.

Tu te laves les bras          tu te lav lay brar         You’re washing your arms

Elle se lave les pieds        el se lav lay pi-ye        She’s washing her feet 

On’ se lave le figure         o’ se lav le fig-you’r     We’re washing our faces. 

We also have a reflexive version of the verb APPELLER (Call) which is S’APPELLER. APPELLER is used to call somebody or something.

Appeller 

J’appelle les chiens tous les matins.               zhu-pel lay shee-u too lay mu-tar 

I call the dogs every morning.

.

Tu peux appeller les enfants s’il te plait?  tchoo pe u-plee lez o’fon’ see te play? 

Can you call the kids (children) please? (intonation)

. 

Il appellera sa femme ce soir.                           il u-pel-era su fum say swar 

He will call his wife this evening.

On appelle nos parents toutes les semaines. on u-pel no’ par-on’ toot lay se-mayn 

We call our parents every week.

S’APPELLER 

S'Appeller is used for what we call ourselves i.e. our names. 

Examples; 

Je m’appelle Jack                    zhe mu-pel Jack          I call myself Jack                                   (My name is Jack) 

In the civilized world of course we say ‘My name is .....’. 

‘I call myself’ is just the literal translation so as to be able to understand why we say ‘Je m’appelle .....’ 

Tu t’appelle Sandra                tu tu-pel Sandra                You call yourself Sandra            (Your name is Sandra) 

Elle s’appelle Megan               el su-pel Megan                She calls herself Megan             (Her name is Megan) 

Et voila pourquoi on dit ‘Je m’appelle ….’

Bonjour is a combination of two words. Bon, which means 'good' and Jour, which means 'day'. So there you go, that’s why we say Bonjour. It is not a literal translation of ‘Hello’ as you have probably been led to believe.  

Je m'appelle

In over 20 years years I have never heard a French person say ‘Je m’appelle’ (My name is ..) as in, zhe mapel ..... John, Frank, Mike, etc. For some reason it is one of the first phrases that every foreigner is told to learn, along with Bonjour and Comment allez-vous? when first going to France.

Save yourself the trouble. Je m’appelle belongs to a category that we will cover in Chapter 11 called reflexive verbs. Look the other person in the eye, shake hands, say Bonjour and simply say your name, John, Frank, Bob, whatever.  “Bonjour … Bob” (my name is Bob). Job done.

Comment allez-vous?

Como talay voo (typical guide book phonetics) We need to start from zero on this one to understand why we say this. In reality, this phrase is not as common anymore as it once was. Firstly, we begin with COMMENT, pronounced in French as co-mo. As we have seen, this means ‘How’ in English. Ok, no problem. That part was easy.

Allez-vous. Go back to our verb ALLER, to go, and we see that when we use VOUS when being polite/formal or addressing two or more people we conjugate the verb as VOUS ALLEZ, You go or You are going. 

So already we can see that Comment vous allez? Looks like ‘How (are) you going?’ When it comes to posing a question however, French has the same rule as English. The best way of explaining this is the I DO/DO I? example. To turn I DO into a question you swap I + DO to end up with DO I? Follow the same rule with VOUS ALLEZ and we end up with ALLEZ-VOUS? 

Put COMMENT in front of that and we have the grammatically correct (and ever so polite) question COMMENT ALLEZ-VOUS? But why do the phonetic examples explain it as como talay voo and not como alay voo? 

It comes back to the liaison between the words that was discussed previously. COMMENT ends with the consonant, or hard letter ‘T’. ALLEZ begins with the vowel ‘A’. We use the T from COMMENT to begin our next word ALLEZ. Hence, como talay voo.

And don’t forget that EZ in French is pronounced phonetically the same as our ‘AY’ in ‘HAY’.  What you will hear much more frequently in France today is Comment tu-vas? como tu var or the more grammatically correct Comment vas-tu? como var tu 

Comment tu-vas? is very much in line with the way we say How you going? or How (are) you going? in English. Comment vas-tu is the grammatically correct but informal way of asking ‘How are you going?’ to a friend or somebody you know well.

