An example of one of these irregular verbs is être, which means to be.
You would conjugate this verb by first turning the verb to it's infinitive form; in this case, it is already in the infinite (être).
(Infinitives "do not include a noun subject or a subject pronoun" (Rodchester).)
Then, depending on the person and whether it is singular or plural, you add the appropriate ending (shown below) to the given infinitive.
An example of a conjugation of être:
"I am tall." translates to "Je suis grande."
"We are in the living room." translates to "Nous sommes dans la salon."
Question: Do you see any connections between the English and French present tenses? (Is the spelling similar? Are the two completely different?)
Rochester, Myrna Bell. Easy French Step-by-step: Master High-frequency Grammar for French Proficiency--fast! New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.
Rochester, Myrna Bell. Easy French Step-by-step: Master High-frequency Grammar for French Proficiency--fast! New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.
The spelling of the French and English are somewhat similar for the third person singular. One thing that I found interesting (although I guess it makes sense because they're both romance languages) is that in Spanish, "estár" is the irregular verb meaning "to be," which is very similar to the French "être." Also, in Spanish we use yo, tú, el/ella/usted, nosotros/as, vosotros/as, ustedes/ellos/ellas when conjugated, whereas in French you use je, tu, il/elle/on, nous, vous, ils/elles.
ReplyDeleteI think the tenses between English and French are quite different. The spelling in your example it quite different, but I know of some french words that are similar to english. For example, coffee drinks are in french sizes. I find it interesting how much english and french go together. This is a very well thought out blog, and engaging question. Well done!
ReplyDeleteOnce i saw your post about the days of the week i couldn't help but look at all of your other post! im glad you decided to do a blog about the French language because i have not studied at all for my trip. Your pictures are very helpful in trying to pronounce the words so thank you! :)
ReplyDeleteI can't help but compare French to Spanish rather than English! Spanish also uses different conjugation for each pronoun. As Lala said, the verbs "to be" both in Spanish and English are written quite similarly, though I'm assuming they are pronounced differently. Spanish also undergoes irregular and regular verbs (I'm not sure about English?), where their ending is just changed to -o/-a/-an/-as/-amos in regular verbs but there might be an extra change in an irregular verb. The similarity comes from the fact that both Spanish and French are Romance languages, as I've learned in AP Human Geography.
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