Lesson - Section 3: Avoir/Etre, articles, and Food
 

PART 1: PRESENT TENSE VERBS

Section 3: Avoir/Être, Basic Articles, and Vocabulary Module 1 - Food

Avoir and Êtreare the two most important irregular verbs that you will encounter in all of the French Language. Avoir means to have, and Être means to be. Let's get straight to the conjugations!

For Être,

Je suis
Tu es
Il est
Elle est
Nous sommes
Vous êtes
Ils sont
Elles sont

hear it conjugated

For Avoir,

J'ai
Tu as
Il a
Elle a
Nous avons
Vous avez
Ils ont
Elles ont

hear it conjugated

a very important idiomatic expression you must know with avoir is avoir besoin de. That means to need. You simply conjugate avoir, then you have I need, you need, etc.

That's about it for present tense avoir and être! Go and copy these two conjugations out many many times.

French Articles

Articles are used much much much more commonly in French than in English. In fact, if the noun is in a sentence, pretty much the article is obligatory. The article can only be left out for "stand alone" words. There are, like in English, the definite article, the partitive article and the indefinite article.

L'article défini - le, la, l', les (the). Le is masculin singulier (masculine singular), la is féminin singulier (feminine singular), l' is the élision of le or la when the noun immediately following begins with a vowel or a silent h (h muet), and les is masculin/féminin pluriel (plural).

L'article partitif - du, de la, de l' (some, any). These articles are used to say "some of" something. For example, you say "Je mange du pain" to indicate that I am eating some bread. Otherwise, you might imply that you are eating the entire loaf at once ;) Du is formed from a contraction of de and le.

L'article indéfini - un, une, des (a, an, one, any, some, several). These articles are used to speak about a noun, but nonspecifically. For example, a book is translated in French un livre - but not specifically his book.

When you encounter à (to) or de before le or les, and the noun immediately following does not begin by a h muet or voyelle (vowel), you shall contract the à/de and le/les into one word by the following rules:

à + le = au
à + les = aux
de + le = du
de + les = des

Examples:

de la pluie (some rain)
de l'idée (of the idea)
du savon (some soap)
à l'hôpital (to the hospital)
des pommes de terre (some potatoes)
au lycée (to school)
aux amis (to friends)

Please see the attached table for a summary of the articles.

And before we get into vocabulary in full swing, I must note an important concept that exists in French nouns. Each noun has a gender, masculin or féminin. This gender is as important to the word as its spelling - for it determines whether you use le/la, un/une, de la/du, and most importantly - the agreement with other words in the sentence that refer to it. Therefore, it is imperative that you memorize the gender of the noun as well as its spelling. Try to memorize the noun with un/une - that way you will facilitate this process. Le, un, du, indicate that the noun immediately after is masculin, while la, une, and de la indicate that the noun immediately after is féminin. However, le and la become l' in most cases where the noun begins with a vowel. That is why I try to use un/une when that is the case to show you the gender of the noun. Two general rules: If the noun ends in E, -SON or -TION, it is most probably féminin. However, if the noun ends in anything else, it is most probably masculin. Words pertaining to grammar are usually masculin even though they might end in -E.

Vocabulary Module 1 - The words of Food - La nourriture

French Food is known throughout the world for its stylishness, its art, its uniqueness, and above all how good it tastes! For the French, the look of the food is just as important as the taste of the food - and in France the training of chefs and the making of food is a very important affair. To illustrate how important that is, note that Charles de Gaulle (a previous president of France) said: "How can you govern a country that has 246 different varieties of cheese?" Here I illustrate some basic vocabulary concerning food and where food is found.

Le pain - Bread


Les fruits – fruit


Les légumes - vegetables


Les produits laitiers - Dairy Products


La cuisine française - French Food


What you've all been waiting for - famous French dishes! Here are the names of some familiar French foods. Try not to get hungry after reading this lesson;) .


Les boissons - Drinks


Finally, I'm hungry = J'ai faim. I'm thirsty = J'ai soif.

All photographs courtesy of their respective websites.

-garçoncanadien

Wow, that's some work garçoncanadien! Very good :)

I only found 3 little mistakes. They're all about gender, I know it must be a pain for foreigners:
- Les produits laitières: should be "laitiers" (produit is masculine)
- une mélange protidique: should be un mélange (masculine)
- de l’eau – (nom masculin) – some water: "de l'eau" is correct but you should say (in brackets) that it's feminine.

Wow, great job! You are really putting a lot of work into these. Ones like une orange used to always trick me because of the double vowel. And for those of you confused by des raisins being grapes:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...px-Raisins.jpg
un raisin sec (a raisin; you would say des raisins secs for more than one raisin)

The French can also say une boisson gazeuse instead of un soda for a soft drink.

thank you everybody!! The notes were incorporated and the mistakes were corrected. By the way aFrenchie, je pense que tu dois corriger wordreference.com parce qu'ils n'ont pas le vrai genre pour le mot "mélange protidique".

i just increased the picture limit to 50 if you want to edit it. if it needs more let me know

That's quite a serious mistake for an online dictionary indeed :eek: :blink:

Yum... I mean good work. you put a lot of visuals into this one. I'm going to go eat now. :)

I want you all to think in French - so I show you the picture instead of the English translation, to encourage you to associate the object directly with the French word :)

Here are your test questions:

1. There are three girls eating yoghurt. How do you say "They are eating some yoghurt".
2. How do you say "I am drinking some water"?
3. How do you say "I have an orange"?
4. How do you say "You have a pineapple"?
5. The following is the conjugation for boire (to drink).

Je bois
Tu bois
Il/Elle boit
Nous buvons
Vous buvez
Ils/Elles boivent
How would you say They are drinking some apple juice?

6. How would you say I drink coffee?
7. How do you say we drink some wine?
8. How do you say we are eating pears?
9. Tell which of the following is not a correct match:

A: poivron - sweet pepper.
B: poivre - pepper (spice).
C: pomme - apple
D: pamplemousse - orange.

10. Tell which of the following is not a correct match:

A: ananas - pineapple.
B: banana - banane.
C: de l'eau - wine.
D: café - coffee shop.

11. Tell which of the following is not a correct match:

A: pomme - pear.
B: poire - pear.
C: framboise - raspberry.
D: fraise - strawberry.

12. Tell which of the following is not a correct match:

A: food - nourriture.
B: food - cuisine.
C: de la - some
D: à la - which.

13. Tell which of the following is not a correct match:

A: du - some
B: à les - aux
C: je suis - you are
D: ils ont - they have

14. Tell which of the following is not a correct match:

A: Il est - he is
B: Elle est - they are
C: Coq au vin - chicken/rooster cooked in wine
D: steak au poivre - pepper steak

15. Tell which of the following is not a correct match:

A: J'ai - I have
B: Tu as - You have
C: Ratatouille - Seafood stew
D: Je suis - I am

16. Translate "he has an idea".
17. Translate "we have some drinks".
18. Translate "she has a mango".
19. Translate "you (plural) love French cuisine"; the verb for love is aimer and it is conjugated in the regular fashion.
20. Translate "I am eating 3 fruits: a banana, a pear, and a

grapefruit". The word for 3 is trois, and the word for and is et.

nice one garçoncanadien!
too much information , ma tête va exploser!!!!