Rules that actually make sense

French has three definite articles depending on gender and number: le for masculine singular nouns (le chat, the cat), la for feminine singular nouns (la maison, the house), and les for all plural nouns regardless of gender (les chats, les maisons). Unlike English "the", which never changes, the French article carries information about the noun itself — one reason French nouns are always learned together with their article.

Most French nouns become plural by adding -s (un chat → des chats), a change that's silent in speech — plurality is usually heard in the article (des instead of un), not in the noun itself. This is a key difference from English, where the plural -s is almost always pronounced.

The indefinite articles correspond to English "a/an" and "some": un before a masculine singular noun (un livre, a book), une before a feminine singular noun (une pomme, an apple), and des before any plural noun (des livres, some books; des pommes, some apples).

The partitive articles — du (masculine), de la (feminine), and de l' (before a vowel) — express an unspecified quantity of something not normally counted: du pain (some bread), de la confiture (some jam), de l'eau (some water). English often omits this idea entirely ("I'd like bread"), where French cannot: je voudrais du pain.

Every French noun has a grammatical gender, masculine or feminine, which has nothing to do with real-world sex for objects and ideas — la table (the table) is feminine, le livre (the book) is masculine, for no reason beyond how the word has always been used. Gender determines the article, adjective endings, and pronoun choice, so it has to be learned along with the noun itself.

The preposition à (to, at) and de (of, from) both contract with the masculine article le and the plural article les — they never contract with la or l'. À + le becomes au (je vais au cinéma, I'm going to the cinema), and à + les becomes aux (je parle aux enfants, I'm talking to the children).

Most French verbs — well over half of all verbs in the language — end in -er in the infinitive: parler (to speak), manger (to eat), aimer (to like/love). They're the most regular group: drop -er from the infinitive and add -e, -es, -e, -ons, -ez, -ent.

The second-largest regular group of French verbs ends in -ir in the infinitive: finir (to finish), choisir (to choose), réussir (to succeed). Drop -ir and add -is, -is, -it, -issons, -issez, -issent — noticeably heavier endings than the -er group, and this time each form does sound different.

A smaller, regular group of verbs ends in -re: vendre (to sell), attendre (to wait), répondre (to answer). Drop -re and add -s, -s, nothing at all, -ons, -ez, -ent: je vends, tu vends, il/elle vend, nous vendons, vous vendez, ils/elles vendent.

Être (to be) and avoir (to have) are the two most important irregular verbs in French — they're used constantly on their own and as the auxiliary for every compound tense. Être: je suis, tu es, il/elle est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils/elles sont. Avoir: j'ai, tu as, il/elle a, nous avons, vous avez, ils/elles ont.

Aller (to go) and faire (to do/make) are both highly irregular but essential, since aller builds the near future and faire appears in dozens of everyday expressions. Aller: je vais, tu vas, il/elle va, nous allons, vous allez, ils/elles vont. Faire: je fais, tu fais, il/elle fait, nous faisons, vous faites, ils/elles font.

Pouvoir (can/to be able to), vouloir (to want), and devoir (must/to have to) are irregular modal verbs, each normally followed directly by an infinitive with no preposition: je peux partir (I can leave), elle veut manger (she wants to eat), nous devons travailler (we have to work).

Reflexive verbs conjugate exactly like any other verb, but they carry a reflexive pronoun that changes with the subject: me/m', te/t', se/s', nous, vous, se/s'. Se laver (to wash oneself) becomes je me lave, tu te laves, il se lave, nous nous lavons, vous vous lavez, ils se lavent.

Several very common French verbs are followed directly by an infinitive, with no preposition linking them — a pattern that doesn't map cleanly onto English. Aller + infinitive expresses the near future (je vais partir, I'm going to leave), vouloir + infinitive expresses a wish (elle veut voyager, she wants to travel), and devoir + infinitive expresses obligation (nous devons partir, we must leave).

French adjectives agree in gender and number with the noun they describe, not with the person speaking. Most add -e for the feminine (petit → petite) and -s for the plural (petit → petits, petite → petites) — a masculine plural adjective takes just -s, a feminine plural adjective takes -es.

Possessive adjectives agree with the noun they describe, not with the owner's gender — a common trap for English speakers. Mon is used before a masculine singular noun (mon frère, my brother), ma before a feminine singular noun (ma sœur, my sister), and mes before any plural noun regardless of gender (mes parents, my parents).

Most French adjectives go after the noun they describe, the opposite of English: une voiture rouge (a red car), un livre intéressant (an interesting book). This is the default position and applies to the vast majority of descriptive adjectives, especially those describing color, shape, nationality, and religion.

French makes comparisons with plus... que (more... than), moins... que (less... than), and aussi... que (as... as), placed around the adjective: elle est plus grande que moi (she is taller than me), ce livre est moins cher que l'autre (this book is less expensive than the other), il est aussi intelligent que sa sœur (he is as smart as his sister).

The French superlative is built from the comparative by adding the appropriate definite article: le plus grand (the tallest), la plus belle (the most beautiful), les plus intéressants (the most interesting). The article agrees with the noun, and if the adjective normally follows the noun, the whole superlative phrase follows it too: c'est la ville la plus visitée de France (it's the most visited city in France).

Demonstrative adjectives point to a specific noun, corresponding to English "this/that" and "these/those": ce before a masculine singular noun (ce livre, this book), cette before any feminine singular noun (cette maison, this house), and ces before any plural noun (ces livres, ces maisons).

Quel is the French equivalent of "which" or "what" used directly before a noun, and it agrees in gender and number with that noun: quel (masculine singular, quel âge as-tu?), quelle (feminine singular, quelle heure est-il?), quels (masculine plural, quels films aimes-tu?), and quelles (feminine plural, quelles couleurs préfères-tu?).

French negates a verb by wrapping it in two parts: ne before the verb and pas after it — je ne sais pas (I don't know), il ne parle pas (he doesn't speak). With a compound tense like the passé composé, pas goes right after the auxiliary, not after the past participle: je n'ai pas mangé, not je n'ai mangé pas.

Beyond ne...pas, French has several other two-part negations that follow the same wrap-around pattern but change the meaning: ne...jamais (never), ne...plus (no longer/no more), and ne...rien (nothing). Je ne fume jamais (I never smoke), elle ne travaille plus ici (she no longer works here), il ne mange rien (he eats nothing).

Ne...personne (nobody/no one) works like the other two-part negations but with one difference: in a compound tense, personne moves after the past participle rather than staying next to the auxiliary — je n'ai vu personne (I saw nobody), not je n'ai personne vu. Personne can also start a sentence as the subject: personne ne sait (nobody knows).

The simplest way to ask a yes/no question in French is to add est-ce que before a normal statement, with no change to word order at all: tu parles français becomes est-ce que tu parles français? (do you speak French?). Est-ce que has no direct English translation — it's purely a question marker.

Inversion forms a question by swapping the subject pronoun and the conjugated verb, joined with a hyphen: tu parles becomes parles-tu? (do you speak?), vous êtes becomes êtes-vous? (are you?). It's associated with more formal or written French rather than casual conversation.

Qui asks about a person and can be either the subject or object of the question: qui parle? (who is speaking?), tu vois qui? (who do you see?). Que (or qu'est-ce que before a subject + verb) asks about a thing as the object: que fais-tu? or qu'est-ce que tu fais? (what are you doing?).

French has a standard set of question words for time, place, reason, manner, and quantity: où (where), quand (when), pourquoi (why), comment (how), and combien (how much/many). Each can be used with est-ce que for a simple, spoken-friendly question: où est-ce que tu habites? (where do you live?).

The passé composé is the most common past tense in spoken French, used for completed actions: j'ai mangé (I ate), elle est partie (she left). It's a compound tense, built from an auxiliary verb in the present (avoir or être) plus the main verb's past participle.

A specific, memorizable set of verbs — mostly describing motion or a change of state — takes être rather than avoir in the passé composé: aller, venir, arriver, partir, entrer, sortir, monter, descendre, naître, mourir, rester, retourner, tomber, and their compounds like revenir and devenir. This set is often taught with the mnemonic house "Dr & Mrs Vandertramp", one letter per verb.

When a verb's auxiliary is être in a compound tense, its past participle behaves like an adjective and agrees with the subject: il est allé (masculine singular, no extra ending), elle est allée (feminine singular, add -e), ils sont allés (masculine plural, add -s), elles sont allées (feminine plural, add -es).

With avoir as the auxiliary, the past participle normally doesn't change at all: elle a mangé, ils ont fini, regardless of the subject's gender or number. The one exception is when a direct object comes before the verb — in that case, the participle agrees with that preceding direct object instead of with the subject.

The imparfait is formed from the nous form of the present tense: drop the -ons ending and add -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient. From nous parlons, you get je parlais, tu parlais, il parlait, nous parlions, vous parliez, ils parlaient. This rule works for nearly every French verb, including most irregular ones.

The passé composé and the imparfait both describe the past, but they answer different questions: the passé composé tells what happened — a specific, completed event — while the imparfait describes what was happening, ongoing states, habits, or background scenery. Je regardais la télé quand le téléphone a sonné (I was watching TV when the phone rang) uses both in a single sentence, one for each role.

The plus-que-parfait (pluperfect) describes an action that had already happened before another past action or point in time — the French equivalent of English "had done". It's formed with the imparfait of avoir or être plus the past participle: j'avais mangé (I had eaten), elle était partie (she had left).