We will begin with the past and work our way forward as we have already looked at the present to some degree already.  

Passe Compose 

We use two main tenses to express the past. They are called the passé compose and the imparfait (imperfect). When we use the passé compose we compose two verbs together to express the past, or the passé. We do the same thing in English so we will take a look at some examples from the Big Six. 

English: The verbs HAVE and DO can be combined or composed together to express the past; 

I have done.

French: The verbs AVOIR (HAVE) and FAIRE (DO) can also be composed together to express the past;

J’ai fay      I have done.  

English: The verbs HAVE and SAY can be composed together to express the past; 

I have said. 

French: The verbs AVOIR (HAVE) and DIRE (SAY/TELL) can be composed to express the past; 

J’ai dee       I have said.  

Je l’ai dis mille fois déjà     zhe lay dee mil fwu day-zhu    I have said it 1000 times already.  

Mille – 1000, fois – times, déjà – already 

Je l’ai dis de le faire avant demain    zhe lay dee de le fair u-vo’ de-mar  I (have) told him to do it before tomorrow. 

In this sentence we are using words from the essential vocabulary file; 

Avant - Before 

and 

Demain – Tomorrow.  

This is what was meant by learning our nouns, adjectives etc. by default as we work with our verbs.  

Pourquoi tu as fait ca?                    pour-kwu tu u fay su              Why have you one that? (Why did you do that?) 

Regarde comment elle a fait ca    regard co-mo el u fay su        Look how she has done that.

L’Imparfait – The Imperfect

The other most common way of expressing the past is to use l’imparfait (the imperfect). Whereas using the passé compose does require a little bit of thought at first, the imparfait is dead easy. Firstly, we will take another look at the way our ER verbs are pronounced at the end. The ER is pronounced as AY. To express an action in the past using the imparfait we use this AY sound on the end of the root of our conjugated verb.  

For example; 

Je faisais                                     zhe fay-zay           I did 

Je le faisais avant de partir     zhe le fay-zay u-vo de partir     I did it before (I) left/departed (or, I did it before leaving). 

How did you arrive at a phonetic pronunciation of ‘fay-zay’ with a word spelt f-a-i-s-a-i-s? I hear you ask. There are 2 steps;  

Step 1: The letter ‘s’ between two vowels (i and a) is pronounced with a ‘z’ sound in the same way that we pronounce the ‘s’ in the English word EASY.  

Step 2: We have exceptions in English such as the words that end in o-u-g-h like tough, thorough and Gough. There are even more ‘exceptions’ like these in French where the phonetic pronunciation does not match the way the word is written. It all becomes easier with practice once the patterns, particularly with verb conjugation, are recognised. 

Il connectait tous les ordinateurs au reseau     Il connect-ay too lez or-din-u-ter or re-zoe 

He connected all the computers to the network.  

See a pattern emerging again? To express the past using the imparfait we have taken the root of the verb CONNECTER, lopped the ER off the end again and added a-i-s or a-i-t. Either way, in the past tense, we pronounce the verb CONNECT-AY. 

Je lui donnais ma voiture     zhe loo-ee don-ay ma vwar-tur        I gave him my car             (Lui - Him)

Tu me donnais les clefs?      tchoo me don-ay lay clee                   You gave me the keys? – (in this case, using intonation to signify a question) 

A simple trick to remember how to speak in the past tense using the imparfait, just pretend you’re in New Zealand and add ‘AY’ onto the end of everything you say.  

.

MANGER – EAT 

(l’imparfait) 

Je mangeais        zhe mon’zhay           I ate 

Tu mangeais        tchoo mon’zhay      You ate 

Il/Elle mangeait    il/el mo’-zhay          He/She ate 

On mangeait        o mo'-zhay              We ate 

.

