French Essentials For Dummies E-Book

Laura K. Lawless

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fremdsprachen
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 171

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Just the core concepts you need to write and speak French correctly If you have some knowledge of French and want to polish your skills, French Essentials For Dummies focuses on just the core concepts you need to communicate effectively. From conjugating verbs to understanding tenses, this easy-to-follow guide lets you skip the suffering and score high at exam time. * French 101 -- get the lowdown on the basics, from expressing dates and times to identifying parts of speech * Gender matters -- see how a noun's gender determines the articles, adjectives, and pronouns you have to use * The here and now -- learn how to conjugate verbs in the present tense, choose subject pronouns, and form the present participle * Way back when -- get guidance on working with the past tense, including hints about when to use the compound past (passé composé) and when to use the imperfect * What lies ahead -- discover the different ways to express the future Open the book and find: * A review of numbers, dates, and times * The parts of speech * How to determine a noun's gender * How to select the correct preposition * Rules for making adjectives agree * Tips for asking and answering yes/no questions * Ways to spice up your descriptions * Ten important verb distinctions

Leseprobe

French Essentials For Dummies®

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

Foolish Assumptions

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Chapter 1: Getting Down to Basics

Using Numbers

Counting with cardinal numbers

Setting the Date

Naming the days of the week

Using the months of the year

Giving the date

Telling Time

Reviewing the Parts of Speech

Identifying things with nouns and articles

Replacing with pronouns

Moving along with verbs

Modifying with adjectives

Qualifying with adverbs

Connecting with prepositions

Chapter 2: Narrowing the Gender Gap

Specifying with Definite Articles

Distinguishing the definite articles

Using definite articles

Contracting with definite articles

Generalizing with Indefinite Articles

Understanding the Partitive

Using Demonstrative Adjectives

Taking the Guesswork out of Gender

Learning the gender of nouns

Using the same noun for both genders

Recognizing the gender of nouns

Pluralizing Nouns

Using x instead of s

Irregular plurals

Compound nouns

Plural nouns

Confirming Possession

Utilizing de

Using possessive adjectives

Substituting with Object Pronouns

Coping with direct object pronouns

Handling indirect object pronouns

Eliminating confusion

Figuring Out Adverbial Pronouns

Using y

Understanding en

Placing Object Pronouns

Doing Double Time with Object Pronouns

Lining up: Standard pronoun order

Using pronouns in affirmative commands

Chapter 3: It’s Happening in the Present

Recognizing Types of Verbs

Choosing Subject Pronouns

Tu versus vous

Il versus elle, and on

Ils versus elles

Conveying Thoughts in the Present Tense

Communicating with regular verbs

Changing certain verb spellings

Recognizing irregular verbs

Expressing yourself with irregular verbs

Identifying reflexive verbs

Understanding Present Participles and Gerunds

Forming the present participle

Using the present participle

Using gerunds

Chapter 4: Being Descriptive and Connecting Your Thoughts

Coloring with Adjectives

Making adjectives agree

Positioning adjectives

Changing meanings

Describing Actions with Adverbs

Creating adverbs

Placing adverbs

Comparing Things

Comparisons of inequality

Comparisons of equality

Chapter 5: Connecting with Prepositions

Committing Common Prepositions to Memory

Recognizing the Prepositional Pronouns

Using Prepositions with Places

Expressing “to” or “in” a place

Expressing “from” a place

Creating Modifiers

Joining Verbs with Prepositions

Verbs with à

Verbs with de

Verbs with à and de

Verbs with à and à

Verbs with other prepositions

Using verbs requiring no preposition

Chapter 6: Asking and Answering Questions

Presenting a Yes/No Question

Answering a Yes/No question

Being affirmative

Being negative

Getting the Whole Story

Understanding interrogative adjectives

Using interrogative adverbs

Getting information with interrogative pronouns

Giving Information

Chapter 7: Uncovering the Past

Dwelling on the Past with the Passé Composé

Forming the passé composé of regular verbs

Forming the passé composé of irregular verbs

Making agreements

Forming the passé composé of être verbs

Using the passé composé

Reminiscing with the Imperfect

Comparing the Passé Composé and the Imperfect

Chapter 8: Foreseeing the Future

Speaking about the Future by Using the Present

Employing the present to express the future

Using the near future

Conquering the Future Tense

Forming the future of spelling-change verbs

Forming the future of irregular verbs

Using the Future

Chapter 9: Recognizing Verb Moods

Giving Orders with the Imperative

Forming affirmative commands

Forming negative commands

Forming reflexive commands

Understanding the Present Subjunctive

Forming the present subjunctive of regular verbs

Coping with changes

Conjugating irregular verbs

Putting the present subjunctive to use

Exploring the Conditional

Forming the conditional of regular verbs

Forming the conditional of spelling-change verbs

Forming the conditional of irregular verbs

Employing the conditional

Understanding conditional sentences

Chapter 10: Ten Important Verb Distinctions

Visiting a Place or Visiting a Person

Spending Time or Spending Money

Knowing People or Places or Knowing Something

Playing a Game or Playing an Instrument

Leaving or Leaving Something Behind

Returning Home, Returning Something, or Just Returning

Leading, Bringing, or Taking Someone

Carrying, Bringing, Taking, or Taking Back Something

Thinking or Thinking About

Waiting or Attending

Appendix: Verb Charts

-er Verbs

-ir Verbs

-re Verbs

-cer Verbs

-ger Verbs

-eler Verbs

-eter Verbs

-e*er Verbs

-é*er Verbs

-yer Verbs

French Essentials For Dummies®

by Laura K. Lawless and Zoe Erotopoulos, PhD

French Essentials For Dummies®

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St. Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774

www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2011 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2011927300

ISBN: 978-1-118-07175-5

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Authors

Laura K. Lawless is the author of seven language instruction books (four French and three Spanish). She also teaches French, Spanish, and English on the Internet and has a Web site of vegetarian recipes and information.