The passé simple is a literary past tense — it appears in novels, formal historical writing, and fairy tales, but it's essentially never used in speech or everyday writing, where the passé composé takes its place. Learners mainly need to recognize it, not produce it. Regular -er verbs form it with -ai, -as, -a, -âmes, -âtes, -èrent: il parla (he spoke).

French subject pronouns are je (I), tu (you, informal singular), il/elle/on (he/she/one), nous (we), vous (you, formal or plural), and ils/elles (they, masculine/feminine or mixed plural). Je shortens to j' before a vowel sound: j'aime, j'habite.

Stressed (or disjunctive) pronouns — moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles — stand in for a person when a subject pronoun can't be used grammatically: after a preposition (avec moi, with me; pour toi, for you), after c'est (c'est lui, it's him), or alone as a one-word answer (qui a fait ça? — moi, who did that? — me).

Reflexive verbs describe an action the subject does to itself, and they're identified by the pronoun se in the infinitive: se laver (to wash oneself), se lever (to get up), s'appeler (to be named). Like other object pronouns, the reflexive pronoun changes with the subject: je me lave, tu te laves, il se lave, nous nous lavons, vous vous lavez, ils se lavent.

Direct object pronouns replace a noun that directly receives the verb's action, with no preposition in between: me/m' (me), te/t' (you), le/la/l' (him/her/it), nous (us), vous (you), les (them). Unlike English, they're placed before the conjugated verb, not after: je le vois (I see him/it), not je vois le.

Indirect object pronouns replace a person introduced by à — the "to/for someone" of a sentence: me/m', te/t', lui (to him/her), nous, vous, leur (to them). They're used with verbs that naturally take à + a person, like parler à, donner à, and écrire à.

En replaces de + a noun — most often a quantity, a partitive article (du, de la, des), or the object of a verb that takes de. It corresponds loosely to "of it / of them / some": tu veux du café? Oui, j'en veux (do you want coffee? Yes, I want some).

Y replaces à + a place, or à + a thing (not a person), and usually corresponds to "there" or "about/of it": tu vas à Paris? Oui, j'y vais (are you going to Paris? Yes, I'm going there). It's placed before the conjugated verb, exactly like the object pronouns.

When a sentence needs two object pronouns at once, they follow a fixed order rather than the order they'd have in English: me/te/se/nous/vous, then le/la/les, then lui/leur, then y, then en. So "he gives it to me" is il me le donne, and "she talks to him about it" is elle lui en parle.

Qui and que both translate as "who", "which", or "that" in English, but French chooses between them based on grammatical role, not on whether the antecedent is a person. Qui is the subject of the clause that follows it: la femme qui parle est ma mère (the woman who is speaking is my mother) — qui stands in for la femme as the subject of parle.

Dont replaces de + a noun inside a relative clause, most often corresponding to "whose", "of which", or "about which": c'est l'ami dont je t'ai parlé (that's the friend I told you about — literally "about whom I told you"). It's required whenever the verb or expression in the clause takes de: parler de, avoir besoin de, être content de.

Lequel (and its forms laquelle, lesquels, lesquelles) replaces a noun after a preposition other than de, when qui alone would be ambiguous or when the antecedent is a thing rather than a person: le stylo avec lequel j'écris (the pen with which I write), la raison pour laquelle je pars (the reason why I'm leaving).

Demonstrative pronouns replace a noun already mentioned, agreeing with its gender and number: celui (masculine singular), celle (feminine singular), ceux (masculine plural), celles (feminine plural) — all meaning roughly "the one(s)". They're rarely used alone and almost always followed by -ci/-là, de, or a relative clause.

The futur proche (near future) is the everyday way to talk about something about to happen, formed with the present tense of aller plus an infinitive: je vais partir (I'm going to leave), elle va manger (she's going to eat), nous allons voyager (we're going to travel).

The futur simple corresponds to English "will" and is formed by adding a single set of endings — -ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez, -ont (which look like the present tense of avoir) — directly onto the infinitive: parler → je parlerai, tu parleras, il parlera, nous parlerons, vous parlerez, ils parleront.

A number of very common verbs use an irregular stem in the futur simple, even though the endings themselves (-ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez, -ont) stay completely regular. Être becomes ser- (je serai), avoir becomes aur- (j'aurai), aller becomes ir- (j'irai), faire becomes fer- (je ferai), and venir becomes viendr- (je viendrai).

The futur antérieur (future perfect) describes an action that will already be completed before another future action or point in time — the French equivalent of "will have done". It's formed with the futur simple of avoir or être plus the past participle: j'aurai fini (I will have finished), elle sera partie (she will have left).

