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Lawless French » Frequently Asked Questions » Lessons by Level

French grammarB1 Grammar

Intermediate French Lessons

Grammar Lessons

À vs de

French prepositionsAs if the myriad possible translations of à and de aren't enough, these two French prepositions also have complementary and contrasting uses.
Grammar Lessons

Adjectives vs Pronouns

French adjectives vs pronounsThere are six French adjective / pronoun pairs, where an adjective + noun can be replaced by a corresponding pronoun.
Grammar Lessons

Adverbial Pronouns / Pronominal Adverbs

French adverbial pronounsAs you might guess from their name, adverbial pronouns are caught between two worlds: they are pronouns in the sense that they replace nouns, and at the same time they are adverbs representing a place, a quantity, or the object of a proposition. French has two adverbial pronouns: en and y.
Grammar Lessons

Agreement with vous

French agreement with vousVous can be every type of personal pronoun, but its role as a subject pronoun may be the trickiest because of agreement.
Grammar Lessons

Capitalization

French capitalizationThe use of capital letters (les majuscules) is much less common in French than in English. Take a look at this summary of words that are capitalized in English but not in French.
Grammar Lessons

Chanson du subjonctif

French subjunctive song
Do you have trouble with the French subjunctive? Maybe this song will helps - it's a tribute to Jeanne d'Arc filled with verbs and expressions that require the subjunctive.
Grammar Lessons

Clauses

French clausesA clause is a grammatical unit of meaning containing, at minimum, a subject and verb. There are three different types of clauses.
Grammar Lessons

Conditional Perfect

French conditional perfectTo talk about something that would, could, or should have happened—but didn't—you need the conditional perfect, also known as the past conditional.
Grammar Lessons

Conjunctive Phrases

French conjunctive phrasesTwo or more words often join to create a conjunctive phrase, which just means a series of words that acts like a conjunction. Most French conjunctive phrases end in que and all are subordinating conjunctions.
Grammar Lessons

Demonstrative Pronouns

French demonstrative pronounsDemonstrative pronouns (celui, celle, ceux, celles) replace a specific noun that was mentioned previously. In French, they must agree with the noun(s) in number and gender.
Grammar Lessons

Determiners

French determinersDeterminers are a category of grammatical terms that includes articles, numbers, and non-qualifying adjectives. Unlike qualifying adjectives, determiners serve two functions: they introduce and modify nouns at the same time.
Grammar Lessons

Devoir vs Falloir

Devoir vs falloir - French verbsDevoir and falloir are fairly synonymous, but these two French verbs are not interchangeable. Their meanings are slightly different, and they each have additional meanings, depending on how they're used.
Grammar Lessons

Double Pronoun Order

French double pronoun word orderSometimes one pronoun just isn't enough. A sentence might need both a direct and indirect object, or a reflexive pronoun as well as an adverbial. When this happens, word order becomes an issue: how do you know which pronoun to place first? It's actually pretty easy, once you learn the rules.
Grammar Lessons

En – Adverbial Pronoun

En - French adverbial pronounThe adverbial pronoun en can replace a quantity, a place, or the object of the preposition de. This little word has many possible translations.
Grammar Lessons

Euphony

French euphonyIt's no accident that spoken French is beautiful - there are actually grammatical changes required to avoid hiatus in order to maintain euphony, so that words flow together like music.
Grammar Lessons

Exclamative Adjectives

French exclamative adjectivesTo express admiration, surprise, contempt, or another strong feeling about a noun, you can use the exclamative adjective quel, meaning "what (a)."
Grammar Lessons

Faillir – to almost do

J'ai failli pleurerFaillir has no direct verbal English equivalent when used as a semi-auxiliary verb; English needs an adverb or a short phrase to capture the meaning, such as "to almost do."
Grammar Lessons

Faire – Causative Construction

French causative constructionThe causative is a grammatical construction with a lazy subject who, rather than performing some action himself, is making someone or something else do it: to make something happen, to have something done.
Grammar Lessons

Fractions

French fractions
In both French and English, there's a lot of overlap between fractions and ordinals: the vast majority of these two types of numbers share the same word. In English, they are identical from "third" on up, while in French they're the same starting with cinquième.
Grammar Lessons

Future Perfect

French future perfectWouldn't it be nice if you could plan a perfect future? Too bad that's not what the future perfect tense does. The grammatical term "perfect" means "completed," so the future perfect is used to talk about something that will have happened or will have been completed at some point in the future.
Grammar Lessons

Idiomatic Pronominal Verbs

French idiomatic pronominal verbsSome French verbs use a reflexive pronoun to create a meaning different from (though often related to) the meaning of their non-pronominal siblings.
Grammar Lessons

Indefinite Adjectives

French indefinite adjectivesIndefinite adjectives like certains, divers, and quelques describe nouns in a general or non-specific way. Many indefinite adjectives indicate a vague quantity.
Grammar Lessons

