1. French 1 Chapitre 1
Grammaire 2

2. Indefinite articles
Indefinite articles in English are a, an, and some and go before nouns.
Ex: a dog, an apple, some chairs
Indefinite articles in French are un, une, and des and go before nouns.
Ex: un garçon, une fenêtre, des posters

3. Indefinite articles
In French all nouns have gender (meaning they are either masculine or feminine) and number (meaning they are either singular or plural).
The gender of nouns must be memorized.
The article used with nouns must be the same gender as the nouns.

4. Indefinite articles un – a, an (masculine) une – a, an (feminine)
des – some (plural)
de/d’ – only used in negative sentences
Ex: un garçon – a boy
***You must use the masculine article “un” because garçon (boy) is masculine and singular.

5. Plural nouns
To make most nouns plural, add an –s to the end of the noun. The final –s will be silent.
Ex: un garçon – a boy
des garçons – some boys
Ex: une fenêtre – a window
des fenêtres – some windows

6. Plural nouns Some nouns have plurals that are formed differently.
un tableau  des tableaux
un bureau  des bureaux
un CD/DVD  des CD/DVD (no change)
un lecteur de CD/DVD  des lecteurs de CD/DVD

7. Indefinite articles in negative sentences
*To say there aren’t any of an item, remember to use il n’y a pas de/d’.
Ex: Il y a des cartes dans la classe.
- There are some maps in the class.
Ex: Il n’y a pas de cartes dans la classe.
- There aren’t any maps in the class.

8. Verbs
In order to use a verb in a sentence, it must change forms to agree with the subject. We call this conjugating a verb.
In its simplest form, a verb is in the infinitive form. In English, an infinitive is a verb with the word “to” in front of it.
Ex: to eat, to run, to walk, to talk, to write,
to speak, to listen, to watch, etc.

9. Verbs In French, infinitives will either end in –er, –ir, or –re.
Verbs can either be regular (meaning they follow a pattern) or irregular (meaning they do not follow a pattern).

10. Verbs
All languages have a large number of irregular verbs, and all forms of those verbs must be memorized.
Ex: to be
I am we are
you are you are
he is they are
she is
it is

11. avoir – to have j’ ai nous avons tu as vous avez il, elle, on a
ils, elles
ont

12. Verbs
Noun subjects (such as Pierre et Jean) use the same verb form as the pronoun you would use to replace them.
In English you would replace Pierre and Jean with the subject pronoun They.
In French you would replace Pierre et Jean with the subject pronoun Ils.
Ex: Pierre et Jean ont deux chaises.
Ils ont deux chaises.

13. Negative sentences
To make a sentence negative, add ne…pas around the verb. Notice that ne become n’ before a vowel sound.
Ex: Ça va Ça ne va pas.
It’s going fine. It’s not going fine.
Ex: Cléo a un poster. Cléo n’a pas de poster.
Cléo has a poster. Cléo does not have a poster.