French-tinted grammar
Just as English speakers often have trouble with French possessive adjectives, mistakenly saying things like "son femme" for "his wife," French speakers are likely to mix up his and her, often favoring his even for female owners. They also tend to use his rather than its when talking about inanimate owners, e.g., "This car has 'his' own GPS."Similarly, since all nouns have a gender in French, native speakers will often refer to inanimate objects as he or she rather than it.
French speakers often use the pronoun that for a subject when they mean it, as in "that's just a thought" rather than "it's just a thought." And they'll often say this instead of that in expressions like "I love skiing and boating, things like this" rather than "... things like that."
Certain singulars and plurals are problematic, due to differences in French and English. For example, the French are likely to pluralize furniture and spinach because the French equivalents are plural: les meubles, les épinards.
In the present tense, the French rarely remember to conjugate for the third person singular: "he go, she want, it live."
As for the past tense, because spoken French favors the passé composé to the passé simple, the French tend to overuse the former's literal equivalent, the English present perfect: "I have gone to the movies yesterday."
In questions, French speakers tend not to invert the subject and verb, instead asking "where you are going?" and "what your name is?" And they leave out the helping verb do: "what mean this word?" or "what this word mean?"
Lessons: French grammar
French-flavored vocabulary
Faux amis are just as tricky for French speakers as they are for English speakers; try saying, as the French often do, "actually" instead of "now," and "nervous" when you mean énervé.You should also throw in occasional French words and phrases, such as
- au contraire - on the contrary
- au revoir - good-bye
- bien sûr ! - of course!
- bon appétit - bon appetit, enjoy your meal
- bonjour - hello
- c'est-à-dire - that is
- comment dit-on ___ ? - how do you say ___?
- euh - uh, um
- je veux dire - I mean
- merci - thank you
- non - no
- oh là là ! - oh dear!
- oui - yes
- pas possible ! - no way!
- s'il vous plaît - please
- voilà - there you go