Indefinite Adverbs

French indefinite adverbsTalking about indefinite concepts can be tricky in a foreign language, yet indefinite adverbs are rarely covered as a specific topic in class. This lesson considers them as a group.
Grammar Lessons

Indefinite Demonstrative Pronouns

French indefinite demonstrative pronounsIndefinite demonstrative pronouns (ce, ceci, cela, ça) do not agree with the nouns they replace in gender or number.
Grammar Lessons

Indefinite Pronouns

French indefinite pronounsIndefinite pronouns are vague - they either refer to unspecific nouns (like un autre and quelque chose) or make sweeping generalizations (on, tout le monde).
Grammar Lessons

Informal Negation

Informal French negationThe rule is that to make a French verb negative, you need ne in front of the verb and pas after it. The reality of how the French speak says otherwise.
Grammar Lessons

Intermediate French for Dummies

Get up to speed in the usage and grammar of French and improve your writing - by Laura K Lawless.
Grammar Lessons

Inversion with Nouns

French inversionInversion is not limited to pronouns - it can also be done with nouns and proper names, though this is a bit more complicated.
Grammar Lessons

Irregular -ir Verbs

Irregular French verb conjugationsThere are around 60 irregular -ir verbs, but that doesn't mean you have to memorize 60 different verb conjugation tables. Thanks to patterns in the conjugations of most of these verbs, you only need to learn 21.
Grammar Lessons

Irregular -re Verbs

Irregular French verb conjugationsEven though there are more than 100 irregular -re verbs, you don't have to learn a hundred conjugation tables. Since many of these verbs follow certain patterns, you only need to memorize about 20.
Grammar Lessons

Irregular Verbs

Irregular French verbsFrench grammarians classify verbs into three categories, but I don't like this system at all.
Grammar Lessons

Movable Adjectives

Movable French adjectivesA number of French adjectives change meaning depending on whether they go before or after the noun.
Grammar Lessons

Non-adjectives

French adjectivesAdjectives comprise one of the eight French parts of speech, but certain members of other grammatical categories can sometimes be used as adjectives. These "non-adjectives" are invariable: there's no gender/number agreement with the nouns they modify.
Grammar Lessons

Object Pronoun Placement

French object pronoun placementThe placement of object, reflexive, and adverbial pronouns depends on which of the four main verb constructions they're used with.
Grammar Lessons

On – Subject Pronoun

On - indefinite French subject pronounThe indefinite French subject pronoun on literally means "one," but is usually translated by an indefinite subject. Agreement with the subject implied by on is optional - at least in theory.
Grammar Lessons

Passé composé vs Imparfait

Passé composé vs imparfaitThe trickiest aspect of the two most important French past tenses is that they often work together, juxtaposed not only throughout stories, but even within individual sentences. Understanding the contrasting relationship between the passé composé and imparfait is essential to communicating in French.
Grammar Lessons

Passé composé vs Imparfait

Passé composé vs imparfaitFrench videoWhen talking about the past in French, there are two different tenses that work together: the passé composé and the imparfait. Although English has verb forms that appear to be exact equivalents for each of these, they don't quite match up in the two languages. This video will help you understand when, why, and how to use each French tense.
Grammar Lessons

Passé simple

Passé simpleThe passé simple is a single-word past tense, equivalent to English's simple past. However, the passé simple is a literary tense and is thus limited to formal writing, such as literature (including children's books), journalism, and historical accounts.
Grammar Lessons

Passive Voice

French passive voiceAs seen in this sentence, the passive voice is used to indicate that something is being done to a subject by an agent. It's passive because the subject is being acted upon, rather than acting as in the active voice.
Grammar Lessons

Past Perfect aka Pluperfect

French past perfectThe past perfect, also called the pluperfect, is a verb tense that distinguishes between two related things that happened in the past, indicating which one occurred before the other. The use of the past perfect is very similar in French and English.
Grammar Lessons

Perfect Participle

French perfect participleWhen one thing leads to another, you can use the French perfect participle (e.g., ayant mangé, étant parti) to talk about the first action. In English, this construction is very stilted, so it's usually loosely translated into more idiomatic phrasing.
Grammar Lessons

Personal Pronouns

French personal pronounsPersonal pronouns have different forms to match the different grammatical persons they replace. There are five kinds of French personal pronouns, some of which are identical, which can make it tricky to grasp which is which.
Grammar Lessons

Possession

French possessionFrench has four different possessive constructions, which can seem daunting until you realize that English does too - you've probably just never thought about them before.
Grammar Lessons

Possessive à

French possessive àTo emphasize to whom something belongs, you can use the possessive à in one of three constructions.
Grammar Lessons

Presentatives

French presentativesFrench presentatives are words or short expressions that introduce something and draw attention to it at the same time.
Grammar Lessons

