Lesson - Section 4: Working with adjectives

[garçoncanadien]

PART 4: THE CONCEPT OF AGREEMENT

Lesson - Section 4:
Working with adjectives
Le Français Quotidien Partie 3


Hello! Good to see you again after the long wait, I was busy with school and life in general, so I was not able to write you sooner. Well lets talk about the agreement of feminine adjectives today. As you know, an adjective is a word that modifies a noun, and we will be talking about how to modify them to make them feminine. Remember - adjectives in French agree with the noun they modify - meaning they carry the same gender.

How to make the adjective féminin

1: A great deal of adjectives end in -e ; these adjectives do not receive a spelling change in any circumstances.

for example: jeune, rapide, facile, ordinaire, and magnifique.

2: For the majority of adjectives that do not end in e, one simply adds an -e to create the feminine form.

for example: grande, bleue, intérieure.

3. Some adjectives have spelling changes that consist of more than a single letter.

If it ends in -er, the feminine form is -ère. Example: cher becomes chère.

If it ends in -ier, the feminine form is -ière. Example: dernier becomes dernière.

Here are some more adjective conjugation forms:
Note that some of these spellings are done to avoid making a euh - consonant - euh sound. Like complète instead of complete.

<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2"><TR><TD>Masculin</TD><TD>Féminin</TD><TD>Masculin</TD><TD>Féminin</TD><TD>Exceptions: Masculin</TD><TD>Exceptions: Féminin</TD></TR><TR><TD>-eur</TD><TD>-euse</TD><TD>travailleur</TD><TD>travailleuse</TD><TD>meilleur</TD><TD>meilleure</TD></TR><TR><TD>-teur</TD><TD>-teuse/trice</TD><TD>menteur, créateur</TD><TD>menteuse, créatrice</TD><TD> - </TD><TD> - </TD></TR><TR><TD>-el</TD><TD>-elle</TD><TD>naturel</TD><TD>naturelle</TD><TD> - </TD><TD> - </TD></TR><TR><TD>-en</TD><TD>-enne</TD><TD>canadien </TD><TD>canadienne</TD><TD> - </TD><TD> - </TD></TR><TR><TD>-on</TD><TD>-onne</TD><TD>bon</TD><TD>bonne</TD><TD> - </TD><TD> - </TD></TR><TR><TD>-eil</TD><TD>-eille</TD><TD>pareil</TD><TD>pareille</TD><TD> - </TD><TD> - </TD></TR><TR><TD>-et</TD><TD>-ette</TD><TD>coquet</TD><TD>coquette</TD><TD>complet</TD><TD>complète</TD></TR><TR><TD>-f</TD><TD>-ve</TD><TD>bref</TD><TD>brève</TD><TD> - </TD><TD> - </TD></TR><TR><TD>-x</TD><TD>-se</TD><TD>amoureux</TD><TD>amoureuse</TD><TD>doux</TD><TD>douce</TD></TR></TABLE>

There are five adjectives that have three forms:

<TABLE BORDER="1" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="2"><TR><TD>masculin</TD><TD>féminin</TD><TD>masculin, devant une voyelle ou h muet</TD></TR><TR><TD>beau</TD><TD>belle</TD><TD>bel</TD></TR><TR><TD>fou</TD><TD>folle</TD><TD>fol</TD></TR><TR><TD>mou</TD><TD>molle</TD><TD>mol</TD></TR><TR><TD>nouveau</TD><TD>nouvelle</TD><TD>nouvel</TD></TR><TR><TD>vieux</TD><TD>vielle</TD><TD>vieil</TD></TR></TABLE>

Making plural adjectives

Most adjectives are made plural by adding an -s on the end of the adjective.

If the adjective ends in -s or -x, the adjective is already in plural. No spelling change is needed.

If it ends in -eau, or -eu, the plural is formed by adding -x onto the end.
Notable exceptions to this rule: bleu becomes bleeus, final becomes final-s, and fatal becomes fatals.

If it ends in -al, the plural should be made by replacing -al by -aux. Idéal becomes idéaux.

Making adjectives agree

Remember that adjectives generally come [color="red]after[/color] the noun, and that they may sometimes be placed before the noun for emphasis. This is generally rare though.
There are several commonly used adjectives that come before the noun:

autre, gentil, bon, grand, gros, beau, haut, jeune, joli, meilleur, mauvais, long, nouveau, petit, premier, vieux, vilain, and vrai.

If there are two adjectives, each with their respective places, put them in the correct places.

example: une grande maison rouge

If you need two adjectives that go after the noun, link them by et.

example: un monsieur vieux et gentil.

Some adjectives will change meaning depending on where you put them.

une ancienne pharmacie = a former pharmacy
une horloge ancienne = an old watch

son dernier voyage = his final voyage
la semaine dernière = last week

Le Français Quotidien Partie 3
Welcome back to the third edition of Daily French Part 3! Today I will tell you some slang expressions, that the French use

Bouffer = manger
Nous nous faisons une petite bouffe = We make ourselves a nice dinner

Un gueuleton = a big feast

Gueule = mouth, of an animal. You can say this to people, to insult them. Ta gueule = shut the hell up!
Gourmand = somebody who can't resist nice food

Se goinfrer = stuff oneself's face

Trinquer = Click glasses, for a toast

Avoir la gueule de bois = have a hangover

Casser la croûte = have a snack

and that is all! Please PM me the answers to the following questions:

1. What is the feminine form of grand?
2. What is the feminine form of ancien?
3. What is the feminine form of petit?
4. What is the feminine form of idéal?
5. What is the feminine form of blanc?
6. Translate the following sentence for me: I have a brown dog.
7. Translate the following sentence for me: She doesn't have a grey box.
8. Translate the following sentence for me: She has some pink bags.
9. Translate the following sentence for me: We don't need these blue chairs.
10.Translate the following sentence for me: A chestnut brown book is sitting on my table.

[forgot_86]

Thanx a lot for the lesson garcon! Now about the exercise, I couldnt do the translation part. I'm still far from perfect to make a sentence with correct grammar/word. But I'll work that out, time is all I need

[Spaltl]

Thanks garçon. Pretty cool exercises, i'll try do them.

[mibir]

Pretty awesome garçon, I hope you'll continue this over the summer so I stay fresh with my French and won't be lost in the Fall when classes resume ! I'll have to look through all your threads and try to put them in order so I can work through this as it seems there is some stuff you touched on that I didn't see in 2 semesters of French.

EDIT: Whew, just noticed you have a table of contents posted in a sticky. This should be fun. I hope you don't mind me sending you homework from your older threads.