What's your bête noire of French grammar?

Dear all,

I'm looking to expand the site's French grammar section so am looking for suggestions of new topics to include. So in a nutshell my question is:

What are the things that you find difficult/confusing about French?!

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Permalink Reply by Jill P. McCormick on November 8, 2010 at 4:33am

Hint: use "le/la/les" when: you WANT to say the word 'the': I want THE pen= Je veux le crayon.
it's at the beginning of the sentence: Le francais est tres interessant.
(French is very interesting.)
you use verbs like "aimer/preferer/detester":
J'aime le poisson mais je prefere la viande. Je deteste les oeufs!
(I like fish but I prefer meat. I hate eggs!)

Permalink Reply by cesare Brocco on September 21, 2009 at 12:49am

I get confused between the proper french and "street lingo" ex: merci beaucoup-(formal) and je vous en prie, (street lingo)
Im guess all depend who you talking to age wise, nes pas?
The verbs, nouns and basic grammar should not be difucul after learnind them

Permalink Reply by Frank on September 21, 2009 at 1:20am

Hi Cesare,

The former is neutral, you can use it in any situation. The later is formal. But both can be said to anyone regardless of age.

In fact, I don't think there's any street lingo way to say "thank you". We just say "merci" :)

Permalink Reply by Brandon Soler on January 20, 2011 at 2:58am

The informal (not necessarily street lingo) of 'je vous en prie' I THINK is "je t'en prie" or simply "t'en prie".

I'm very much a french beginner, but my father is french and we use some french terms and phrases a lot - I find learning formal french very different to the french that was spoken around me as a child. T'en prie was more used in the context of "you're welcome" similar to de rien not merci.

Totally happy to be wrong and be corrected here :-)

Permalink Reply by Deay on September 21, 2009 at 8:20am

Hello,
Avec beaucoup d'autres problèmes dans la grammaire .Ma bête noire de la français jusqu'ici, c'est prnounes interrogative.
Dommage, comme c'est dommage !
Espérons que tout se passera bien

Good luck!

Permalink Reply by Jessica on September 30, 2009 at 8:15pm

Indirect and direct object pronouns! COD and COI to me are hard to grasp in plain terms. I can use them when I am answering questions that directly ask for the COD and COI, but when it comes to actually writing sentences, I find it hard to know what to do/ how to use them.

Also, differences between words like parce que and a cause de. I know they exist and I know they mean because in some form, but how does one know when to use either. I use them interchangably, but I know that it isn't right.

Permalink Reply by Frank on October 1, 2009 at 1:57pm

Hi Jessica,

"parce que" is "because", while "à cause de" is essentially "because of".

Je ne peux pas sortir à cause de la pluie. (because of the rain)
Je ne peux pas sortir parce qu'il pleut. (because it's raining)

Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on October 5, 2009 at 4:55pm

Re the pronouns: have you had a look at the section on French pronouns already in the grammar section. It would be interesting to know if there are parts of this that you don't think are clear so that they can be improved.

Permalink Reply by Angelique on October 14, 2009 at 12:09pm

Problems include: Sentence Order, {especially with using Pronouns}Subjunctive mood,The use of popular prepositions and conjunctions etc. I'll ask around..Bonne idée!!

Permalink Reply by ava marie Ramos on October 31, 2009 at 3:43am

hello have a nice day . i would like to know some simple french words

Permalink Reply by Frank on November 1, 2009 at 10:29am

Hi and welcome to the forum.

http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/ is a good starting point, especially its Basic French section that should help you to get started with learning French.

Permalink Reply by Pamela Kingfisher on November 6, 2009 at 3:24pm

I want some ideas on using indefinate and definate demonstrative pronouns, celui, ceux, celle, and celles. I am trying to use these correctly in my term papers.
It is confusing when trying to use these in a sentence, especially when they are in the interior of a sentence and ci or là is not being attached to the pronoun to distinguish between "latter" and "former"
Pam

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