Progress with Lawless French

Progress with Lawless FrenchProgress with Lawless French is an adaptive, test-driven French learning system that will help you learn more efficiently with personalized kwizzes, writing challenges, and dictées.
Grammar Lessons

PwLF Super Study Lists

Progress with Lawless FrenchTake your Progress with Lawless French account to the next level with these super study lists that bring together all the lessons on a particular grammar topic.
Grammar Lessons

Relative Pronouns

French relative pronounsRelative pronouns are connectors - they link relative clauses to main clauses so that you don't have to repeat subjects and objects. There are five French relative pronouns: dont, lequel, où, que, and qui, which are equivalent to seven English relative pronouns and adverbs: that, when, where, which, who, whom, and whose.
Grammar Lessons

Si Clauses: Conditionals

French si clausesSi clauses, also known as conditionals or conditional sentences, are if-then constructions that express a condition to be met in order for a certain result. They are divided into three types, depending on whether the condition is likely, unlikely, or impossible.
Grammar Lessons

Si Clauses: First Conditional

French si clausesThe first conditional is an if-then proposition that talks about a likely situation: if something happens (the condition), then something else happens (the result). The first conditional is constructed similarly in French and English and can be further divided into three subcategories.
Grammar Lessons

Si Clauses: Second Conditional

French si clausesThe second conditional is an if-then proposition that expresses an unlikely situation: if something happened (the condition), then something else would happen (the result). The condition is expressed with the imperfect, and the potential result is indicated with the conditional.
Grammar Lessons

Subjunctive

French subjunctiveThe French subjunctive is a special verb form, called a "mood," that is used in dependent clauses to indicate some sort of subjectivity, uncertainty, or unreality in the mind of the speaker.
Grammar Lessons

Subordinating Conjunctions

French subordinating conjunctionsSubordinating conjunctions connect two unequal clauses: a main clause and a dependent or subordinate clause.
Grammar Lessons

Superlative Adverbs

French superlativesSuperlative adverbs are used to profess absolute superiority or inferiority among two or more things. This superlative lesson will help you be the best at using them.
Grammar Lessons

Tonic Accent

French tonic accentThere's no word stress in French, so you have two options for emphasizing a particular word. One has to do with pronunciation (affective accent) and the other is grammatical: the tonic accent.
Expressions

Using Impersonal Expressions

Using French impersonal expressionsImpersonal expressions use an impersonal subject: "it" in English, and il or ce in French. The meaning of the two French pronouns is identical, but ce is a bit informal and therefore more common when speaking, whereas il is more common in writing.
Grammar Lessons

Variable Auxiliary Verbs

Variable French auxiliary verbsAbout two dozen intransitive French verbs require être as their auxiliary in the compound tenses and moods. Of these, eight can be used transitively, and when they are, two things happen.
Grammar Lessons

Verb Agreement

French verb agreementIn French, the past participles in compound tenses and moods sometimes have to agree with another part of the sentence, either the subject or the direct object.
Grammar Lessons

Verb Mood

French verb moodVerb mood is all about the 'tude; that is, the speaker's attitude about the verb, whether it's a fact, an opinion, a command, or a possibility.
Grammar Lessons

Verbs of Perception

French verbs of perceptionVerbs of perception indicate that the subject is using sight, sound, or touch to perceive something, whether object or action. French has six common verbs of perception.
Grammar Lessons

Verbs with à

French verbs with prepositionsA number of French verbs require the preposition à in front of a noun or infinitive.
Grammar Lessons

Verbs with dans

French verbs with dansSome French verbs need the preposition dans in front of a noun.
Grammar Lessons

Verbs with de

French verbs with deMany French verbs require the preposition de in front of a noun or infinitive.
Grammar Lessons

Verbs with Prepositions

French verbs with prepositionsMany French verbs require a specific preposition in front of a noun or infinitive. The choice of preposition depends on the verb before it, not whatever comes after, and there's no shortcut or trick to learning these - you just have to memorize each list.
Grammar Lessons

Verbs without Prepositions

French verbs without prepositionsWhile many French verbs require a specific preposition in front of a noun or infinitive, others don't - even when a preposition is needed in the English equivalent.
Grammar Lessons

Voice

French voiceThe grammatical term voice refers to the relationship between a verb and its subject: whether it is active, passive, or pronominal (reflexive).
Grammar Lessons

Y – Adverbial Pronoun

Y - French adverbial pronounThe adverbial pronoun y can replace a place or the object of the preposition à. Y is most commonly equivalent to "there," but may also be translated by a preposition plus "it."

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French Verbs

Most common verbs

aller
avoir
croire
devoir
dire
être
faire
falloir
manquer
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voir
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Coups de cœur

  • Aller (to go) - Verb Tables
  • Être (to be) - Verb Tables
  • Subjunctive
  • Faire (to do, to make) - Verb Tables
  • Venir (to come) - Verb Tables
  • Telling Time
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