French Grammar For Dummies

Learn to: Grasp parts of speech, sentence construction, and verb tenses Enhance your descriptive speech with adverbs, adjectives, and prepositions Practice your grammar skills as you go Master French grammar? Easy. Do you need help with using French? This hands-on, friendly guide teaches you the grammatical rules of the French language, including parts of speech, sentence construction, and verb tenses and moods. Throughout the book, you get plenty of practice opportunities to help you meet your goal of mastering basic French grammar and usage. Begin with the basics — discover how to use various parts of speech and deal with numbers, dates, and times Simple stuff — find out how to build simple sentences, use negative words and expressions, and ask questions Go to the next level — get the scoop on using pronominal verbs, employing the passive, making comparisons, and adding gerunds Don't be so tense — grasp verb tenses you'll use all the time: the present, the present perfect, the imperfect, and the future Be moody — get up to speed in a hurry on the conditional, subjunctive, and imperative moods Open the book and find: Information on nouns, adjectives, verbs, and other basic parts of speech Guidance on dealing with numbers, dates, and times Tips for constructing simple sentences and questions The scoop on making sentences more descriptive with comparisons, negative words, and more Different verb tenses and moods Ten common French grammar mistakes (and how to avoid them) Plenty of examples and practice opportunities

Introduction  1 Part I: Getting Started with French Grammar  5 Chapter 1: French Grammar in a Nutshell  7 Chapter 2: Sounding Out French Words  17 Chapter 3: Using Nouns and Determiners  35 Chapter 4: Describing Nouns with Adjectives 55 Chapter 5: Dealing with Numbers, Dates, and Times  69 Part II: Constructing Sentences, Saying No, and Asking Questions  85 Chapter 6: Acquainting Yourself with the Present Tense  87 Chapter 7: Acting on Oneself and on Each Other: Pronominal Verbs  107 Chapter 8: Just Say No: Negative Words and Phrases  119 Chapter 9: Handling Questions and Exclamations  131 Part III: Beefing Up Your Sentences  155 Chapter 10: Saying Where, When, and How with Adverbs  157 Chapter 11: Picking Up Prepositions  171 Chapter 12: It’s All Relative: Making Comparisons  187 Chapter 13: Using Pronouns  203 Chapter 14: Adding the Gerund and the Passive to Your Repertoire  227 Part IV: Talking about the Past or Future  237 Chapter 15: Noting Past Actions with the Present Perfect  239 Chapter 16: Reminiscing and Describing Ongoing Past Actions with the Imperfect  253 Chapter 17: Projecting Forward with the Future  265 Part V: Expressing Conditions, Subjectivity, and Orders  283 Chapter 18: Wondering with the Conditional  285 Chapter 19: Surveying the Subjunctive  301 Chapter 20: Giving Orders with the Imperative  319 Chapter 21: Discovering Compound Tenses  333 Part VI: The Part of Tens  341 Chapter 22: Ten Common French Grammar Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)  343 Chapter 23: Ten (Or So) Useful French Idioms  349 Index  353

Véronique Mazet has a doctorate in French from the University of Texas at Austin and is the author of two successful grammar books. She currently teaches French at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas.