The Personal World: Talking About Yourself and Others
What you must be able to do
The Personal World domain asks you to describe yourself, your family, your friends, your home, your school day, your daily routine and your leisure interests. You need accurate present-tense verbs, especially être and avoir, plus regular -er, -ir and -re verbs. Know reflexive verbs for routine (se lever, se coucher, s'habiller) and the partitive article for food and hobbies (du, de la, de l', des). Adjectives must agree in gender and number, and most follow the noun (une maison ancienne), though a small group (beau, nouveau, vieux, grand, petit, jeune, bon, joli) comes before it. Possessives (mon, ma, mes) and numbers, dates and time expressions (à sept heures, le lundi) are constantly tested.
Traps to watch
- Tu/vous confusion: the exam may ask you to write to a friend; using vous loses marks for register.
- Reflexive pronouns: je me lève but il se lève; forgetting the pronoun is a common error.
- Negation: ne ... pas wraps the verb, and with reflexive verbs the pronoun stays before the verb (je ne me lève pas tôt).
- Agreement: mon père est grand versus ma sœur est grande.
- False friends: actuellement means currently, not actually; éventuellement means possibly.
Worked example
Task: write three sentences about your weekend routine. Weak answer: Je leve a 8 heures et je mange le petit dejeuner. Corrected: Le week-end, je me lève à huit heures. Je prends le petit-déjeuner avec ma famille. Ensuite, je me promène avec mon chien. Note the reflexive pronoun, the preposition à, and the partitive in prends le petit-déjeuner (definite article for a habitual meal).
Rule of thumb: for every sentence, check three things in order - subject pronoun, verb form, adjective agreement.