It’s time we talk about how to understand French sentences. Because that can be a big problem for French learners. If you’re here today, reading this article, it’s because it’s probably a problem for you. And for good reason…
Author : Marie Drouvin
Salut! Je suis Marie and I'm on a mission to make learning French simple. You can find me on Youtube, or here, on this blog. And if you want to know more about how to learn French, take a look at my book.
If you’d rather listen, you can watch this video.
Look at those sentences
Look at those sentences, see how they vary.Â
Je suis toujours la dernière.
Paris, c’est la capitale de la France.
Est-ce que tu viens chez Camille ce soir?
Emile n’est pas content parce qu’il n’a toujours pas reçu son permis.
Tu as pensé à acheter la bouteille pour l’anniversaire de Papa?
Arrête!
They vary in length: some are short, some are long. Punctuation varies. But most importantly, they vary in the order of the words!
And it’s a problem because how are you going to make sense of them if words keep changing place? And how are you going to make sentences too?
That’s a problem that you need to solve because sentences are what you use to convey meaning. You’re going to use them to SPEAK French.
If not, you’ll be stuck trying to convey some sort of basic information with a few words. Baby-French-like.
So today I’m going to show you a way to think about sentences, so you can make sense of them and start to understand how to build them yourself too.
How to understand French sentences
Today’s lesson could be resume in one sentence. And here it is.
Take your pen and write it down. Then stick the paper to your toilet door. That’s where you’ll see it the most.
Words that are placed together in functions, which are ordered in propositions, whose different combinations form sentences.
Let me repeat it because it’s important.
WORDS that are placed together in FUNCTIONS, which are ordered in PROPOSITIONS, whose different combinations form SENTENCES.
4 keywords here: words, functions, propositions, sentences.
The more you understand those keywords, the more you understand how they work – the better you’ll understand French sentences.
WORDS are placed
You know what WORDS are. So I won’t detail this too much.
Words are like images.
The type of image they show you depend on their nature. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,…
Je / suis / toujours / la / dernière.Â
I’m always the last one.
For example, in the first sentence over here, we have the image JE which is I, then SUIS which is AM, TOUJOURS which is ALWAYS…
The problem if you stop there, is that just getting a load of images doesn’t form a picture.
You need to also understand how those words relate to each other. That’s done with…
Words are placed together in FUNCTIONS
A function is a group of words that have a role inside a sentence.
The function tells you who does what in the sentence. How those different images related to one another.
Paris, // c’est // la capitale de la France.
Paris, it’s the capital of France.
Take the second sentence I showed you earlier.
You have all the different words, but it’s easier to understand if you regroup them by function. The subject, the verb, the complement.
Paris does what? It is. What is it? The capital of France.
Inside a sentence, you can find different functions. Those functions are going to be ordered in a….
Words are placed together in functions, which are ordered in PROPOSITIONS
There are different kinds of propositions, each with their own specific function order. Meaning that function order depends if you want to say a question, a fact, give an order,…
Est-ce que // tu // viens // chez Camille ce soir?
Are you coming to Camille’s tonight?
In this example, we are asking an informal question, so we are using the function order EST-CE QUE + SUJET + VERBE + COMPLEMENT.
There are a lot of different kinds of propositions: declarative, interrogative, exclamative, imperative,…Â
Words are placed together in functions, which are ordered in propositions, whose combinaisons form SENTENCES.
The different combinations of those propositions are sentences. You can combine only one or several propositions.
Like in our examples here, where there are two propositions in each sentence.
Emile n’est pas content /// parce qu’il n’a toujours pas reçu son permis.
Emile is not happy because he still hasn’t received his license.
C’est super, /// mais tu as pensé à acheter la bouteille pour l’anniversaire de Papa?
Did you remember to buy a bottle for Dad’s birthday?
The linking word you’ll use depends on the type of relationship between the two propositions.
The more types of words you know, the more types of propositions, of functions, the better your understanding of French sentences.
Even if there is a word you don’t know, if you understand the relationship of the word with the other, or in what function is it, you can understand the sentence.
That’s why I wrote a guide for you, so you learn how to understand French sentences.
With all the different kinds of words, functions, propositions, and sentences you can find in French.
So you can understand sentences. And so you can build sentences.
What is ‘Understanding French Sentence Structures'?
- Look at more than 200 French sentences,
- Extract the mechanics of French grammar,
- Learn to deconstruct sentences to make sense of them,
- Identify where you have difficulties, and learn to overcome them,
- Learn the correct order of words in normal sentences, complex ones, questions, negations,…
- See how you can manipulate sentences,
- Do practical exercices to train yourself to build sentences;
- ….
Why should you read ‘Understanding French Sentence Structures’?
What’s included in this guide?
- PDF so you can read it anywhere or print it
- EPUB if you’d rather read it with your favorite ebook reader.
How much does it cost?
- You click on the blue button below
- You click on buy
- You complete the forms (or if you already have an account you simply log in)
- The guide will be added to your personal account on The School, and you’ll always have it here.