MARCHER – WALK (l’imparfait) 

Je marcheais         zhe mar-shay            I walked 

Tu marcheais        tchoo mar-shay        You walked 

Il/Elle marcheait    il/el mar-shay           He/She walked 

On marcheait        o’ mar-shay               We walked 

Examples; 

Q. Pourquoi tu marcheais la-bas?       Why did you walk over there? 

A. Pour prendre de l’air.                        To take (get) some air. 

On marcheait dans les montagnes en Espagne    on’ mar-shay do’ lay mon-tarn’y on e-sparn’y 

We walked/hiked in the mountains in Spain.

Il parlait souvent d’un ami d’enfance Il par-lay soo-von’ dun u-mee do’-fons 

He often spoke of a childhood friend.

.

For MANGER and MARCHER we have not covered;

Nous (We/Us, formal written)

Vous (You plural/polite) 

Ils/Elles (They – masculine and feminine). 

At this point we need to focus on the patterns and realise the simplicity of conjugating verbs in their different tenses.

Futur Simple 

Le future simple est l’equivalent of expressing the future tense en anglais using the word ‘will’; 

I will do something, She will do something. 

In the same way that we express the past using l’imparfait by changing the end of le verbe, we express le futur by changing the end of the verb. Par example, si je veux dire (if I want to say) ‘I will change something’ I would say: 

Je changerais quelque chose    zhe sho-zheray kel-ke shoyz 

Quelque – Some       Chose – Thing

Remember the soft pronunciation of CH in French.  

Je fermerai         zhe fairm-eray      I will close 

Tu fermeras       tu fairm-eru          You will close 

Il/Elle fermera    il/el fairm-eru      He/She will close

On fermera        o’ fairm-eru          We will close 

Tu fermeras la porte avant de partir?  tu fairm-eru lu port u-von’ de partir?   You will close the door before leaving?

With ‘tu’, ‘il/elle’ and ‘on’, phonetically, on termine le verbe the same way every time pour exprimer le futur, as if we were using the English word WILL. 

e-r-a and e-r-a-s are pronounced the same way as the ‘s’ is silent on the end of tu fermeras. 

E-r-a-i is pronounced ‘e-ray’ in Je fermerai.

. 

DORMIR - To Sleep

Je dormirai            zhe dor-mi-ray        I will sleep 

Tu dormiras          tchoo dor-mi-ru      You will sleep 

Il/Elle dormira       il/el dor-mi-ru         He/She will sleep 

On dormira           o’ dor-mi-ru             We will sleep 

Examples; 

Je dormirai dans la petite chambre ce soir    zhe dor-mi-ray do’ lu p’teet shomb say swar

I will sleep in the small room tonight. 

.

Tu dormiras dans la grande chambre ce soir et dans la petite chambre demain soir

tchoo dor-mi-ru don’ lu grond shomb se swar e do’ lu p’teet shomb de-mar swar

You will sleep in the big (bed)room tonight and in the small room tomorrow night.

.

Using le verbe ALLER pour exprimer le futur (to express the future).

We have seen already how le verbe ALLER (Go) peut etre utiliser (can be used) to describe what will happen in the future. This is used in the same way on utilise le verbe GO en anglais.  

Je vais le faire zhe vay le fair I am going to do it

Tu vas le faire tu var le faire You are going to do it. 

Il/Elle va le faire il/el var le faire He/She is going to do it.

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Pourquoi on va le faire après demain?  pour-kwu on’ var le fair u-pray de-mar? 

Why are we going to do it after tomorrow (the day after tomorrow)? 

Pourquoi pas le faire tout de suite ? pour-kwu par le fair toot sweet? 

Why not do it right now/immediately?

Comment tu vas aller a Sydney sans voiture? como tu var u-lay u Sydney so’ vwartur? 

How are you going to go to Sydney without (a) car?