Zoe Erotopoulos holds an M.A., M.Phil, and Ph.D. in French and Romance Philology from Columbia University. Her French teaching experience ranges from elementary to advance level courses including literature and theater. Dr. Erotopoulos has taught at a number of institutions including Columbia University, Reid Hall in Paris, and Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. For the past 15 years, she has been teaching in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

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Introduction

Whether you’re taking a French class in high school or college, this handy reference book can help you recall vocabulary, verb conjugation, crucial differences between French and English, and much more. If the idea of snuggling up with your textbook in advance of a big exam makes you queasy, take heart: This book is a focused, straightforward review of the key material covered in introductory French courses. French Essentials For Dummies can help you reach your goals painlessly and effortlessly as you enhance your French language skills.

French Essentials For Dummies provides you with all the basic grammar you need to know to understand the language and to communicate it clearly. With the help of this book, you’ll find it a snap to have a conversation about topics other than your name and the weather. And that’s quite an achievement!

About This Book

We designed this book to be as accessible as possible. Each self-contained chapter presents a different topic that allows you to master essential French skills. We cover just the basics of each topic so you can get a quick refresher of what you’ve learned in your coursework. Plus, we include plenty of examples to reinforce the rules so that you’re exposed to colloquial, everyday, correct French that native speakers expect to hear from someone using their language.

Conventions Used in This Book

To make this book as easy to use as possible, we use two important conventions throughout:

French words and sentences, as well as endings we want to highlight, are set in boldface to make them stand out.

English equivalents, set in italic, follow the French examples.

Foolish Assumptions

We wrote this book with the following assumptions in mind:

You’ve taken — or are taking — an introductory French class either at the high school or college level.

You want to review what you’ve already learned so you can pass a test for your course or excel on a college placement exam.

You want a thorough book but one that isn’t so advanced that you get bogged down by the rules. We try to explain French grammar as simply as possible without using too many technical terms.

You use French at work or school and want to improve your writing or speaking skills. Maybe a family member or significant other is studying French and you want to help (even though you haven’t looked at a verb conjugation for years). Or you’re planning a trip to France or another French-speaking country and want to put your French into practice.

Icons Used in This Book

Like all For Dummies books, this one uses icons to indicate certain kinds of content. You can see them in the left-hand column throughout the book. Here’s what they mean:

The Remember icon points out important concepts that you need to store in the back of your mind because you’ll use them quite regularly.

We use Tip icons to give you time-saving information that makes your studies quick and effective.

This icon points out certain differences between English and French that you may find confusing. To learn how French constructions differ from those in English, consult these icons.

Where to Go from Here

French Essentials For Dummies is organized to let you read only what you want to read. Each chapter stands on its own and doesn’t require that you complete any of the other chapters in the book. This setup saves you a lot of time if you’ve mastered certain topics but feel a bit insecure about others. Take a look at the table of contents or index, pick a topic, and go! Or you may want to proceed methodically by starting at the very beginning. It’s up to you!

Go ahead! Jump right in and get your feet wet. If you don’t know where to begin, take time to look at the table of contents and choose the topic that seems to best fit your abilities and needs. If you’re timid because you feel that your background hasn’t prepared you enough, you can start at the very beginning and work your way through the book.

No matter how you choose to read French Essentials For Dummies, we’re confident that it can help you improve your French writing and speaking skills. Of course, you shouldn’t let your practice end here. Write to a French pen pal, visit French websites and message boards, rent foreign flicks from the library, attempt conversations with your French-speaking friends, or try to translate song lyrics into French while you’re stuck in traffic. And when you have a grammar question, come back here and look it up. Pretty soon, the thoughts running through your head may take on a decidedly French flair. Bonne chance! (Good luck!)

Chapter 1

Getting Down to Basics

In This Chapter

Counting with cardinal and ordinal numbers

Expressing dates

Telling time

Reviewing parts of speech

Being able to use cardinal and ordinal numbers and recognizing parts of speech are essential French skills. Knowing these basics will help you perfect your oral and written French.

Using Numbers

Numbers are one of the most basic and useful parts of language. In addition to simple counting, you need cardinal numbers for communicating dates, time, prices, phone numbers, addresses, and so much more. You use ordinal numbers to express the number of a floor or the order of a person in a race or competition.

Counting with cardinal numbers

Cardinal numbers are for counting, and the low numbers are easy. You may already know them backwards and forwards, but if not, all you need to do is memorize them. The higher numbers get a bit more complicated. Check out the following list of French numbers from 0 to 1 billion.

0 zéro 71 soixante et onze

1 un(e) 72 soixante-douze

2 deux 73 soixante-treize

3 trois 74 soixante-quatorze

4 quatre 75 soixante-quinze

5 cinq 76 soixante-seize

6 six 77 soixante-dix-sept

7 sept 78 soixante-dix-huit

8 huit 79 soixante-dix-neuf

9 neuf 80 quatre-vingts

10 dix 81 quatre-vingt-un

11 onze 89 quatre-vingt-neuf

12 douze 90 quatre-vingt-dix

13 treize 91 quatre-vingt-onze

14 quatorze 92 quatre-vingt-douze

15 quinze 93 quatre-vingt-treize

16 seize 94 quatre-vingt-quatorze

17 dix-sept 95 quatre-vingt-quinze

18 dix-huit