#language basics

Terminology

Subject - the person or thing performing the action being described

Verb Conjugation - when the verb changes grammatically to agree with the subject (see above)

Articles - context for a noun (example: ‘the’ or ‘a’)

Definite Articles - used only with specific nouns 

Indefinite Articles - used only with unspecified, countable nouns 

Partitive Articles - used only for a quantity of something uncountable

Elison - the removal of a vowel sound in order to avoid consecutive vowel sounds 

Contraction (not the child birth kind) - when one word is made from combining two words 

aspirate - consonant 

non-aspirate - vowel 

‘etre on train de’ - to be in the process of. Sometimes used in place of a specialized continuous verb if appropriate, because French doesn't have those. An idiomatic phase.

Idiomatic phase - language where the meaning is different from the meaning of the words in the expression 

conjunction - when two or more phases, clauses or words are joined together 

preposition - shows the relationship between the noun or pronoun and another word in the sentence 

aimer - to love when referring to people or pets, but only to like if referring to anything else 

aimer bien - always to like

adorer - always to love, but definitely more sexy. Not for pets, or your mum.

Rules 

French has two genders: masculine and feminine 

articles (see above) must agree with their gender and number 

a word can elide (see above) if it is followed by a vowel. Examples: je, me, te, se, ce, ne, de and que

the letter H is always silent 

When H starts a word however, it can be treated as an aspirate or non-aspirate (see above)

plural nouns and adjectives often (but not always) end in ‘s’, which is usually silent 

‘Tu’ (see below in personal subject pronouns) is for friends, peers, relatives and people familiar to you

‘Vous’ (see below, personal subject pronouns) is for people you’ve just met, formal relationships and plurals. Its kind of the default, as it is the more respectful form.

pronouns, articles and adjectives must agree with their nouns in gender and number!!!!

there are two present tenses: simple and continuous

French does not have specialized continuous verb tenses (see above) 

Examples (feel free to save and use!)

 Personal Subject Pronouns 

Subject Verb Agreement 

Articles

Plurals 

And Lastly!