Foxes Class (Year 5)
French With Duolingo
Week 1 Lesson - Basic 1
Grammar notes like those below can be helpful if you're having trouble with the lessons. They'll be more helpful once you have a context for understanding them.
Genders
French has two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine. All nouns have a gender that you must memorize. Sometimes, the gender can be obvious: une femme ("a woman") is feminine. Other times, it's not obvious: une pomme ("an apple") is also feminine.
Personal Subject Pronouns
In every complete sentence, the subject is the person or thing that performs an action or is being described. This is often a noun, but a personal subject pronoun (e.g. "I", "you", or "he") can replace that noun. In both English and French, pronouns have different forms based on what they replace.
English French Example
I he Je mange. — I eat.
You (familiar singular) tu Tu manges. — You eat.
He/It il Il mange. — He eats.
She/It Elle Elle mange. — She eats.
Subject-Verb Agreement
Notice above that the verb manger (as well as its English equivalent, "to eat") changes form to agree grammatically with the subject. These forms are called conjugations of that verb. Whenever you want to learn a verb's conjugation, hover your mouse over that word and press the "Conjugate" button.
Here are some conjugations for verbs you'll encounter in the first few units:
Subject Manger (To Eat) Être (To Be) Avoir (To Have)
he je mange — I eat je suis — I am j'ai — I have
to tu manges — you eat tu es — you are tu as — you have
il/elle/on il mange — he eats il est — he is il a — he has