More French Fundamentals

Plurals

Many French words have plural forms. Plural nouns and adjectives often end in -s, though the S is usually silent.

homme (“man”) ⇒ hommes (“men”)
femme (“woman”) ⇒ femmes (“women”)
chat noir (“black cat”) ⇒ chats noirs (“black cats”)
There are also plural forms for pronouns and verb conjugations. Consider parler (“to speak”):

Person French Example
I je Je parle. — I speak.
You (singular) tu Tu parles. — You speak.
You (formal) vous Vous parlez. — You speak.
He il Il parle. — He speaks.
She elle Elle parle. — She speaks.
We nous Nous parlons. — We speak.
You (plural) vous Vous parlez. — You speak.
They (any group including a male) ils Ils parlent. — They speak.
They (all women) elles Elles parlent. — They speak.
Tu or Vous?

French has two words for the subject pronoun “you”: tu and vous. For a singular “you”, tu should only be used for friends, peers, relatives, children, or anyone else who’s very familiar to you. In all other cases and also for plurals, the more polite vous should be used to show respect. When in doubt, use vous.

Agreement

Pronouns, adjectives, and articles must agree with their nouns in both gender and number. Consider the examples below and note how the article and adjective change to agree with each noun.

Masculine singular: Le chat noir — The black cat
Masculine plural: Les chats noirs — The black cats
Feminine singular: La robe noire — The black dress
Feminine plural: Les robes noires — The black dresses
Not all adjectives change forms. For instance, riche is the same for both masculine and feminine singular nouns.

Continuous Tenses

English has two present tenses: simple (“I write”) and continuous (“I am writing”), but French has no specialized continuous verb tenses. This means that “I write”, “I am writing”, and “I do write” can translate to j’écris (not je suis écris) and vice versa.

However, the idiomatic phrase « être en train de » is often used to indicate that someone is in the process of doing something.

Je suis en train de manger. — I am [in the process of] eating.
When translating, remember that English stative verbs have no continuous forms. For instance, « j’aime un garçon » cannot be translated as “I am loving a boy”.

Ah, L’Amour

Love is tricky in France. For people and pets, aimer means “to love”, but if you add an adverb, like in aimer bien, it means “to like”. For everything else, aimer only means “to like”. Adorer can always mean “to love”, though it tends to be more coy than aimer.