Adverb / Adverbe

An adverbs is an invariable word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.

Adverbs can provide additional information about time, manner, place, frequency, or quantity.

They explain when, how, where, how often, or to what degree something is done. Nearly

every French word that ends in -ment is an adverb, usually of manner. Its English equivalent

ends in –ly.

English ADVERB French ADVERBE

Generally Generelement

Currently Actuallement

The placement of French adverbs can be difficult. Whereas in English their placement is

sometimes arbitrary .The placement rules for French adverbs are much stricter. For instance,

when the adverb is modifying a verb, it is placed after the conjugated verb:

English ADVERB French ADVERBE

We ate well Nous avons bien mange

I watch TV often in the evening Je regarde souvent la tele le soir.

When the adverb is modifying an adjective or another adverb, it is placed in front of the word

it is modifying:

English ADVERB French ADVERBE

We ate very well Nous avons tres bien mange

I am deeply moved Je suis profondement emu

Noun / Nom

A noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing, and abstract idea. Both English

and French nouns have a gender and occur in form of singular or plural noun. Generally, the

English language uses natural gender rather than grammatical gender. The gender of a word is

usually based on its biology. In French, each noun has gender; masculin. Words ending with

e are feminin word. They are either masculine or feminine. The gender of some nouns makes

sense such as homme (man) is masculine, femme (woman) is feminine but others do not. That

is because there are no specific way to state the gender of each noun.

ENGLISH NOUN FRENCH NOM

MASCULINE FEMININE MASCULIN FÉMININ

waiter waitress aide aide

man woman homme femme

room chambre

chair - chaise

pen stylo -

television - télévision

Pronoun / Pronom

A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun which has been mentioned earlier in a

piece of text or sentence.

Singular English

PRONOUN

Singular French

PRONOM

Plural English

PRONOUN

Plural French

PRONOM

I Je/j’ We Nous

You *Tu / Vous You Vous

He/She On They *Ils

They (f) Elles

(Personal pronouns of English and French)

*Tu / Vous

As English you refers to both singular and plural nouns, tu refers to singular noun only.

However, both tu and vous can be used to replace singular noun. Tu is used in referring to one

person of equal age and status such as one teenager to another. Vous is used in all cases

when you refer to more than one person and also in cases of children to adults or adults to

each other when they do not know each other or have a formal relationship. For examples:

i. Tu vas à l'école aujourd'hui? = Are you going to school today? (a brother talking to his sister)

ii. Vous allez chez le médecin. = You are going to the doctor. (a mother to her two children)

iii. Vous vouliez me parler? = You wanted to speak to me? (a subordinate to his boss)

*Ils

Ils refers to more than one male (or masculine nouns) or any mixed group in which at least

one member is male (or a masculine noun). Elles refers to more than one female (or feminine

nouns) in which no males (or masculine nouns) are included. For examples:

i. Ils croient que les filles sont bêtes. = They believe that girls are silly. (a group of five

school boys)

ii. Ils ont séché les cours. = They skipped school. (four girls and one boy)

iii. Elles jouent au basket. = They play basketball. (five girls)

Adjective / Adjectif

Adjective describes or modifies another person or thing in the sentence. In English, adjectives

virtually always precede the nouns they modify. However, in French adjectives may be placed

before or after the noun, depending on their type and meaning.

Most descriptive adjectives in French are placed after the noun they modify.  These types of

adjectives include shape, color, taste, nationality, religion, social class, and other adjectives

that describe things like personality and mood. For examples:

ENGLISH ADJECTIVES FRENCH ADJECTIVES

Round table Une table ronde

Middle-class family Une famille bourgeoise

American woman Une femme Americaine

(Placement of French adjective after the noun)

In French, all non-descriptive adjectives are placed before the noun. For examples:

(Placement of French adjective before the noun)

Conjunction / Conjunction

In French there are two types of conjunctions. The first is coordinating conjunction which

joins words and groups with equal value (has same nature or function). In the case of

individual words, this means that they must be the same part of speech whereas if they are

clauses, there must be similar tense.

e.g. J’aimeles pommes, les bananes, et les oranges.

I like apples, bananas and oranges.

Pommes, bananes and oranges are all fruits (nouns). This conjunction does not emphasize on

the principles of verb when using conjunctions as in English. In English, when using

conjunction it is important to ensure that the verb must agree with the subject. For example, if

both subjects are singular, the verb which follows the conjunctions must be in the singular

form.

E.g. Either his father or his mother is ill.

In French each conjunction must receive a secondary accent and each string must form a

prosodic group. Besides that, the number of constituents that can be conjoined is unbounded

which is contrary to English binary construction.

e.g. Il veut ( et chanter et danser)

He wants and to-sing and to-dance. (VP)

The next is subordinating conjunction which joins dependent clauses to main clauses. A

dependent clause cannot stand alone because its meaning is incomplete without the main

clause.

e.g. J’ai dit que j’aime les pommes.

I said that I like apples.

The main clause is j’al dit. J’aime les pommes is incomplete without j’aidit, I might not in

fact like apples but I said I did.

Preposition / Préposition

Prepositions are placed in front of nouns in order to indicate a relationship between the noun

and verb, adjective and noun that precedes it.

e.g. Je parle a Jean

I’m talking to Jean

In French, the noun that follows the preposition is an indirect object. The noun also can be

replaced by an object pronoun. In English, many verbs require a certain preposition in order

for the meaning of the verb to be complete such as “to look at”. It is also the same in French

but the prepositions required by the ones required by their counterparts. In addition some

verbs that require a preposition in English do not take one in French and vice versa.

e.g. pre’fe’rer (no preposition)

to prefer (needs preposition)

Determiner / Déterminant

Determiner consists of articles possessive pronouns and quantifiers. In English, determiners

do not have to agree with the noun’s gender like French does. For examples:

English Indefinite Article French Indefinite Article

A chicken Un poulet (m sing.)

An apple Une pomme (f sing.)

Books (no det.) Des livres (pl)

English Definite Article French Definite Article

The / That / This man Ce garçon

The / That / This woman Cette femme

These / Those people Ces personnes

4.0 Conclusion

Both English and French do have similarities in terms of syntax and morphology but

the most obvious difference is that French is a language which the grammar elements are

restricted to genders. In a grammatical sentence, French sentence must obey the grammatical

rule that each part of speech has to agree with genders including the noun, pronoun, verb and

adjective. Other than that, in terms of word formation and syntactic structure, French and

English can be considered as quite similar to each other that this assists English speaking

learners to learn French.