The conditionnel présent corresponds to English "would", and it's built the same way as the futur simple — same stem, including all the same irregular stems — but with the imparfait endings (-ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient) instead: je parlerais (I would speak), je serais (I would be), j'aurais (I would have).

The conditionnel passé (past conditional) describes what would have happened under different circumstances — the French equivalent of "would have done". It's formed with the conditionnel présent of avoir or être plus the past participle: j'aurais fait (I would have done), elle serait venue (she would have come).

French si-clauses (if-clauses) follow three fixed tense patterns depending on how real or hypothetical the condition is. For a real, likely condition, si + present pairs with a future or present result: si tu viens, je serai content (if you come, I will be happy).

The imperative gives commands or instructions and exists only in the tu, nous, and vous forms — there's no je, il/elle, or ils/elles imperative, since you can't command yourself or a third party directly. It's formed from the present tense, simply by dropping the subject pronoun: tu parles → parle!, nous parlons → parlons!, vous parlez → parlez!

The subjonctif présent is formed from the ils/elles form of the present tense: drop -ent and add -e, -es, -e, -ions, -iez, -ent. From ils parlent, you get que je parle, que tu parles, qu'il parle, que nous parlions, que vous parliez, qu'ils parlent — note that the nous and vous forms actually match the imparfait, not the present indicative.

A handful of very common verbs have an irregular subjonctif présent stem rather than following the ils/elles-based rule. Être: que je sois, que tu sois, qu'il soit, que nous soyons, que vous soyez, qu'ils soient. Avoir: que j'aie, que tu aies, qu'il ait, que nous ayons, que vous ayez, qu'ils aient.

The subjunctive is required after a specific, learnable set of expressions in the main clause, most falling into four categories: wish or will (vouloir que, souhaiter que), emotion (être content que, avoir peur que), doubt or possibility (douter que, il est possible que), and necessity or obligation (il faut que, il est nécessaire que).

Verbs of opinion and belief (penser que, croire que, être sûr que) take the indicative, not the subjunctive, when used affirmatively, because they're asserting something as a fact: je pense qu'il a raison (I think he's right) uses the indicative (a). Only when these same verbs are negated or questioned — and the certainty disappears — does the subjunctive take over: je ne pense pas qu'il ait raison (I don't think he's right).

A set of subordinating conjunctions always triggers the subjunctive in the clause that follows, regardless of the verb involved: bien que and quoique (although), pour que and afin que (so that), avant que (before), à moins que (unless), and sans que (without), among others.

French prepositions of place include à (at/to), dans (in, inside), sur (on, on top of), sous (under), and chez (at the home/place of). Chez has no direct English equivalent and is used specifically for people's homes or businesses: chez moi (at my place), chez le médecin (at the doctor's office).

Talking about being in or going to a country, city, or region uses a specific set of prepositions rather than one all-purpose word like English "in/to". Cities normally take à: à Paris, à Londres. Feminine countries (most countries ending in -e) take en: en France, en Espagne, en Chine.

Many French verbs require a specific preposition — à or de — before an infinitive that follows them, and there's no reliable way to predict which one just from the English translation. Commencer à (to start to), aider à (to help to), and réussir à (to succeed in) all take à: j'apprends à nager (I'm learning to swim).

Most French adverbs of manner are formed by adding -ment to the feminine form of an adjective, roughly corresponding to English "-ly": lente (feminine of lent, slow) → lentement (slowly), heureuse (feminine of heureux, happy) → heureusement (happily/fortunately).

Depuis, pendant, and il y a all relate to time but aren't interchangeable. Depuis (since/for) pairs with the present tense to describe an action still ongoing: j'habite ici depuis trois ans (I've been living here for three years — and I still do), a construction that trips up English speakers used to a present perfect ("I have lived").

French has two words for "you", and choosing between them is a real social decision, not just grammar. Tu is informal, used with family, friends, children, and peers of a similar age. Vous is formal, used with strangers, older people, authority figures, and in any professional or first-time interaction — and vous is also simply the plural "you", addressing more than one person regardless of formality.

The basic French sentence follows the same subject-verb-object order as English: Marie mange une pomme (Marie eats an apple). Where French diverges most is with pronouns, which move before the conjugated verb instead of staying in object position: Marie la mange (Marie eats it), not Marie mange la.

C'est and il est/elle est can both translate as "he/she/it is", but they're used in different grammatical contexts. C'est is followed by a noun (with its article) or a stressed pronoun: c'est un médecin (he's a doctor), c'est elle (it's her), c'est intéressant (it's interesting, referring to a whole situation).

With a simple conjugated verb, most short, common adverbs go directly after it, unlike English, where they often go before: je mange souvent ici (I often eat here), not je souvent mange ici. Longer adverbs, especially those describing time or place (aujourd'hui, demain, ici, là-bas), have more flexibility and can also go at the very start or end of the sentence.