Grammaire et usage de la langue / Grammar and Usage
What the section tests
JCE French grammar and usage tests form and meaning in context: tenses, agreement, pronouns, articles, prepositions and mood. Questions often look like a sentence with one gap or a pair of sentences to transform. The exam rewards the form that fits the time marker and the speaker's stance, not the form that merely sounds English.
Core rules
- Past time: passé composé for completed events; imparfait for description, habits and background. Time markers help: hier, soudain → passé composé; souvent, chaque semaine, pendant que → imparfait.
- Agreement: adjectives agree in gender/number; avoir + past participle agrees only with a preceding direct object (les lettres que j'ai écrites); être verbs agree with the subject.
- Pronouns: y replaces à + place/thing; en replaces de + noun or a quantity; COD/COI pronouns go before the auxiliary in compound tenses.
- Articles: un/une/des for countable specifics; le/la/les for general truths; du/de la/des for partitives; de after negation.
- Mood: subjunctive after il faut que, bien que, pour que; infinitive after il faut + general subject.
Worked example
« Quand j'étais petit, je ___ (jouer) au foot chaque samedi, mais un jour je ___ (tomber) et je me suis cassé le bras. » Reasoning: Quand j'étais petit and chaque samedi signal habit/background → jouais (imparfait). Un jour signals a single completed event → suis tombé (passé composé with être, agreement with masculine je: tombé). Using ai joué would make the habit sound like a single event; using tombais would make the fall background, not the event.
Traps
- English interference: depuis + present in French (je travaille ici depuis 2020), not present perfect.
- Être verbs: descendre, monter, sortir, rentrer change auxiliary with a direct object.
- Irregular participles: eu, fait, pris, mis, ouvert.
- Si + present → future (si j'ai le temps, je viendrai), not si j'aurai.
- Partitive after negation becomes de: je ne bois pas de café.