JCE French 32 cheat sheet
JCE French 32 · Keep the key ideas within reach.
French Language (JCE): Core Grammar and Usage
French nouns carry grammatical gender: masculine (le/un) or feminine (la/une); gender is lexical and must be memorized with each noun.
Definite articles: le (masc.), la (fem.), l' (before vowel or silent h), les (plural); contracted forms are au (à + le), aux (à + les), du (de + le), des (de + les).
Indefinite articles: un (masc.), une (fem.), des (plural); in negated sentences un/une/des usually become de/d'.
Adjectives normally follow the noun (une voiture rouge), but short common adjectives (grand, petit, jeune, beau, bon, nouveau, vieux, joli) precede it.
Most adjectives add -e for feminine and -s for plural; irregulars include beau/belle, vieux/vieille, blanc/blanche, heureux/heureuse.
Subject pronouns: je, tu, il/elle/on, nous, vous, ils/elles; vous serves both as plural 'you' and formal singular 'you'.
Present tense endings for -er verbs: -e, -es, -e, -ons, -ez, -ent; the -ent ending is silent, so il parle and ils parlent sound identical.
Reflexive verbs use a reflexive pronoun (me, te, se, nous, vous, se) that agrees with the subject: je me lave, nous nous levons.
French Language (JCE): Verbs, Tenses, and Sentence Structure
Passé composé = auxiliary avoir or être in the present + past participle; most verbs take avoir, while a limited set (aller, venir, arriver, partir, entrer, sortir, naître, mourir, monter, descendre, rester, tomber, retourner) and all reflexives take être, with the participle agreeing in gender and number.
Imparfait endings are -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient added to the stem from the nous-form minus -ons; used for description, habit, and ongoing background action.
Futur simple adds -ai, -as, -a, -ons, -ez, -ont to the infinitive (or irregular stem such as ser-, aur-, ir-, fer-, pourr-).
Negation wraps the verb: ne + verb + pas; other negative words replace pas: ne...jamais, ne...plus, ne...rien, ne...personne, ne...que.
Direct object pronouns are me, te, le/la, nous, vous, les and precede the conjugated verb; in passé composé they precede the auxiliary.
Questions form three ways: rising intonation (Tu viens?), est-ce que (Est-ce que tu viens?), and inversion (Viens-tu?), with a hyphen and possible -t- inserted (Vient-il?).
The partitive article (du, de la, de l', des) expresses an unspecified quantity and becomes de/d' after a negation or a quantity expression.
Relative pronouns qui (subject) and que (direct object) link clauses: l'homme qui parle / le livre que je lis; dont replaces de + noun.