French Grammar Made Easy

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- CONTENTS -- Introduction -- A simple guide to the parts of speech -- 1 Verbs -- 1.1 Verbs: talking about doing things -- 1.1.1 What is the infinitive? -- 1.1.2 Groups of verbs -- 1.1.3 Irregular verbs -- 1.1.4 The 'persons' of the verb -- 1.1.5 Fast track: Verbs -- 1.2 The present tense -- 1.2.1 Talking about yourself ('I'): je -- 1.2.2 Talking to a child or someone you know well ('you'): tu -- 1.2.3 Talking about someone or something else ('he/she/it'): il/elle -- 1.2.4 Talking about yourself and someone else ('we'): nous -- 1.2.5 Talking to someone else ('you'): vous -- 1.2.6 Talking about other people or things ('they'): ils/elles -- 1.2.7 Fast track: Present tense -- 1.3 Negatives, interrogatives and imperatives -- 1.3.1 Negatives: how to say what doesn't happen -- 1.3.2 Interrogatives: asking questions -- 1.3.3 Imperatives: giving orders, directions or instructions -- 1.3.4 Fast track: Negatives, interrogatives and imperatives -- 1.4 The past tenses -- 1.4.1 The perfect tense -- 1.4.2 How to form the past participle -- 1.4.3 Verbs which go with être -- 1.4.4 Past participle agreement: Verbs which go with être -- 1.4.5 Reflexive verbs in the perfect tense -- 1.4.6 The imperfect tense -- 1.4.7 How to form the imperfect tense -- 1.4.8 Perfect or imperfect? -- 1.4.9 Fast track: The past tenses -- 1.5 The future tenses and conditional tense -- 1.5.1 The near future: 'I am going to ... ' -- 1.5.2 The future tense: 'I will ... ' -- 1.5.3 The conditional: 'I would ... ' -- 1.5.4 Fast track: Future and conditional -- 1.6 The subjunctive -- 1.6.1 How to form the subjunctive -- 1.6.2 Expressions which take the subjunctive -- 1.6.3 Recognising the subjunctive -- 1.6.4 Fast track: The subjunctive -- 1.7 Fast track: Verbs -- 1.8 Useful expressions using verbs -- 1.8.1 Special uses of avoir

1.8.2 There is/there are: il y a -- 1.8.3 To know: connaître or savoir? -- 1.8.4 To take and to bring -- 1.8.5 To remember: se souvenir de -- 1.8.6 More negative expressions -- 1.8.7 Question words and word order: Comment? -- 1.8.8 Since (depuis) -- to have just (venir de) -- 1.8.9 Fast track: Useful expressions with verbs -- 2 Nouns and Determiners -- 2.1 Nouns and gender -- 2.2 Nouns and the word for 'the': le and la -- 2.3 Nouns and the word for 'the' in the plural: les -- 2.3.1 Common irregular plurals -- 2.4 Nouns and the word for 'a': un and une -- 2.5 How to tell if a noun is masculine or feminine -- 2.6 How to say: my, your, his, her, etc. -- 2.6.1 My (mon, ma, mes) -- 2.6.2 Your (ton, ta, tes) -- 2.6.3 His, her and its (son, sa, ses) -- 2.6.4 Our (notre/nos) -- 2.6.5 Your (votre/vos) -- 2.6.6 Their (leur/leurs) -- 2.6.7 Fast track: Nouns and determiners -- 2.7 More determiners -- 2.7.1 This, that, these: ce, cet, cette and ces -- 2.7.2 Which? Quel, quelle, quels and quelles -- 2.7.3 Some, other, certain, every etc. -- 3 Pronouns -- 3.1 Je, tu, il/elle, etc.: Subject pronouns -- 3.1.1 Je - I The first person singular -- 3.1.2 tu - you The second person singular -- 3.1.3 il/elle - he/she/it The third person singular -- 3.1.4 nous - we The first person plural -- 3.1.5 vous - you The second person plural -- 3.1.6 ils/elles - they The third person plural -- 3.1.7 Fast track: Subject pronouns -- 3.2 Le, la, les, etc.: Direct object pronouns -- 3.2.1 Le, la and les: Him, her, it, them -- 3.2.2 Me, te, nous and vous: Me, you, us -- 3.2.3 Past participle agreement with object pronouns -- 3.2.4 Fast track: Direct object pronouns -- 3.3 Me, lui, leur, etc.: Indirect object pronouns -- 3.3.1 Word order when using the indirect object -- 3.3.2 Word order of pronouns: Direct and indirect

3.3.3 Fast track: Indirect object pronouns -- 3.4 Y: there -- 3.5 En: of it/of them -- 3.6 More about word order -- 3.6.1 Pronouns with devoir, pouvoir, savoir, vouloir and falloir -- 3.7 Moi! etc.: Emphatic pronouns -- 3.7.1 Using pronouns for emphasis -- 3.7.2 Emphatic pronouns and prepositions -- 3.8 Pronouns and the imperative -- 3.8.1 Pronouns with reflexive verbs -- 3.8.2 Order of pronouns in the imperative -- 3.9 Qui? Que? Interrogative pronouns -- 3.9.1 Qui or que? -- 3.10 Le mien, la mienne: Possessive pronouns -- 3.11 Qui, que, dont: Relative pronouns -- 3.11.1 Qui, que, dont: Who, which, whose -- 3.12 Lequel? Which one? -- 3.13 Celui, celle: The one which/whose/etc. -- 3.13.1 Celui-ci, celui-là: This one, that one -- 3.14 Fast track: Pronouns -- 4 Adjectives -- 4.1 Adjectival agreement: grand(e) et petit(e) -- 4.1.1 Regular adjectives -- 4.1.2 Irregular adjectives -- 4.1.3 Colours -- 4.1.4 Colours that don't change -- 4.2 The position of adjectives -- 4.3 Fast track: Adjectives -- 4.4 Adjectives with two meanings -- 4.5 Big, bigger, biggest: The comparative and superlative -- 4.5.1 Comparing two people or things -- 4.5.2 The superlative: 'the most . . .' and 'the least . . .' -- 4.5.3 Saying 'as (big) as' -- 4.5.4 Good, better, best: Irregular comparisons -- 4.5.5 Meilleur and mieux -- 4.6 Fast track: Comparative and superlative -- 5 Adverbs -- 5.1 Formation of adverbs -- 5.1.1 Regular adverbs -- 5.1.2 Adjectives ending in -ent and -ant -- 5.1.3 Irregular adverbs -- 5.2 Adjectives used as adverbs -- 5.3 Other useful adverbs -- 5.4 Fast track: Adverbs -- 6 Prepositions -- 6.1 The preposition à -- 6.1.1 à and the definite article -- 6.1.2 Where? Ou? -- 6.1.3 What kind of? Quel genre de? -- 6.1.4 When? Quand? -- 6.1.5 Whose? C'est à qui? -- 6.1.6 What's wrong? Qu'est-ce qu'il y a? -- 6.1.7 Fast track: à

6.2 The preposition de -- 6.2.1 de and the definite article -- 6.2.2 de meaning some or any -- 6.2.3 de and how to say 'not any' -- 6.2.4 Other expressions with de -- 6.2.5 de in expressions of quantity -- 6.3 Prepositions of position -- 6.4 The prepositions en and chez -- 6.5 Useful prepositional phrases -- 6.6 Expressions of time -- 7 Conjunctions and other useful words -- 7.1 Conjunctions -- 7.2 Useful phrases -- 7.3 Help with understanding spelling and numbers -- Verb tables -- Answers