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You may have noticed by now that we do not conjugate le seconde verbe dans une phrase when speaking in the future tense. Ex. Je vais aller – I am going to go. 

We have already conjugated le verbe ALLER the first time with JE VAIS. Le deuxieme fois (the second time) on utilise le verbe, it remains in its infinitive form, ALLER. 

This is also the case quand on utilise l’imparfait. We conjugate le verbe une fois, et après, le verbe qui suit* reste dans son forme infinitive. 

*qui suit – kee swee – who/that follows 

Example;

J’allais lire les rapports avant de quitter le bureau

zha-lay leer lay ru-por u-von’ de kit-ay le bureau 

I was going to read the reports before leaving the office.  

NB. In English we have the word ‘sentence’, and the word ‘phrase’ to describe a fragment of a sentence, whereas the poor deprived snail eaters only have the word ‘phrase’ in their vocabulary. Whenever the word ‘phrase’ is used in this text it is in the French context meaning either ‘phrase’ or ‘sentence’.

The first two we will begin with are ALLER (Go) and FAIRE (Do). We will start with a very common phrase ‘I am going to do it’. ‘I will do it’ is probably even more common but using the future tense this way belongs to a different set of grammatical rules that we will come to later. 

The first point to make is that when we conjugate our verbs it could be translated as either I go, You go, He/She goes etc. or as, I am going, You are going, He/She is going etc.  The same applies to Faire (Do), je fais, tu fais, il fait etc. can be translated as either I do, You do, He does or, it can be translated as I am doing, You are doing, He is doing etc. If you have studied French before do not confuse this with the present progressif. KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid and just stick to the programme. 

Back to ALLER, FAIRE and 'I am going to do it'. We will break it down into three parts. (1) I am going (2) to do (3) it. The first part, ‘I am going’ is easy. We have already conjugated our verb ALLER in Chapter 3. ‘I go’ or ‘I am going’ is Je vais. 

When we use a second verb in a simple phrase we don’t need to conjugate it again. To say ‘To do’ we just use the verb FAIRE in its simple or infinitive form. Je vais faire, I am going to do. We could leave it at that and the frog you’re speaking to would understand that you are going to do something. Or, we can round off our sentence with perfect grammar and impress all and sundry with, 'I am going to do it'. 

This is where ‘articles’ come into the picture. Articles can be used in two ways. Firstly, they are normally used as the French version of THE (le);

the building    le batiment 

the shop          le magasin

the truck          le camion  

LE is THE for masculine objects and LA is THE for feminine objects. 

The other way to use articles is to replace what we are talking about to avoid repeating the same words in the same way that we use the word ‘it’ in English. I am going to do ‘it’. ‘It’ obviously refers to whatever you were just talking about. In brief, French uses le in the same way that we use it. We’re not quite there yet however. Je vais faire le is not correct. Aside from the fact that isn’t correct it sounds awkward and stunted. The frogs place their version of ‘it’ in between the two verbs, vais + faire, which gives us ‘Je vais le faire’ zhe vay le fair. 

Try pronouncing it out loud. It flows. The words roll from to another. This rolling effect between the words will become even more evident as we practice more phrases and continue to work on our liaisons. 

We can also use the above for all our other pronouns as well;

Tu vas le faire    You are going to do it

Il va le faire        He is going to do it

On va le faire     We are going to do it.

Intonation 

We can say to somebody ‘You are going to do it’ as if we are giving an order or, ‘You are going to do it?’ as a question, simply by the intonation of our voices. We can use that same intonation in French to either make a statement or ask a question. 

Dire – Say/Tell

Tu vas me dire pourquoi? (using intonation) tchoo var m’ deer pour-kwu   You are going to tell me why? 

Pourquoi – Why 

Our second verb ‘DIRE’ is left in the infinitive form. Pourquoi? (Why?) is a combination of pour (for) + quoi (what). For what? ... Why? 

Who           Qui kee 

What          Quoi              kwu 

Why            Pourquoi      pour-kwu 

When         Quand           ko           (qu in French is pronounced the same as a hard 'k' in English)

Where        Ou                 oo

How           Comment     co-mo

Which        Quel(le)         kel

Tu peux mettre le carton la-bas stp*? Tu pe met le car-ton’ lu-bar stp 

(Can) you put the carton/box over there please? 

*stp – s’il te plait – see-l’ te play - the informal way of saying please to somebody you know well as opposed to the formal, polite way, s’il vous plait – see voo play 

Tu veux le mettre ou exactement?    tu ve le met oo exact-e-moe     You want to put it where exactly?

In English we would really say something like, “Where do you want to put it exactly?” For the sake of becoming familiar with the vocabulary, the phrases will be translated word for word where it is feasibly possible.

Lire – Read

Je lis mon livre        zhe lee mo' livre     I read (my book)

Tu lis ton livre         tchoo lee to' livre   You read (your book) 

Il/Elle lit son livre    il/el lee so' livre      He/She reads (his/her book) 

Mon - My (masc.)

Ton -  Your (masc.)

Son -   His (masc.)

On lit                        o’ lee                         We read (informal/verbal) 

Nous lisons             noo li-zo’                 We read (formal) 

Vous lisez                voo li-zay                 You read (polite/formal/plural) 

Ils/Elles lisent          il/el liz                      They read (masc. And fem.)

Once again, in our first four examples, je, tu, il/elle and on we pronounce the conjugated verb exactly the same way, lee. Not forgetting that the last consonant is silent whether that be the ‘s’ in Je lis & Tu lis, or the ‘t’ in Il/Elle lit and On lit. 

From this point on also take for granted; 

1. Whenever you see ON in the exercises that it is the informal, verbal way of saying WE. When the following verb begins with a consonant or ‘hard’ letter the N in ON is a soft nasal sound and will be denoted with an apostrophe (‘) after the N.  

eg. On compare – We compare on’ com-par

When the verb begins with a vowel (a,e,i,o or u) we pronounce the N in ON as a hard letter as we would in English. Eg. On accept - We accept.  

This is just another detail, it will come with practice.  

2. NOUS is the formal written way of saying WE 

3. VOUS is either the formal/polite way of addressing one person that we don’t know or do not know well. It is also the correct way of addressing two or more people as YOU.  

4. Ils/Elles is THEY. We use ILS when referring to a group of males. We use ELLES when referring to a group of females. As already mentioned, for a mixed group of males and females (even if there are one hundred females and only one male) we refer to the group as ILS. 

For an example of an IR verb we will use; Recevoir (pronounced re-sev-warr, warr as in far).

Recevoir - To receive 

Je recois                    I receive                  zhe res-warr (warr as in far)

Tu recois                  You receive       tu res-warr 

Il/Elle recoit              He/She receives    il/el res-warr 

On recoit                  We receive             on res-warr 

Nous recevons        We receive             noo re-se-vo' 

Vous recevez           You receive            voo re-se-vay 

Ils/Elles recoivent   They receive           il/el res-warrv

POUVOIR – Can or Be able to & VOULOIR - To Want

POUVOIR

Singular

Je peux - I can

Tu peux - You can

Il peut - He can

Plural

Nous pouvons (formal) - We can

On peut (informal) - We can

Vous pouvez - You can

Ils peuvent - They can

Je peux ecrire une lettre pour toi. zhe pe e-créer une let pour twar

I can write a letter for you.

Tu peux acheter du lait s’il te plait? tu pe ash-tay due lay si-te-play

Can you buy milk please? (We faintly hear the ‘L’ in s’il te plait)

Il peut demander gentiment. Il pe de-mo’day zho’tee-moe

He can ask nicely/politely.

On peut attendre ici si tu veux. o’ pe u-to’d ee-see see tu ve

We can wait here if you want.

