Language/French/Grammar/Proper-nouns

Proper nouns

[CHANGED]

Proper nouns are names like:

• Persons: Jean-Paul, Vincent, Céline, Yann
• Cities: Paris, Marseille, Angers, Aix-en-Provence
• Rivers: La Seine, Le Rhône, La Tamise, Le Rhin
• Regions: La Normandie, L'Alsace
• Countries: La France, Le Congo, les Etats-Unis, Le Royaume-Uni

Don't miss the chance to check out these pages as you wrap up this lesson: Possessive determiners, Omission of the article, Difference between meilleur and mieux & Easy way of generating the simple past.

Persons

There is usually no article:

• Jean-Paul viendra demain

Marie-Paule will come tomorrow

Informal Speech

In some cases, an article is added informally, in some French regions:

• Dis donc, elle était pas fière, la Marie-Jeanne!

Marie-Jeanne must have felt a bit of a fool! (Litteraly: Hey, she wasn't proud, Marie-Jeanne!)

• T'aurais vu la tête qu'il faisait, le Rémi!

You should have seen Rémi's face! (Litteraly: You would have seen the face he was making, the Rémi!)

Reference to a family

This reflects a familiar and affectionate attitude towards the person concerned. When referring to a family, as in "the Durant family", a plural article is used, but the name itself is not plural (unlike in English):

• J'ai invité les Durant à venir samedi soir

I invited the Durants to come on Saturday night

Title

When a person's title is used, the definite article is usually added:

• Je vous présente le Professeur Alfred

May I introduce Professor Alfred (litteraly: I present to you Professor Alfred)

• chez le Docteur Charles

c/o Dr Charles (on an envelope or package)

Preceding adjectives Modification

When proper nouns are modified by preceding adjectives, they require a definite article:

• le petit Fred

little Fred

• le gros Carlos

fat Carlos

Regions and countries

Unlike in English, regions and countries are normally used with a definite article:

• J'ai visité la Bretagne

I visited Britany

• la France d'autrefois

The France of yesteryear

• Nous survolons l'Espagne

We fly over Spain

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

• Masculine and feminine forms of adjectives — No change in written or spoken French
• Coordination of stressed pronouns
• il or ça alternating with clauses or infinitives as subjects
• Position of object pronouns with faire, laisser, envoyer or verbs of perception + infinitive
• Use of the definite article with names of languages
• Hyphens in Cardinal Numbers
• Meaning of tout à l'heure
• « d'autres » VS « des autres »
• Form of the article with adjectives and nouns beginning with a vowel or an h
• Easy future
• Masculine and feminine forms of adjectives — A change in written, but not spoken
• Use of en with numerals and quantifiers
• Differences in the use of numbers in French and English hundreds thousands millions billions
• Position of object pronouns with infinitives
• y and en in French where the English translation has no preposition