French I, Semester I; Le Jour et la Date

Sections:

Introduction  |   Section 1  |  Section 2  |   Section 3   |  Dictionaries

Section One:

Part A  |   Part B  |  Part C  |   Part D |   Part E |  Part F  | Part G

Section One - Part G Do you remember back in Unit 1, we learned how to say gentleman, lady, young woman, child? Check yourself here to see if you do remember: le monsieur the gentleman la dame the lady la jeune femme the young woman l'enfant the child l'ami the friend How did you do? If you are having trouble remembering the new vocabulary you are learning, your teacher can help you come up with helpful strategies. Singular and Plural Words like "the gentleman" and "the lady" are called nouns. Do you know what a noun is in English? A noun is a person, place, thing or idea. In French, all nouns have a gender--either masculine or feminine. It is easy to know the gender of the nouns you know at this point--if they are referring to a male, they are masculine and if they refer to a female, they are feminine. In the above list of nouns, you can also see that each noun is preceded by a little word. That little word is called an article and the ones used above are called definite articles. They refer to the man, the woman, the child, etc. There are three forms of the definite article in French, a masculine form, a feminine form and a plural form. The plural form is the same for masculine and feminine nouns: Masculine Feminine Singular le la Plural les les   Look at how we form plurals (more than one) in French: la maison (the house) les maisons (the houses) le livre (the book) les livres (the books) la table les tables What is the rule for forming plurals in French? Usually, you simply add an -s. You'll learn the irregular plurals later. For now, don't worry about them. Now, here's another set of words. When le was in front of a vowel, the -e turned into ' . In the plural, because les ends in a consonant, it stays the same. l'amiles amis l'enfantles enfants Au Travail! Write this exercise in your notebook. When you've finished, check your answers by clicking on the word to see if you got it right. In the following list of words, see if you can make the nouns and their articles plural in French. La télévision les télévisions L'ordinateur les ordinateurs Le téléphone les téléphones La radio les radios La classe les classes Le professeur les professeurs L'étudiant les étudiants L'étudiante les étudiantes   Cognates A cognate is a word that looks similar in the two languages, like television and télévision; class and classe. Without knowing it, you already have a pretty big vocabulary in French. A lot of the words you use in English actually come from French originally! Sometimes, though, there are "false friends or false cognates." Those are words that look alike, but actually mean something different. An example is pain in French mean "bread"; you know what "pain" means in English! Homework Activity If you are sure of how to make nouns plural in French, do this homework assignment and turn it in to your teacher at Grammar 1g. Supply the plural form of these words. You don't have to know what they mean to do it. Be sure to include the article. l'orange   le calendrier   la lampe   l'ascenseur   la robe   le garçon   le camion   la fille   This assignment is worth 8 points.  Preparation for Section Quiz! Be sure to go back through the material that you have covered in this unit to be fully prepared for the Section 1 Quiz. Go to Section 1 Quiz now. Bon courage!

© 2007 Aventa Learning. All rights reserved.