Language/French/Grammar/Well-Better-Worse

bien 'well', mieux 'better', mal 'badly', pis 'worse'

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

One adverb in French has special comparative and superlative forms:

Bien: special comparative forms

• bien

well

• mieux

better

• moins bien

less well

• le mieux

the best

• le moins bien

the least well

Examples

Elle chante	bien
	mieux
	moins bien
	le mieux
	le moins bien
She sings	well
	better
	less well
	the best
	the least well

Mal adverb

The adverb mal 'badly' has two sets of comparative and superlative forms, one regular and one irregular:

Regular
French	English
mal	badly
plus mal	worse
moins mal	less badly
le plus mal	the worst
le moins mal	the least badly
Irregular
French	English
pis	worse
le pis	the worst

Pis and Le pis

pis and le pis only occur these days in fixed expressions like:

French	English
tant pis	too bad
Les choses vont de mal en pis (or de pis en pis)	Things are going from bad to worse
qui pis est, . . .	what's worse, . . .
au pis aller	if the worse comes to the worst
en mettant tout au pis, . . .	at the worst, . . .

Pire or Pis?

Pire and Pis, two words that are often problematic, yet they do not have the same nature.

• Pire is the comparison of the superiority of the adjective 'mauvais', so it must be used as an adjective.

• • Le climat n'est pas pire qu'il y a deux jours.

• Pis is the comparative superiority of the adverb 'mal', it is therefore an adverb.

• • La situation va de mal en pis.

A little tip to avoid confusing them:

Pire can be replaced by Meilleur.

• • La situation était pire ===> la situation était meilleure .

Sources

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sfx1PwUcHg&t=176s
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW2TuJDWmfc
• https://www.francaisfacile.com/exercices/exercice-francais-2/exercice-francais-17093.php

Related Lessons

• Difference between meilleur and mieux
• Position of object pronouns with imperatives
• Masculine and feminine forms of adjectives — No change in written or spoken French
• Fused forms of the definite article
• Choice of some time adverbs relative to the moment of speaking
• Polite Form
• Categories of Nouns in French
• Superlative forms of adjectives
• Plurals
• Plural forms of adjectives — Adjectives which end in eau
• When Use à or a
• How to recognize when the start of a relative clause is a direct object
• Gender of compound nouns
• Adverbs ending in —ment derived from the masculine form of an adjective
• Adjectives used as adverbs