Language/French/Grammar/Collective-nouns

Collective nouns in French

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A collective noun ("nom collectif" in French) is a singular noun that represents a group of things or people. In English, examples of collective nouns include "team," "class," and "herd," while in French, some common collective nouns include "famille" (family), "troupeau" (herd), and "équipe" (team).

In French, collective nouns function like singular nouns and take singular verbs. For example:

• La classe est silencieuse. (The class is quiet.)
• La famille voyage souvent ensemble. (The family often travels together.)
• L'équipe a gagné le match. (The team won the game.)

Note that in some cases, the collective noun can be modified by a plural adjective to indicate the individual members of the group. In these cases, the collective noun still takes a singular verb. For example:

• Les membres de la famille sont tous différents. (The members of the family are all different.)
• Les joueurs de l'équipe sont en forme. (The players on the team are in good shape.)

Here are some other common collective nouns in French:

• Un troupeau de moutons (a herd of sheep)
• Une meute de loups (a pack of wolves)
• Une bande d'amis (a group of friends)
• Une flotte de navires (a fleet of ships)
• Un essaim d'abeilles (a swarm of bees)

Collective nouns are an important part of French grammar and can add variety and specificity to your writing and speaking. Practice using collective nouns in context and pay attention to how they function in sentences.

Other Examples of collective nouns

French	English
Un archipel (d'îles)	An archipelago (of islands)
Un banc (de poissons)	A school (of fish)
Un comité	A committee
Un cortège (de personnes, de choses)	A procession (of people, things)
Un essaim (d'abeilles)	A swarm (of bees)
Un gouvernement	A government
Un peuple	people
Un tas	A pile
Une assiette (de légumes)	A plate (of vegetables)
Une assistance	An audience
Une bande (de jeunes)	A bunch (of young people)
Une batterie (de missiles)	A battery (of missiles)
Une couvée (de poussins)	A brood (of chicks)
Une équipe	A team
Une flottille (de pédalos)	A flotilla (of pedal boats)
Une foule (de gens)	A crowd (of people)
Une harde (de cerfs, de sangliers)	A herd (deer, wild boar)
Une main-d'oeuvre	A workforce
Une meute (de chiens, de loups)	A pack (of dogs, wolves)
Une pile (d'assiettes)	A stack (of plates)
Une poignée	A handful or fistful
Une série	A series
Une troupe (de soldats, de lions)	A troop (of soldiers, of lions)
Une volée (de corbeaux)	A flock (of crows)

Collective noun as a subject and verb - Agreement

If the collective noun is the subject of a clause, the verb is mostly in the singular. This is different from English, where the verb can be either singular or plural:

• Le gouvernement a (NOT "ont") décidé d'interdire les cigarettes dans les lieux publics

The government has/have decided to ban cigarettes in public places

• Notre équipe s'entraîne (NOT "s'entraînent") le mardi soir

Our team trains/train on Tuesday evenings

Although collective nouns can stand alone in a sentence, they are often followed by a complement (a group of something). The tricky part about using collective nouns is determining whether the verb should agree with the collective noun (and be singular) or with its complement (and be plural).

Reminder: Categories of Nouns in French

This video explains the difference between certain categories of nouns that are relevant to your French learning: common and proper nouns, concrete and abstract nouns, countable and uncountable nouns, and collective nouns.

Chapters

• 0:00 Categories of nouns
• 0:19 Common/Proper
• 0:55 Concrete/Abstract
• 1:28 Countable/Non-countable
• 2:12 Collective nouns
• 3:02 Note about categories of nouns
• 3:19 Recapitulative table

• See lesson: Subject-verb agreement with collective nouns

Types of Nouns (all lessons)

Table of Contents

• Abstract versus concrete nouns
• Mass versus count nouns
• Collective nouns
• Proper nouns
• Use of an an/année, jour/journée, matin/matinée, soir/soirée

Other Chapters

Table of Contents

Nouns

• Types
• Gender
• Plural

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Determiners

• Articles
• Typical use of the definite article
• Typical use of the indefinite article
• The partitive article: du, de l', de la, des
• Use of indefinite and partitive articles after the negative forms ne... pas, ne... jamais, ne... plus, ne... guère
• Omission of the article
• Demonstrative determiners
• Possessive determiners

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Personal and impersonal pronouns

• Subject pronouns
• Object pronouns
• Stressed pronouns
• Demonstrative pronouns
• Possessive pronouns

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Adjectives

• Adjectives modifying the noun
• Adjectives which follow verbs or verbal expressions
• Adjectives with complements
• Indefinite and negative noun phrases with adjective complements
• Adjectives used as nouns
• Adjectives used as adverbs
• Masculine and feminine forms of adjectives
• Plural forms of adjectives
• Adjective agreement with nouns
• Invariable adjectives
• Compound adjectives
• Comparative and superlative forms of adjectives
• Subjunctive versus indicative in clauses dependent on a superlative adjective
• Absolute use of the superlative

