#frenchgrammar

Ordinal numbers in French (les nombres ordinaux)

Do you know how to say first, second or third in French? Here is the detail lesson on how to form and use ordinal numbers in French. 

𝑰'𝒎 𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇𝒊𝒔𝒉, 𝒔𝒐 𝑰'𝒎 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒕 https://www.instagram.com/p/CMODiCNgUJ4/?igshid=x8724g5qj5h6

Bonjour! Today I would like to share possessive adjectives with you, and add in a bit of an explanation to it. Note that I´m a beginner, I simply made this post for my own revision and understandably explained it.

On y va!

As you probably already know, there are two genders in French - masculine et feminine.

Mon, Ma, Mes - they all mean my

ton, ta, tes - all mean your

son, sa, ses - her/his (i´ll explain this further below)

notre, notre, nos -our

votre, votre, vos - your

leur, leur, leurs - their

So now, we know what they are. But it is a bit confusing, isn´t it? 

In French, we choose which possessive adjective we will use according to the object. For example:

This is her dog. (in english we say her dog, because the subject is female(a girl owns that dog, that´s why))

However, in French we would say:

C´est son chien (chien is masculine, so we use son, not sa.)

More sample sentences:

These are his books.

Ce sont ses livres. (livres - books, which is in plural, so we use ses.)

--

My table.

Ma table (la table est feminin)

--

My book. 

Mon livre. (le livre - masculine)

--

This is her brother.

C´est son frére. (frére - masculine.)

--

This is our cat.

C´est leur chat.

--

His sister is pretty.

Sa soeur est jolie.

--

These are our pens.

Ce sont nos stylos.

Exception when mon, ton, son  is used for f.

When the object starts with a vowel, (or a mute h) we use an alternative which ends with a consonant.

This is her friend.

C´est son amie. (amie-f so logically we would use sa, but amie starts with a vowel.) (ami- m, son still stays)

--

My school.

Mon école. (école-f, but starting with a vowel so we use mon instead of ma.)

--

Your clock.

Ton horloge. (horloge-f, but starting with silent h, (we don´t pronounce the h)

This is my first post! I’ve decided, perhaps unwisely, that I want to create a grammar series for each of the languages I’m studying. This is because, after many years of studying Spanish, I found a grammar textbook recommended on this website for French and have so far found it a much more effective way of learning. I’ll be grouping these articles together under my resources tabs, so you will be able to scroll through them and find relevant ones to your studies. 

The Definite Article:

In French, all nouns have gender and the definite article indicates this gender when referring to a specific person, place or thing. The definite article, therefore, changes depending on the gender of the noun it precedes:

Masculine = le or les (pl.)

Feminine = la or les (pl.)

Before a vowel or mute h = l’ or les (pl.)

Example Sentences:

C’est l’amie de ma mère = that’s my mother’s friend. 

Les Français adorent le football  = the French love football.

The letter ‘h’ is always silent in French, so words that begin with the letter ‘h’ are pronounced with the first vowel sound. However, in front of some French words starting with h, the article does not drop (elide) the -e or -a. Therefore, it uses the masculine or feminine form instead of the l’ form. 

la harpe - the harp                  la honte - the shame

le héros - the hero                  le hors-d’œuvre - the appetizer

This is called an aspirate h. The h sound is still silent. 

The Indefinite Article:

The singular indefinite article in French is used to indicate something general or non-specific. It uses un for masculine nouns and une for feminine nouns. The plural of both forms is des. Depending on context, un/une can also mean the number one. In table form:

Masculine = un or des (pl.)

Feminine = une or des (pl.)

Example Sentences:

Il veut un chien = he wants a dog.

𝑻𝒖 𝒅𝒐𝒓𝒔?

𝑶𝒉, 𝒋'𝒔𝒖𝒊𝒔 𝒅é𝒔𝒐𝒍é𝒆

𝑾𝒆'𝒓𝒆 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒚

𝑫𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒉𝒊𝒎 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒖𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒎𝒆