Spelling

• •Accents change the sound or the meaning of a word, so they are never optional.
• •É sounds closed (été), è and ê sound open (père, fête).
• •Learners often forget the accent or choose the wrong one.
• •Remember the pairs: à (preposition) and a (verb avoir); où (place or time) and ou (or).
• •Quick test: if you can replace the word with 'ou bien', write ou without an accent.

Examples

• Elle a acheté un café à la gare.

  She bought a coffee at the station.

• Tu préfères le thé ou le café ?

  Do you prefer tea or coffee?

• Je ne sais pas où il est allé.

  I do not know where he went.

• Ma mère est née à Québec.

  My mother was born in Quebec City.

• •These words sound the same but have different jobs.
• •A, est, sont and ont are verb forms: test by replacing them with avait, était, étaient or avaient.
• •Et means 'and' and can be replaced by 'et puis'.
• •Son is a possessive (son livre), while on is a pronoun meaning 'we' or 'people'.
• ⚠️Typical mistake: writing 'ils on fini' instead of 'ils ont fini'.

Examples

• Il a un rendez-vous à neuf heures.

  He has an appointment at nine o'clock.

• Elle est fatiguée et elle a faim.

  She is tired and she is hungry.

• Ils sont partis avec leur chien, et on est resté.

  They left with their dog, and we stayed.

• Les étudiants ont réussi leur examen.

  The students passed their exam.

• •Ces points out things (ces livres), ses means 'his or her' (ses livres).
• •C'est is 'it is'; s'est goes with a reflexive verb (il s'est levé).
• •Ce comes before a noun, se before a verb.
• •Leur stays singular before one thing, leurs takes an s before several things.
• •Quel agrees with the noun, qu'elle means 'that she'.
• •Là is a place, la is an article, l'a is 'le + a'.

Examples

• Elle s'est trompée de chemin.

  She took the wrong road.

• C'est ce livre que je veux.

  It is this book that I want.

• Les voisins aiment leurs enfants et leur maison.

  The neighbours love their children and their house.

• Quelle belle ville ! Je pense qu'elle est calme.

  What a beautiful city! I think it is quiet.

• •French spelling keeps many letters you cannot hear.
• •Double consonants appear in words like apparaître, appeler, occuper, adresse and développer (one l, two p).
• ⚠️Typical learner mistakes: aparaître, adresse with one d, comencer.
• ⚠️Other traps are aujourd'hui, un hôtel, le temps and un champ.
• •Silent final letters often show the feminine or the word family: grand, grande; long, longue.
• •Learn each word with its family.

Examples

• Ce problème apparaît souvent à l'examen.

  This problem often appears in the exam.

• Il habite dans un grand appartement.

  He lives in a big apartment.

• Aujourd'hui, nous allons développer cette idée.

  Today we are going to develop this idea.

• J'ai beaucoup de temps libre le samedi.

  I have a lot of free time on Saturdays.

• •These endings sound alike, so use substitution tests.
• •Replace the verb by vendre or prendre:if you can say vendu, write -é (past participle)if vendre fits, write -er (infinitive)if vendez fits, write -ez with vous
• •For -ai, -ais, -ait: -ai is passé simple or future with je, -ais is imparfait or conditionnel with je or tu, -ait goes with il, elle, on.
• ⚠️Mistake: 'j'ai mangez'.

Examples

• Vous devez parler plus lentement.

  You must speak more slowly.

• Hier, j'ai mangé au restaurant.

  Yesterday I ate at the restaurant.

• Quand j'étais enfant, je jouais dehors.

  When I was a child, I played outside.

• Demain, je finirai ce travail.

  Tomorrow I will finish this work.

• •In French, put a space before and after ? ! : ; and « ».
• •Days, months and languages have no capital letter (lundi, mars, français).
• •Use a capital only for the first word of a sentence and proper nouns.
• •Elision drops the vowel before a vowel or mute h: l'ami, j'habite, qu'il.
• •Hyphens link inverted forms (Où vas-tu ?), imperatives (Dis-moi) and numbers (vingt-deux).

Examples

• Où vas-tu ce week-end ?

  Where are you going this weekend?

• Nous parlons français le lundi.

  We speak French on Mondays.

• J'espère qu'il viendra : c'est important !

  I hope he will come: it is important!

• Il y a vingt-deux personnes dans la salle.

  There are twenty-two people in the room.