French Essentials For Dummies

Laura K. Lawless, Zoe Erotopoulos

• Verlag: For Dummies
• Jahr: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781118092941
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Thema: Französisch

Just the core concepts you need to write and speak French correctly

If you have some knowledge of French and want to polish your skills, French Essentials For Dummies focuses on just the core concepts you need to communicate effectively. From conjugating verbs to understanding tenses, this easy-to-follow guide lets you skip the suffering and score high at exam time.

• French 101 — get the lowdown on the basics, from expressing dates and times to identifying parts of speech
• Gender matters — see how a noun's gender determines the articles, adjectives, and pronouns you have to use
• The here and now — learn how to conjugate verbs in the present tense, choose subject pronouns, and form the present participle
• Way back when — get guidance on working with the past tense, including hints about when to use the compound past (passé composé) and when to use the imperfect
• What lies ahead — discover the different ways to express the future

Open the book and find:

• A review of numbers, dates, and times
• The parts of speech
• How to determine a noun's gender
• How to select the correct preposition
• Rules for making adjectives agree
• Tips for asking and answering yes/no questions
• Ways to spice up your descriptions
• Ten important verb distinctions

Chapter 1

Getting Down to Basics

In This Chapter

Counting with cardinal and ordinal numbers

Expressing dates

Telling time

Reviewing parts of speech

Being able to use cardinal and ordinal numbers and recognizing parts of speech are essential French skills. Knowing these basics will help you perfect your oral and written French.

Using Numbers

Numbers are one of the most basic and useful parts of language. In addition to simple counting, you need cardinal numbers for communicating dates, time, prices, phone numbers, addresses, and so much more. You use ordinal numbers to express the number of a floor or the order of a person in a race or competition.

Counting with cardinal numbers

Cardinal numbers are for counting, and the low numbers are easy. You may already know them backwards and forwards, but if not, all you need to do is memorize them. The higher numbers get a bit more complicated. Check out the following list of French numbers from 0 to 1 billion.

0 zéro 71 soixante et onze

1 un(e) 72 soixante-douze

2 deux 73 soixante-treize

3 trois 74 soixante-quatorze

4 quatre 75 soixante-quinze

5 cinq 76 soixante-seize

6 six 77 soixante-dix-sept

7 sept 78 soixante-dix-huit

8 huit 79 soixante-dix-neuf

9 neuf 80 quatre-vingts

10 dix 81 quatre-vingt-un

11 onze 89 quatre-vingt-neuf

12 douze 90 quatre-vingt-dix

13 treize 91 ...