What's your bête noire of French grammar?

[Neil Coffey]

Dear all,

I'm looking to expand the site's French grammar section so am looking for suggestions of new topics to include. So in a nutshell my question is:

What are the things that you find difficult/confusing about French?!

[Jill P. McCormick]

Hint: use "le/la/les" when: you WANT to say the word 'the': I want THE pen= Je veux le crayon.
it's at the beginning of the sentence: Le francais est tres interessant.
(French is very interesting.)
you use verbs like "aimer/preferer/detester":
J'aime le poisson mais je prefere la viande. Je deteste les oeufs!
(I like fish but I prefer meat. I hate eggs!)

[cesare Brocco]

I get confused between the proper french and "street lingo" ex: merci beaucoup-(formal) and je vous en prie, (street lingo)
Im guess all depend who you talking to age wise, nes pas?
The verbs, nouns and basic grammar should not be difucul after learnind them

[Frank]

Hi Cesare,

The former is neutral, you can use it in any situation. The later is formal. But both can be said to anyone regardless of age.

In fact, I don't think there's any street lingo way to say "thank you". We just say "merci" :)

[Brandon Soler]

The informal (not necessarily street lingo) of 'je vous en prie' I THINK is "je t'en prie" or simply "t'en prie".

 

I'm very much a french beginner, but my father is french and we use some french terms and phrases a lot - I find learning formal french very different to the french that was spoken around me as a child. T'en prie was more used in the context of "you're welcome" similar to de rien not merci.

 

Totally happy to be wrong and be corrected here :-)

[Deay]

Hello,
Avec beaucoup d'autres problèmes dans la grammaire .Ma bête noire de la français jusqu'ici, c'est prnounes interrogative.
Dommage, comme c'est dommage !
Espérons que tout se passera bien

Good luck!

[Jessica]

Indirect and direct object pronouns! COD and COI to me are hard to grasp in plain terms. I can use them when I am answering questions that directly ask for the COD and COI, but when it comes to actually writing sentences, I find it hard to know what to do/ how to use them.

Also, differences between words like parce que and a cause de. I know they exist and I know they mean because in some form, but how does one know when to use either. I use them interchangably, but I know that it isn't right.

[Frank]

Hi Jessica,

"parce que" is "because", while "à cause de" is essentially "because of".

Je ne peux pas sortir à cause de la pluie. (because of the rain)
Je ne peux pas sortir parce qu'il pleut. (because it's raining)

[Neil Coffey]

Re the pronouns: have you had a look at the section on French pronouns already in the grammar section. It would be interesting to know if there are parts of this that you don't think are clear so that they can be improved.

[Angelique]

Problems include: Sentence Order, {especially with using Pronouns}Subjunctive mood,The use of popular prepositions and conjunctions etc. I'll ask around..Bonne idée!!

[ava marie Ramos]

hello have a nice day . i would like to know some simple french words

[Frank]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/ is a good starting point, especially its Basic French section that should help you to get started with learning French.

[Pamela Kingfisher]

I want some ideas on using indefinate and definate demonstrative pronouns, celui, ceux, celle, and celles. I am trying to use these correctly in my term papers.
It is confusing when trying to use these in a sentence, especially when they are in the interior of a sentence and ci or là is not being attached to the pronoun to distinguish between "latter" and "former"
Pam