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French Grammar Rules – Les pronoms relatifs – Que, qui, dont, où, ce que, ce qui, ce dont

Les pronoms relatifs always seem difficult for our students who are not sure how and when to use them. These pronouns are connectors, and they link one relative clause (a subject and a verb that can’t stand alone without the main clause) to a main clause (which can make sense on its own). Example of a relative clause with a main clause: Complete sentence: Le smartphone...Read More

French Grammar – The Gender of Nouns – le, la, l’, les, un, une, des

No matter how long one studies French, the definite and indefinite articles seem to be a challenge for all. Even though they can be directly translated from English to French, there are situations where these articles are not used in quite the same way.     As a general rule, in French, there is almost always an article in front of a noun. Unlike English, where you can get away with...Read More

French Grammar – French Verbs that Look the Same But Are Different

Our students and all French learners are often confused by a few French verbs that look quite similar, but have a different meaning. Here are a few of these pairs that are very commonly used in French. I. Penser vs Croire Penser mainly means “to think”, whether it is followed or not with the conjunction “que”. There are slight nuances when it is followed by the...Read More

French Grammar – Using the Verb Manquer

The Verb manquer : Different Meanings Not to Be Missed This verb is very interesting as it means at the same time “to lack” or “to run out of something”, to “fail”, and, its main meaning, “to miss”. And this is when it becomes very confusing for English speakers as it is used in a very different way. It is interesting, too, to discover a...Read More

French grammar points – Quel/quelle, que, qu’est-ce que, quoi?

You might be a beginner or have been learning French for a while and you’re still unsure about the correct French interrogative expression for ‘what’ or ‘which’. Que, quoi, quel(s), quelle(s) or qu’est-ce que (qui) ? Which one should you use? 1. Quel(le) There are 2 ways to use quel: a) With a noun to express “what” or “which” A noun needs to follow after the...Read More

French Grammar – Using “On” instead of “Nous”

“On”: Friendlier than “Nous” The tiny word on carries great importance in everyday spoken French. For Anglophones learning French, on is frequently misunderstood or ignored because many think that on only expresses its English equivalent of ‘one’, while many of those who understand that it’s also an alternative to using nous hesitate to use it because of the false belief...Read More

Learn French – Le plus-que-parfait

Le plus-que-parfait : How perfect is it? What is so perfect about the plus‐que‐parfait? Well in my opinion, this tense deserves to have the word parfait in its name because unlike the other 2 past tenses, it is easy to understand how and when to use it. It has a clear and logical explanation; it isn’t ambiguous like the passé composé and the imparfait. In addition, it is directly...Read More