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Adverbs

• Function of adverbs
• Formation of adverbs with the ending -ment
• Adjectives used as adverbs without addition of -ment
• Phrases used as adverbs
• English and French adverb formation
• Types of adverbs
• Location of adverbs

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Numbers, measurements, time and quantifiers

• Cardinal numbers
• Ordinal numbers
• Fractions
• Some differences in the use of cardinal and ordinal numbers in French and English
• Measurements and comparisons
• Dates, days, years
• Clock time
• Money
• Quantifiers

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Verb forms

• Conjugations
• Easy ways of generating some parts of the paradigms
• Changes in the stem form of some -er conjugation verbs
• Verbs whose stems end in c- or g-
• Verb paradigms

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Verb constructions

• Relations between verbs and their complements
• Intransitive constructions
• Directly transitive verbs
• Indirectly transitive verbs
• Ditransitive verbs
• The passive
• Pronominal verbs
• Impersonal verbs
• Verbs which take noun + adjective or noun + noun complements

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Verb and participle agreement

• Subject-verb agreement
• Agreement of the past participle with the subject of être
• Agreement of the past participle of verbs conjugated with avoir with a preceding direct object
• Agreement of the past participle of pronominal verbs in compound tenses

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Tense

• The present
• The past
• The future
• Other tenses indicating the time at which events occur relative to other events
• Combining tenses
• Tenses in direct and reported descriptions of events
• Tenses with si

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The subjunctive, modal verbs, exclamatives and imperatives

• The attitude of the subject to events: the subjunctive
• The use of devoir, pouvoir, savoir, falloir
• The French equivalents of the English modal verbs: 'would', 'should', 'could', 'may', 'might', 'ought to', and 'must'
• Exclamatives
• Imperatives

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The infinitive

• Introduction: what are infinitives?
• Infinitives as complements to other verbs
• Verbs which take infinitive complements without a linking preposition
• Verbs which take infinitive complements preceded by the preposition à
• Verbs which take an infinitive complement preceded by de
• Omission of objects before infinitives
• Infinitives as complements to adjectives
• Infinitives as complements to nouns
• Infinitives in subordinate clauses
• Infinitives as polite commands
• Quick-reference index to verbs taking infinitive complements

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Prepositions

• Introduction
• Prepositions listed alphabetically from à to vers
• French translations for common English prepositions

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Question formation

• Introduction
• Yes/no questions
• Information questions
• Order of object pronouns in questions involving inversion
• Order of negative particles in questions involving inversion
• Use of question words and phrases: qui?, que?, quoi?, quel?, de qui?, avec combien de? etc.
• Indirect questions

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Relative clauses

• Introduction
• Use of relative qui
• Use of relative que
• Preposition plus qui
• Use of lequel in relative clauses
• Use of dont, de qui, duquel/de laquelle/desquels/desquelles
• The use of où as a relative pronoun
• Use of relative quoi
• Free relative clauses and the use of ce qui, ce que, ce dont, ce à quoi, ce sur quoi, etc.
• Translating 'whoever', 'whatever', 'wherever', 'whenever', 'however'
• Indicative and subjunctive in relative clauses

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Negation

• Introduction
• Location of sentence negators
• Order of negators in multiple negation
• Omission of ne in sentence negation
• Order of negative elements in questions and imperatives
• ne... pas
• ne... que
• ne... aucun(e), ne... nul(le)
• ne... jamais
• ne... plus
• ne... guère
• ne... rien
• ne... personne
• ne... ni... ni
• sans used with other negators
• ne used alone

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Conjunctions and other linking constructions

• Introduction
• Coordinating conjunctions
• Subordinating conjunctions
• Conjunctions sometimes confused by English speakers
• Repeated subordinating conjunctions
• Subordinating conjunctions used with infinitive clauses
• après avoir/ être + past participle linking an infinitive clause to a main clause
• Past participle phrases used as linkers
• Present participles and gerunds

Other Lessons

• Namesake
• Singular or plural when a number of individuals have one item each
• se as an alternative to an English passive
• Omission of the article in compound nouns linked by à
• Past Tense
• Omission of the article in noun constructions linked by de
• Use of the definite article with parts of the body
• Compound Tenses
• Invariable adjectives
• How to use falloir
• « d'autres » VS « des autres »
• "se faire" and "se laisser"
• Measurements and comparisons in French — Numeral nouns and approximations
• The irregular verb être
• Direct object quantifiers and « en »