Pronouns are used when you get tired of repeating nouns. There are many different types of French pronouns – try these links for detailed lessons and examples of each type.
As 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.
Grammatical agreement is a vast topic - and one of the banes of French students. While in English we have a few pronouns and adjectives that indicate gender and number (e.g., he/him/his and she/her/hers), in French, agreement is found in 5 of the 8 parts of speech.
Connectives are links: they combine words, phrases, or sentences. Connectives do not constitute a single part of speech, but rather a category of terms including all conjunctions and prepositions as well as certain types of adverbs and pronouns used in this way.
Demonstrative 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.
A direct object is a noun, whether person or thing, that someone or something acts upon or does something to. In both French and English, direct objects are often replaced with direct object pronouns (COD): me, te, le, la, nous, vous, les.
Direct objects and indirect objects can be tricky to understand and use, but it's essential to know the difference in order to speak and write French correctly. Here are some tips to help you figure out which type of object you're dealing with.
The relative pronoun dont replaces the preposition de plus a person or thing and serves as the object of a relative clause. Depending on the context, dont has a number of possible translations.
Sometimes 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.