In this section:

• Pronoms personnels sujets / Subject Pronouns

• Le verbe “être” / The Verb “to be”

• Gender/ Genre: masculin, féminin

• L’alphabet et la phonétique

Pronoms personnels sujets / Subject Pronouns

A pronoun replaces a noun in order to avoid repetition. Subject pronouns are subjects of verbs. In French, a subject pronoun is immediately or almost immediately followed by its verb. The use of subject pronouns is mandatory in French; always use a subject pronoun to construct sentences in the absence of a noun subject. Here are the French subject pronouns:

Subject pronouns are labelled by the term ‘person’, referring to the subject’s role in the conversation. 1st person refers to the person(s) speaking (I, we); 2nd person to the person(s) spoken to (you); and 3rd person to the person(s) or thing(s) spoken about (he, she, it, they).

je
Unlike the English pronoun ‘I’, je is not capitalized unless it begins a sentence.

tu
The pronoun tu is singular and, importantly, informal. Use tu to address people your own age and those you know well.

on
The pronoun on means ‘one’, or ‘they’ in a nonspecific sense: ‘comme on dit’ (as they say). On often replaces ‘nous’ in spoken French: ‘On y va?’ (Shall we go?).

vous
The pronoun vous is conjugated with a plural verb so it obviously refers to more than one person. However, it is also the customary form of address when you are talking to only one person you do not know well, such as an elder, a boss, a shopkeeper, etc. Inappropriate use of the tu form is considered a sign of disrespect.

il/elle / iel
Il and elle besides meaning ‘he’ and ‘she’ can both express the meaning ‘it’ depending on the gender of the noun being replaced.

“Iel” is the equivalent of the non-binary “they” in English. There are many variations of this pronoun, but “iel” is the most commonly used and has been accepted by the French dictionary, L:e Robert. Different from English, iel can be singular (iel) or plural (iels).

For example:

ils/elles / iels
Ils and elles are similar to il and elle since they agree with the gender of the noun they replace. Ils and elles may refer to people or things. Elles is used to mean ‘they’ if it replaces people who are all women or objects that are all feminine in gender. On the other hand, ils is used to mean ‘they’ for objects that are masculine in gender or a group of all men or any group where there is at least one male person or masculine object in the group.

Iels is the plural form of the non-binary pronoun iel.

Listen to the dialogue:

Le verbe “être” / The Verb “to be”

The verb être is an irregular verb in the present tense. Listen carefully to its forms in the present. Do you hear the liaison or linking in the pronunciation of the –s in the vous form? It is pronounced as a /z/ to link with the vowel ê in êtes.

Pronunciation of “iel” and “iels”:

C’est (plural Ce sont) is a common expression used to describe and introduce people or things. See c’est vs. il/elle est for more information. Etre is also used as an auxiliary in compound tenses (passé composé with être, passé composé of pronominal verbs, plus-que-parfait, etc.)

Gender / genre: masculin, féminin

In French, a noun is always feminine or masculine. It is introduced by a determiner, which usually indicates the gender of the noun.

people
When a noun refers to a person, the gender is determined by the person’s sex (although some exceptions do exist).

In general, the feminine form of the noun is formed by adding an –e to the masculine noun. Note that the addition of the –e changes the pronunciation in some words:

There are cases when the feminine form of the noun changes more drastically.

In general, when the masculine noun ends in –e, the feminine noun remains unchanged. Only the determiner or the context indicates if it is a feminine or masculine noun.

animals

The gender of animals is often arbitrary. Some animals are always masculine (un escargot, a snail), others are feminine (la fourmi, ant). However, for some animals there are irregular masculine and feminine forms.

objects and ideas
The gender of nouns referring to things and abstractions is arbitrary. However, it can often be inferred from the ending of the word. Typically, words ending in –age, -ment, -eau, -phone, -scope, -isme are masculine and those ending in -tion, -sion, -té, -ette, -ance, -ence, -ie, -ure, -ode/-ade/-ude are feminine.

Listen to the dialogue. Feminine nouns are in blue, masculine in black.

L’alphabet et la phonétique

Les accents

The acute accent (´), l’accent aigu, and the grave accent (`), l’accent grave, are used to indicate the quality of the vowel sound represented by the letter e.

A. Listen to each example and repeat.

When used with letters other than e, the accent grave does not indicate a sound difference but serves to distinguish different words which have the same spelling but different meanings.

The circumflex (ˆ), l’accent circonflexe, arose historically as a marker for vowels which were followed by another letter (usually s) in an earlier state of the language:

être (<estre)      hôtel (<hostel)      forêt (<forest)      plaît (<plaist)

The cedille (ç), la cédille, is used only with the letter c to indicate the sound /s/ when it is followed by the letters a, o, or u:

Ça va? /sa/      cahier /ka/

The cedille is not used with the letters e and i:

The dieresis (¨), le tréma, is used with vowels to indicate that they are pronounced separately from a preceding vowel: