What is one of the fundamental keys to learning French well?

I have always been fascinated by language and remember eagerly awaiting my French and German classes at school.

From the very beginning, German seemed to be a logical language, with clear rules that just needed to be learnt and applied.

French, however, always seemed illogical and confusing to me, with “du”, “des”, “aux”, “à la” (among others) thrown in at random! As much as I enjoyed learning it, I could never fully understand its construction.

I now realise why. The key to mastering French, is, in my opinion, rather simple. When you learn a verb in French, make sure that you learn the “whole” verb. This concept is rarely addressed in textbooks and grammar books and will make all the difference to the speed at which you can progress.

Example # 1

If I had been asked at school what the verb “to discuss” was, I would have answered (rather proudly!) “discuter”.

In fact, the whole verb is “discuter de quelque chose” = to discuss something.

This shows that the verb (otherwise known as the infinitive i.e. “discuter”), is always followed by the preposition

“de”.

As tempting as it may be, this “de” cannot be ignored!

Let’s translate a sentence  that demonstrates this point.

“We are discussing the situation”.

Most people learning French would translate this sentence as follows – “nous discutons la situation”.

If we now look at the “whole verb” and take all parts of it into account, then the answer must be -

“nous discutons de la situation”.

NOTE: when a “de” meets a feminine noun e.g “la situation”, it remains “ de la”.

(de + la = de la)

Example # 2

Let’s now look at another example.

“They are taking part in the show”.

The whole verb “to take part in something” = participer à quelque chose.

This means that the infinitive “participer” is always followed by the preposition “à”.

The answer, therefore, is “ils participent au spectacle”.

 NOTE: when an “à” meets a masculine noun, e.g “le spectacle”, it becomes “au”.

(à + le = au)

 Here are just a few examples of how a verb can vary in appearance and questions that need to be asked.

• Is the verb reflexive?    e.g. se promener

• Is the verb reflexive AND followed by a preposition e.g. se souvenir de quelque chose/quelqu’un

• Is the verb followed by a preposition? e.g. participer à quelque chose, compter sur quelqu’un

• Or, is the verb, “simple”, as I choose to call it, e.g. manger quelque chose, voir quelque chose. (The verb is not followed by any preposition, in this case).

Remember, there can be many “versions” of a verb.

Let’s look at the verb “to want” in English first.

We have:

To want something (vouloir quelque chose)

To want someone (vouloir quelqu’un)

To want to do something (vouloir faire qqch)

To want someone to do something (vouloir que quelqu’un fasse quelque chose)

These are just some examples of the possible uses of the verb vouloir.

This principle applies to the French language. Most people just learn “vouloir” and think that is a verb in the bag. Unfortunately, this won’t be enough to help you, as you progress in French.

My best piece of advice, if you wish to achieve a good level of spoken and written French is this:

Make sure that when you learn a verb, you learn THE WHOLE VERB.

In my opinion, this is the KEY to mastering the French language.

Look at my next blog to see some of the ways that knowing the whole verb will help you!