Difference between revisions of "French language"

Revision as of 15:06, March 7, 2008

French is a modern European language, a member of the Romance language family, which like others in this group owes much of its structure to Latin with some influence from the native languages of the pre-Roman Franks.

In medieval times, French had evolved into two groups, a northern branch known as the "Langue d'oïl," and a southerly group known as the "Langue d'Oc." However, after the political influence of the southerly group was crushed by the Albigensian Crusade, the northerly variety became dominant, and is the ancestor of modern "standard" French (though the southern variety still exists as the Occitan language). French is also spoken in many former French colonies in West Africa and the Carribbean, the Canadian province of Québec, by some people in Vietnam, in Mauritius, in many Pacific Ocean Islands and in other places. In Tunisia, a former French colony, French is still one of the primary languages spoken.

Grammar

Pronouns

• Je - I
• Tu - You(informal)
• Il - He
• Elle - She
• On - One (On le souhaite--one wishes it)
• Qui - Who
• Nous - We
• Vous - You(multiple OR formal)
• Ils - Group of people
• Elles - Group of ONLY females

Object Pronouns

French is a predominately SVO with some SOV aspects. For example...

Il mange une pomme à Paris
Il y en mange une

Edouard vais parler aux professeurs
Edouard vais leurs parler

Avez-vous vu Richard
L'avez-vous vu

The objects are substituted with object pronouns which are placed before the verb in present tense or before the axillary verb.

• Les - Denotes plural direct objects.
• Le - A masculine direct object.
• La - A feminine direct object.
• L' - Placed before a verb that starts with a vowel.
• Lui - Refers to a single indirect object that is a person.
• Leur - Refers to a plural indirect object that is a person.
• Y - Refers to a place or an indirect object that isn't a person.
• En - refers to objects with a number.