French Grammar for Dummies (Paperback)

Introduction 1

Part I: Getting Started with French Grammar 5

Chapter 1: French Grammar in a Nutshell 7

Chapter 2: Sounding Out French Words 17

Chapter 3: Using Nouns and Determiners 35

Chapter 4: Describing Nouns with Adjectives 55

Chapter 5: Dealing with Numbers, Dates, and Times 69

Part II: Constructing Sentences, Saying No, and Asking Questions 85

Chapter 6: Acquainting Yourself with the Present Tense 87

Chapter 7: Acting on Oneself and on Each Other: Pronominal Verbs 107

Chapter 8: Just Say No: Negative Words and Phrases 119

Chapter 9: Handling Questions and Exclamations 131

Part III: Beefing Up Your Sentences 155

Chapter 10: Saying Where, When, and How with Adverbs 157

Chapter 11: Picking Up Prepositions 171

Chapter 12: It’s All Relative: Making Comparisons 187

Chapter 13: Using Pronouns 203

Chapter 14: Adding the Gerund and the Passive to Your Repertoire 227

Part IV: Talking about the Past or Future 237

Chapter 15: Noting Past Actions with the Present Perfect 239

Chapter 16: Reminiscing and Describing Ongoing Past Actions with the Imperfect 253

Chapter 17: Projecting Forward with the Future 265

Part V: Expressing Conditions, Subjectivity, and Orders 283

Chapter 18: Wondering with the Conditional 285

Chapter 19: Surveying the Subjunctive 301

Chapter 20: Giving Orders with the Imperative 319

Chapter 21: Discovering Compound Tenses 333

Part VI: The Part of Tens 341

Chapter 22: Ten Common French Grammar Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them) 343

Chapter 23: Ten (Or So) Useful French Idioms 349

Index 353