Grammar Guide Overview
You need to learn to discriminate between VERBS, NOUNS, ARTICLES, PRONOUNS and
ADJECTIVES.
Verbs are doing words and describe the action in a sentence. Verbs are normally the second
sentence part. (eg The man goes home.)
Nouns are words that name a person, place, thing, animal, concept or idea. The nouns are the
subject or object in a sentence. In French and German, every noun has a grammatical gender.
There are two genders in French (masculine and feminine) and three genders in German
(masculine, feminine and neuter). In German, the nouns have always a capital letter.
Articles are little words that are used before a noun or adjective. Articles are used to clarify
if a noun is specific or if a noun is not specific. Definite articles are used for specific nouns,
indefinite articles are used for unspecific nouns. The articles in the English language are the, a,
and an. In French and German, the article indicates the grammatical gender of the noun.
Pronouns are little words that stand for or replace nouns. (eg She is strong. She replaces ‘The
woman’).
Adjectives are describing words. They describe a noun or pronoun.
We indentify these word groups with the following colours:
Verbs - blue, nouns – red, articles – purple, pronouns – orange, adjectives - yellow
MAIN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND FRENCH/GERMAN

Formal / informal address
Deference and politeness is expressed by the switch between formal 'vous' (French) or
‘Sie’ (German) (2nd person plural) and informal 'tu' / ‘du’ (2nd person singular).

Inflection, declination and grammatical gender are important features of French and
German grammar

French and German features accents and umlauts that change the sound of letter.
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The grammatical genders of nouns
The gender of a noun is about characteristics of a noun and in this context has nothing to do
with gender and sex. There is no definite rule about the gender of a word although with some
type of words there are clues about feminine or masculine gender.
Note that in French there are only two genders; masculine and feminine. In German there are
three, in other languages there are four. “It”, the neutral gender in English is the masculine “il”
in French or the “er” in German. For example:


