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
la baguette - a baguette, the long stick-shaped bread.
une boulangerie - a store where bread is sold. In French, different types of stores are called different things depending on what they sell.
la farine - flour.
la levure - yeast.
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