VOULOIR

Singular

Je veux - I want

Tu veux - You want

Il veux - He wants

Plural

Nous voulons (formal) - We want

On veut (informal) - We want

Vous voulez - You want (plural)

Ils veulent - They want

Je veux savoir ou il est. zhe ve su-vwar oo il e

I want to know where he is.

Tu veux venir avec nous? tu ve ve-neer avec noo

You want to come with us?

Il veut parler a son frère. il ve par-lay u so’ frair

He wants to speak to his brother.

On veut aller en vacances cette semaine. o’ ve u-lay o’ vu-co’ns set se-mayn

We want to go on holidays/vacation this week.

DIRE           - To Say

Je dis          - I say                  zhe dee

Tu dis         - You say      tchoo dee

Il dit            - He says            il dee

On dit         - We say            o' dee

Vous dites  - You say           voo dit

An EXCEPTION! - if you are now familiar with the pattern of French verb conjugation you may have been expecting VOUS DISEZ.

Ils disent      - They say         il diz    (the letter 's' between two vowels is pronounced with a 'z' sound)

Or, ELLES DISENT for a group of two or more females. As per the previous chapter, If we are referring to a mixed group of males and females, then we default back to the masculine ILS DISENT.

Je dis non                          - I say/am saying no    zhe dee no'

Tu dis stop                        - You say stop              zhe dee stop

Il le dit a tout le monde  - He says (is saying) it to everybody (He is telling everybody)

il le dee u too-le-mond

On a dit oui                       - We have said yes     o' nu dee wee

Here we have introduced verb conjugation using our auxillary verb AVOIR. At the beginning of these lessons we said that only the first verb is conjugated in a sentence or short phrase. This is true in most cases. However, there is an exception to this rule with our two auxillary verbs ETRE and AVOIR. The French have a term;

The exception that confirms the rule. 

This is basically just a French way of saying, 'None of our rules are ironclad (there is just a general system or pattern) but we need a fancy way of saying it'.

In short, we have conjugated two verbs, AVOIR and DIRE, in this very short phrase. Again, this may sound complicated but it comes quite naturally with a little practice.

DEVOIR - Must

Je dois          - I must           zhe dwu

Tu dois         - You must    tchoo dwu

Il doit            - He must      il dwu

On doit         - We must     o' dwu

Vous devez  - You must    voo de-vay

Ils doivent   - They must   il dwuv

Je dois le faire          - I must do it                        zhe dwu le fair

Tu dois aller la-bas - You must go over theretchoo dwu u-lay lu-bar

Il doit le faire           - He must do it                    il dwu le fair

On doit l'avoir         - We must have it               o' dwu lu-vwar

* Vous faites (You do) and Vous dites (You say) are exceptions in the way that they are written and pronounced. Ordinarily when we conjugate a verb with the pronoun ‘Vous’ we take the root of the verb and add ez to the end. The verb DEVOIR is a typical example. DEV is the root of the verb DEVOIR. We then add EZ and end up with VOUS DEVEZ voo de-vay. 

There is another way of saying MUST which is even more important than the verb DEVOIR. It comes from the verb FALLOIR. The difference is that we don’t conjugate it putting it into all the different forms we normally do. We only conjugate it to the third person singular (in the masculine form). This is a fancy way of saying that we conjugate it the same way as we would for HE. To say that something is necessary, or that it must happen, we use, IL FAUT pronounced, il for.

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In the previous chapters we looked at some of the simplest, and most common, ER verbs in French. In this chapter we will look at the six most important verbs in French. They are not conjugated exactly the same way; these verbs just need to be learnt by heart.

ETRE       - To be

AVOIR     - To have    

ALLER     - To go      

FAIRE       - To do

DIRE        - To say

DEVOIR    - Must (yes, a verb!)

ETRE and AVOIR are the two most important verbs, they are also known as auxillary verbs.