Le chien boit et il mange aussi dans le jardin. – The dog drinks and it also eats in the
garden.
Der Hund trinkt und er isst auch im Garten.
Masculine or feminine or neuter?
You will be able to find the gender of a noun in some obvious cases when you deal with male and
female beings. For example, l’homme, der Mann (the man), la femme, die Frau (the woman),
l’enfant, das Kind (the child).
It is unlikely that the word “man” would be feminine and “femme” masculine. However if in doubt
look in the dictionary and always learn a new noun with the indefinite article (un/une).
Therefore, grammatical gender is a system in the grammar of some languages in which nouns are
classified as belonging to a certain gender - often masculine, feminine, or neuter - and other
parts of speech connected to the noun, such as adjectives or articles, must agree. For example,
in English, nouns with natural gender, such as "boy" or "girl," must agree in grammatical gender
with any pronouns used to represent them. Therefore, "She is a nice boy" is ungrammatical in
English. Other languages around the world have much more extensive and complex systems of
grammatical gender.
In many languages, grammatical gender and natural gender correlate rather loosely, much to the
frustration of second language learners. In French, every noun is either masculine or feminine,
so things that would seem to lack gender to an English speaker are assigned to one or the other
class. In such languages, grammatical gender is often more morphological - related to the sound
of the word - than semantic - related to its meaning. One example of a word with grammatical
gender that differs from its natural gender is the German Mädchen, or "maiden," which is
grammatically classified as neuter rather than feminine.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-grammatical-gender.htm
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masculine
feminine
neuter
plural
the man
the woman
the infant
the children
a man
a woman
an infant
the infants
he
she
it
they
l’homme
la femme
l’enfant (m./f.)
les enfants
un homme
une femme
un enfant/une
enfant
des enfants
il
elle
il/elle
ils/elles
direct article
der Mann
die Frau
das Kind
die Kinder
indirect article
ein Mann
eine Frau
ein Kind
Kinder (no article)
er
sie
es
sie
ENGLISH
direct article
indirect article
pronoun
FRENCH
direct article
indirect article
pronoun
GERMAN
pronoun
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Verb and conjugation
Conjugation is a process that changes the verb or the endings of a verb from its original
form (called the infinitive) to indicate its subject. Conjugation is therefore the the orderly
arrangement of verbs with respect to voices, modes, tenses, and persons. Usually most of the
word stays the same (the verb stem), but the endings change. Most conjugation systems follow
some sort of pattern within the language.
It is important to know who is responsible for the action. Is it the speaker (first person), the
hearer (second person), the person/thing spoken of (third person), or a group of people (plural).
Example: The French verb for 'to play- "jouer" (verb stem: jou) ("jouer" is the infinitive or
unchanged form of the verb). The German word for ‘to play’ is “spielen”. The infinitive is the unconjugated form of the verb, literally the "to do" something form such as to walk, to play, to
eat. In English one does not say "I like play" one must say "I like to play". In both English and
French ("J'aime jouer") the infinitive form of the verb would be used in this case.
English
I play
French
German
je joue (jou + e)
ich spiele (spiel + e)
You(informal) play
tu joues (jou + es)
du spielst (spiel + st)
He/She plays
il/elle joue (jou + e)
er spielt (spiel + t)
We play
nous jouons (jou + ons) wir spielen (spiel + en)
All of you play
vous jouez (jou + ez)
ihr spielt (spiel + t)
They play
ils jouent (jou + ent)
sie spielen (spiel + en)
In French, the pattern here is that the "-er" is removed from the verb and replaced with a
different ending depending on the subject (who's doing the playing). This pattern is good for
many French conjugations, but not all, and in other languages, conjugation patterns are going to
be very different. In German for example, the ending “-en” is removed and replaced with verb
endings specific to the pronoun.
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Special Characters
Both French and German have special characters:
ACCENT
accent aigu
accent grave
accent circonflexe
accent tréma
cédille
ligature
EXAMPLE YOUR PRACTICE
é
à
ê
ë
ç
œ
ACCENT
Umlaut ä
Umlaut ö
Umlaut ü
ligature
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été
à
êtes
Zoë
ça
œil
EXAMPLE YOUR PRACTICE
ä
ö
ü
β
spät
mögen
süβ
heiβen
FRENCH VERBS: TERM 1 CONJUGATION TABLE
Number of
subjects
Pronoun
Classification
Infinitive
Infinitive
Irregular Verbs
‘-er’ verbs
‘-re’ verbs
être
to be
avoir
to have
manger
to eat
aimer
to like
adorer
to love
détester
to hate
boire
to drink
singular
je
1st person
je suis
j’ai
je mange
j’aime
j’adore
je déteste
je bois
singular
tu
2nd person
tu es
tu as
tu manges
tu aimes
tu adores
tu
détestes
tu bois
singular
il
3rd person
il est
il a
il mange
il aime
il adore
il déteste
il boit
singular
elle
3rd person
elle est
elle a
elle mange
elle aime
elle adore
elle
déteste
elle boit
plural
nous
1st person
nous
sommes
nous avons
nous
mangeons
nous
aimons
nous
adorons
nous
détestons
nous
buvons
plural
vous
2nd person
vous êtes
vous avez
vous
mangez
vous aimez
vous
adorez
vous
détestez
vous buvez
plural
ils
3rd person
ils sont
ils ont
ils mangent
ils aiment
ils adorent
ils
détestent
ils boivent
plural
elles
3rd person
elles sont
elles ont
ells
mangent
elles
aiment
elles
adorent
elles
détestent
elles
boivent
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GERMAN VERBS: TERM 1 CONJUGATION TABLE
Number of
subjects
Pronoun
Classification
Infinitive
Infinitive
Irregular Verbs
‘-en’ verbs
sein
to be
haben
to have
essen
to eat
mögen
to like
nehmen
to take
hassen
to hate
trinken
to drink
singular
ich
1st person
ich bin
ich habe
ich esse
ich mag
ich nehme
ich hasse
ich trinke
singular
du
2nd person
du bist
du hast
du isst
du magst
du nimmst
du hasst
du trinkst
singular
er
3rd person
er ist
er hat
er isst
er mag
er nimmt
er hasst
er trinkt
singular
sie
3rd person
sie ist
sie hat
sie isst
sie mag
sie nimmt
sie hasst
sie trinkt
singular
es
3rd person
es ist
es hat
es isst
es mag
es nimmt
es hasst
es trinkt
plural
wir
1st person
wir sind
wir haben
wir essen
wir mögen
wir nehmen
wir hassen
wir trinken
plural
ihr
2nd person
ihr seid
ihr habt
ihr esst
ihr mögt
ihr nehmt
ihr hasst
ihr trinkt
plural
sie
3rd person
sie sind
sie haben
sie essen
sie mögen
sie nehmen
sie hassen
sie trinken
formal
singular
Sie
3rd person
Sie sind
Sie haben
Sie essen
Sie mögen
Sie nehmen
Sie hassen
Sie trinken
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