Lesson 6 Flashcards Preview

Quel jour sommes-nous?

What day is it? - Quel jour sommes-nous? Literally, this means "What day are we?"

Le lundi est le pire jour de la semaine

Monday - lundi. Note that if you are not referring to a specific day (a specific Monday), but to the day in general, you must put le before the day.

J'ai un examen mardi

Tuesday - mardi. When referring to a specific Tuesday, you do not need to use an article.

lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi, samedi, dimanche

Note that days are not capitalized in French.

J'ai quinze ans

a year - un an. Recall that when dealing with age, you must use the verb avoir instead of être.

Nous allons faire du sport pendant toute l'année

a year (duration) - une année. Année is used instead of an when emphasizing duration rather than a division or amount of time. This is similar to the difference between jour and journée.

Voilà deux ans que je suis à Paris

When choosing between the basic time words an, jour, soir, matin and their feminine counterparts année, journée, soirée, matinée, note that the former should generally be used with numbers. One exception is when you are describing duration: pendant toute la journée.

L'année scolaire est difficile

When choosing between the basic time words an, jour, soir, matin and their feminine counterparts année, journée, soirée, matinée, note that the latter should generally be used with adjectives.

Quand est-ce qu'il part? Il part dans trois mois

a month - un mois. Note how you can ask questions by placing any question word (quand in this case) in front of est-ce que.

Il fait toujours froid en janvier

January - janvier. Note that months are never capitalized and are used with the preposition en. En is used with months, years, and seasons to describe when something takes place.

Le mois de février est le mois le plus court de l'année

February - février. Note that you could also begin the sentence Février est le mois...

L'anniversaire de mon oncle est en mars

March - mars

janvier, février, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre

J'ai un rendez-vous avec Claude la semaine prochaine

an appointment - un rendez-vous. Note that this can also mean "meeting place."

Vont-ils retourner aujourd'hui?

to return - retourner. Note that both revenir and rentrer could also work here. All three verbs essentially mean "to return," although there are slight differences between them: retourner is best translated as "to go back," revenir as "to come back," and rentrer as "to come/go home."

(present tense of) auxiliary verb + past participle

The past tense (called the passé composé) is a compound tense. It's created with the present tense of an auxiliary verb -- either avoir or, less commonly, être. This verb is then followed by the past participle of the main verb. For instance: il a chanté -- "he sang."

For regular verbs, the past participle is formed by dropping the infinitive ending and replacing it with é, i, or u.

For instance, the past participle of chanter is chanté.

Aujourd'hui, j'ai joué au basket

Note the past tense of jouer, which takes the auxiliary verb avoir. Avoir is first conjugated in the first-person singular of the present (to agree with the subject), then followed by the past participle of the main verb, jouer. The past participles of regular -ER verbs are formed by removing the infinitive ending and adding é.

Ensuite, Maxine a parlé

Ce matin, Carl a regardé la télé

Nous avons fini notre travail

The past participles of regular -IR verbs are formed by removing the infinitive ending and adding i.

Nous n'avons pas fini notre travail

Note the use of negation here: the ne... pas construction is used with the auxiliary verb, before the past participle.

Les garçons ont entendu leur tante

The past participles of regular -RE verbs are formed by removing the infinitive ending and adding u.

J'ai vu quelque chose d'étrange

Recall that voir is an irregular French verb, and thus also has an irregular past participle, vu.

Je n'ai rien vu

Note the use of rien here. It comes after the conjugated auxiliary verb and before the participle.

As-tu vu cette nouvelle série télé?

Note that the subject and the auxiliary verb are inverted when asking a question in the passé composé. Also note that there is no distinction between "did you see" and "have you seen" in French.

Julie est accro à cette nouvelle chanson

addicted to - accro à. Accro is an informal, shortened form of the adjective accroché, formed from the past participle of accrocher, "to hang (up)." Chanson is a feminine noun.

Transitive verbs are action verbs that have a direct object, whereas intransitive verbs don't have objects. "I ate cake" (transitive) vs. "I arrived" (intransitive)

Most verbs use avoir as their auxiliary verb. Verbs that use être are typically intransitive verbs that denote movement -- aller, venir, partir, sortir, arriver, etc.

When used with être, the participle has to agree in gender and number with the subject. This is not true for verbs conjugated with the auxiliary verb avoir (with the exception of some rare cases that you will learn about elsewhere).

For example, "she went" is elle est allée (with the extra "e").