ETRE          - To Be

Je suis        - I am                          zhe swee

Tu es          - You are (singular)  tchoo e

Il est           - He is                         il e  

On est        - We are (from this chapter we will use the informal 'ON' instead of 'NOUS')

Vous etes  - You are (plural)      O' ne

Ils sont       - They are                  Il so'

Je suis fiere de toi - I am proud of you   zhe swee fee-air de twu

Il est charpentre   - He is (a) carpenter   il e shar pont

AVOIR        - To Have

J'ai              - I have zhay

Tu as          - You have (singular)  tchoo u

Il a              - He has                         il u

On a           - We have                      o nu             (phonetic liaison)     

Vous avez  - You have (plural)      voo zu-vay  (phonetic liaison)

Ils ont         - They have                  il zo'

In English we often abbreviate, or shorten, ‘I am’ to ‘I’m’. We replace the vowel ‘a’ in ‘am’ with an apostrophe. In French we do the same thing with ‘I have’. Instead of writing and pronouncing ‘Je ai’ for ‘I have’ we replace the ‘e’ in ‘Je’ with an apostrophe which gives us ‘J’ai’. We will see more examples of this in the coming chapters when we work with verbs that begin with the vowels a,e,i,o and u.

J'ai une voiture                    - I have a car                               zhay oon vwu-choo-u

Tu as une belle maison     - You have a beautiful house   tchoo u oon bel may-zo'

Il a un livre                           - He has a book                          il u u leev-r

On a un camion                   - We have a truck                       o nu u ca-me-o

Vous avez trois voitures     - You have three cars                voo zu-vay twar vwu-choo-u

Ils ont deux enfants            - They have two children          il zo' de zo'-fo

ALLER - To Go

Je vais        -  I go                    zhe vay

Tu vas        - You go                tchoo vu

Il va            - He goes              il vu

On va         - We go                 o' vu

Vous allez  - You go (plural)  voo zu-lay

Ils vont       -  They go              il vo'

Je vais au magasin        -  I go (am going) to the shop

Tu vas a gauche            -  You go to (the) left

Il va a droite                   -  He goes to (the) right

On va a Paris                  -  We go (are going) to Paris

Vous allez au travail      -  You go to work

Ils vont venir plus tard  -  They are going to come later (venir - to come)

FAIRE         - To Do        

Je fais           - I do            zhe fay

Tu fais          - You do      tchoo fay

Il fait             - He does    il fay

On fait          - We do       o' fay

Vous faites  - You do       voo fet

Ils font         - They do il fo'

Je le fait       - I am doing it        zhe le fay

In this case, le replaces what you are talking about. It is the equivalent of it in English

Tu le fait                  - You do it                     tchoo le fay

Il le fait                    - He is doing it                     il le fay

On va le faire         -  We are going to do it      o' var le fair

Make sense? Look at how we conjugated the verb ‘Aller’ (to go). In this sentence we have used two verbs and the French version of ‘it’ (le).

Vous allez le faire  - You are going to do it      voo zu-lay le fair

Ils vont le faire       -  They are going to do it   il vo' le fair

In the next audio we will attack our last 2 verbs of the Big Six.

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One major advantage of English is the simplicity of our everyday verbs. The majority of them only contain one syllable, run, walk, talk, eat, sleep, work, say, do, make, give, take, pull, push etc. When we conjugate a verb in the present, we just add an ‘s’ when using He or She. 

He walks, She gives, She takes ...  

Even though French conjugates its verbs in the traditional way, many of those verbs in their simplest or infinitive form are almost identical to English. These are a few examples from our first group in the mini-dictionary;

Absorb    - Absorber      Amuse        - Amuser          Accelerate - Accelerer 

Analyse   - Analyser       Accept        - Accepter         Appreciate - Apprecier 

Accuse    - Accuser         Authorise  - Authoriser      Adapt          - Adapter 

Arrange  - Arranger       Adopt         - Adopter          Confirm       - Confirmer

We can see quite clearly that the only difference in the written form is an ‘r’ or an ‘er’ at the end of the verb. 

