Language/French/Grammar/Impersonal-vs-Personal
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The Personal versus The Impersonal Form in French
What is an impersonal sentence?
A sentence is in the impersonal form if:
- The subject is the word "il".
- The subject represents nothing and no one.
Examples
- Il pleut des cordes.
It's raining cats and dogs.
- Il faut être patient.
You have to be patient.
- Il neige.
It's snowing.
Video (in French) - La phrase de forme impersonnelle
What is a personal phrase?
When a sentence is not impersonal, we say that it is a sentence in the personal form. This sentence is therefore opposed to the impersonal sentence.
Impersonal Verbs
See: Impersonal-Verbs.
Other Lessons
- Dates
- Masculine and feminine forms of adjectives — A change in the final consonant or syllable
- Easy way of generating the imperfect tense
- Beau VS Bel
- il or ça with impersonal verbs
- Use of faire + partitive faire du, de la
- Conventions for writing cardinal numbers in figures
- Use of soi
- Use of y
- Mass versus count nouns
- Fused forms of the definite article
- Adverbs
- Use of indefinite and partitive articles after the negative forms
- Use of an année, jour journée, matin matinée, soir soirée
- Absolute use of the superlative