Love Learning Languages offers quick French vocabulary lists or 10 Mots du Jour every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Each set follows a different theme, today the 10 French vocabulary words are about chores. This is a fantastic way to increase your chores vocabulary! You get a downloadable list of the words in French and English, and a Quizlet study set to learn, practice, and master them all. Quizlet is a platform for learning vocabulary that’s based on flashcards, but what has really made an impression on me is how fun it makes learning new language content! Click here for details.
The verb falloir can be used in many different ways. Get the comprehensive lesson here. In this mini lesson, we’ll talk about how to express need by using this verb.
You can still use avoir besoin de to mean need, but you’ll sound much more French if you use falloir!
When you use the verb falloir with the indirect object pronouns ME – TE – LUI – NOUS – VOUS – LEUR you can totally avoid the subjunctive by following them up with an infinitive. Just remember when translating sentences to English, il will not be the first word you translate. The first translated word will be the pronoun. English and French are just different that way. Look at the following examples.
👉 Il me faut de la farine. 👉 I need some flour.
👉 Il te faut du lait? 👉 Do you need some milk?
👉 Il lui faut son livre de maths. 👉 He / She needs his / her math book.
👉 Il nous faut des vélos. 👉 We need some bikes.
👉 Il vous faut de l’argent? 👉 Do you need some money?
👉 Les cerises _________ j’ai acheté un kilo ne sont pas bonnes.
👉 The cherries of which I bought one kilo are not good.
Why is dont the correct answer?
👉 The purpose of relative pronouns is to join clauses and to avoid repetition.
Let’s break it down into two sentences:
👉 J’ai acheté un kilo decerises.
👉 Les cerises ne sont pas bonnes.
We want to avoid repeating the word cerises, and turn two sentences into one. We can do this with a relative pronoun. Notice the preposition DE: un kilo de cerises. This is the reason why we need to use DONT. It is the object of the preposition DE.
Love Learning Languages offers quick French vocabulary lists or 10 Mots du Jour every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Each set follows a different theme, today the 10 French vocabulary words are about the extended family. This is a fantastic way to increase your extended family vocabulary! You get a downloadable list of the words in French and English, and a Quizlet study set to learn, practice, and master them all. Quizlet is a platform for learning vocabulary that’s based on flashcards, but what has really made an impression on me is how fun it makes learning new language content! Click here for details.
Fill in the blank with the correct form of lequel:
👉 Le courriel _________ j’ai répondu était plein de fautes d’orthographe.
👉 The email to which I replied was full of spelling mistakes.
👉 Le courriel auquel j’ai répondu était plein de fautes d’orthographe.
Why is auquel the correct answer?
👉 The verb répondre is followed by the preposition à. You reply to something or someone.
What would this sentence look like if it were formed differently?
👉 J’ai répondu à un courriel qui était plein de fautes d’orthographe.
👉 I replied to an email that was full of spelling mistakes.
If you want to say “The email to which I replied” instead of “I replied to an email”, you need to use a form of lequel. When lequel is preceded by the preposition à, you need to form a contraction.
Love Learning Languages offers quick French vocabulary lists or 10 Mots du Jour every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Each set follows a different theme, today the 10 French vocabulary words are about speaking to the waiter. This is a fantastic way to increase your speaking to the waiter vocabulary! You get a downloadable list of the words in French and English, and a Quizlet study set to learn, practice, and master them all. Quizlet is a platform for learning vocabulary that’s based on flashcards, but what has really made an impression on me is how fun it makes learning new language content! Click here for details.
Put the verb in parentheses in the plus-que-parfait tense:
The infinitive is the verb voir, and I’d like you to use ne … jamais as negation:
👉 Nous (ne jamais voir) la mer.
Use the plus-que-parfait along with negation.
👉 Nous n’avions jamais vu la mer.
👉 Translation: We had never seen the sea.
Be careful when translating the plus-que-parfait. The sentence doesn’t mean We have not ever seen the sea. That would be the passé composé. The plus-que-parfait refers to something that happened before something else.
When forming the plus-que-parfait, you need a helping verb just like in the passé composé. The helping verb for the verb voir is still avoir, but did you notice what tense the helping verb is in? The helping verb is now in the imperfect tense.
Let’s take this mini lesson one step further…..
👉 Nous n’avions jamais vu la mer.
Replace la mer with a pronoun so that the sentence means:
👉 We had never seen it.
What had we never seen? The sea! That answers the question WHAT, which means you need to use a direct object pronoun.
👉 Nous ne l’avions jamais vue.
The direct object pronoun is feminine and singular (replacing la mer). That means you need to use LA, which becomes L’ before a vowel. When there is a preceding direct object (or pronoun), you must make agreement in number and gender between it and the past participle. This is why there is an E on the past participle in this example.