There are hundreds more of these almost identical examples of everyday verbs. Another example of a verb that is an obvious synonym, or like word, is AIDER (to aid), which is the French word for HELP. We already know how to take any one of these verbs and conjugate them, particularly when using them in the singular with Je, Tu, Il/Elle and On, our informal, verbal way of saying WE. We just lop the ‘r’ off the end of the verb and that’s it. Job done. True, in some cases we need to add a silent ‘s’ or ‘t’ onto the end of some words in the written form, but it makes no difference to the way they are pronounced. 

J’accept (ton offre d’aide)        I accept (your offer of help)      zhuk-sept ton offr’ d’ed

Tu accept (les conditions?)         You accept (the conditions?)   tu uk-sept lay con’-di-si-on’

Il accepte de le faire                    He accepts to do it                    il uk-sept de le fair

On accepte tout le monde ici.   We accept everybody here        on uk-sept too le mond ee-see 

Je confirme que c’est vrai           I confirm that it/this is true       zhe con’fairm k say vray 

Tu confirme ta place                   You confirm your place/spot     tu con’fairm tu plus 

Elle confirme son code               She confirms her code               el con’fairm son’ cod*

*Remember our short and long vowels in English? When we add the letter ‘e’ to the word ‘cod’, a type of fish, we end up with ‘code’. This is another facet of language that the poor frogs are deprived of. Hence, ‘code’ in French, exactly the same word, is pronounced the same way we pronounce the word ‘cod’.  

On confirme     We confirm       on’ co'-fairm 

Leaving the verbs for a moment, here are a few more French words that you might recognise;

Seconde, minute, heure, janvier, fevrier, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, aout, septembre, octobre, novembre, decembre, bleue, violet, route, village, montagne, millimetre, centimetre, metre, kilometre, gramme, kilogramme, tonne, enfant, parent, grandparent, to name a few.

The point is that English and French have much more in common than many people realise.

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Vous continuez            You (plural) continue

Ils continuent              They continue

Pourtant, si nous continuons - (However, if we continue)

The ER at the end of these verbs is pronounced ay. So, continuer is pronounced con-tin-you-ay.

The CH in French is pronounced like our soft SH sound. So, Marcher is pronounced Marsh-ay.

Je continue marcher is pronounced  zhe con-tin-you marsh-ay

....

Nous (we), Vous (You plural), and Ils (They).

....

Ils continuent - il con-tin-you (They continue). There is a lot to unpack with this example of 3rd person plural.

Firstly, do not pronounce the 's'  in 'Ils' - to be explained in the following chapter.

Secondly, do not pronounce the 'ent' in continuent - also to be explained in the following chapter.

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Tu continues                 You continue

Il continue                     He continues

Nous continuons         We continue

Vous continuez            You (plural) continue

Ils continuent               They continue

A simple French phrase; Je continue marcher - I keep walking. 

Marcher (to walk) is obviously a verb from our second group of synonyms, or verbs, that are similar to English.

What we have covered so far is relatively straightforward when looking at the written text. Pourtant, si nous continuons (However, if we continue) we need to look at some pronunciation. 

The ER at the end of these verbs is pronounced ay. So, continuer is pronounced con-tin-you-ay.

The CH in French is pronounced like our soft SH sound. So, Marcher is pronounced Marsh-ay

Je continue marcher is pronounced  zhe con-tin-you marsh-ay

And ... notice that we didn't conjugate our second verb, Marcher. In simple phrases, we only conjugate the first verb. The second verb remains as it is, or in its infinitive form.

Some more 'identical' French and English verbs;

Changer      - Change

Contacter   - Contact

Payer           - Pay

Preferer      - Prefer

Preparer     - Prepare

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