Common french verbs : "être" and its conjugation

Être is one of the most common French verbs and one of the most important French verbs. It is irregular in conjugation and literally means "to be." Être is also used in some idiomatic expressions and as an auxiliary verb for compound tenses and the passive voice.

Even though être is the French equivalent of "to be," there are certain expressions in which you have to use avoir or faire to translate "to be."

French common verbs :"être" and its uses

Être means "to be" in many senses that this verb is used in English.

1. It is used with adjectives, nouns, and adverbs to describe a temporary or permanent state of being:
   Il est vieux - He is old
   Je suis à Chicago - I'm in Chicago
   Nous sommes anglais - We're English
   Il est là-bas - He's over there


2. Être is used to describe someone's profession:

   Mon père est medecin - My father is a doctor
   Je suis avocat - I'm a lawyer

3. Être can be used with the preposition à plus a stressed pronoun to indicate possession:
   Cette voiture est à moi   This is my car.

   - À qui est ce livre ? - C'est à François.
   - Whose book  is this? - It's François's.


4. Expressions with être

n'est-ce pas?     right? isn't that so?

soit... soit...       either... or ...

c'est ça              that's it, that's right

ça y est             that's it, it's done

Être as an Auxiliary Verb

The following is a list of verbs  that require être:

1. Être is the auxiliary for some verbs in the compound tenses:
   Je suis allé en Allemagne - I went to Germany
   Nous étions déjà sortis - We had already left
   Il serait venu si... - He would have come if...

2. Être is used to form the passive voice:
   Les voitures sont lavées - The cars are washed
   Il est respecté de tout le monde - He is respected by everyone


Conjugations

	Present		Future		Imperfect		Present participle
je (j')	suis		serai		étais		étant
tu	es		seras		étais
il	est		sera		était		Passé composé
nous	sommes		serons		étions		Auxiliary verb	avoir
vous	êtes		serez		étiez		Past participle	été
ils	sont		seront		étaient
	Subjunctive		Conditional		Passé simple		Imperfect subjunctive
je	sois		serais		fus		fusse
tu	sois		serais		fus		fusses
il	soit		serait		fut		fût
nous	soyons		serions		fûmes		fussions
vous	soyez		seriez		fûtes		fussiez
ils	soient		seraient		furent		fussent
	Imperative
(tu)	sois
(nous)	soyons
(vous)	soyez

Here is a basic French lesson that will help you to conjugate the verb "être" and use it in phrases.

A bientôt les amis !

How to Learn French Fast

Learn French Online Free

How to learn French Fast

If you are preparing for a last-minute trip to France or somewhere else where French is the primary language, you will need to learn French fast.

Instructions to learn French Fast

1. • Take the placement test if you have some French experience. You may be able to bypass some of the beginner's lessons. Taking the placement test can tell you if you will benefit from skipping some lessons.
   • Start with beginner's lessons if you are new to learning French or did not score well on the placement test. Use the audio glossary and speech recognition to learn the words and pronunciations as you progress through the lessons and exercises.
   • Check your progress with the quizzes to see when you are ready to move on to the advanced lessons. Repeat any of the beginner's lessons that gave you problems before moving on. Pay special attention to the grammar explanations to make sure you understand proper sentence structure. Continue working on your pronunciations with the speech recognition part of the program.
   • Retake all quizzes once you complete the lessons to see if you have retained the knowledge. Repeat lessons you did not retain.

     
     

     Here is two programs that can help you :

     The first is Audible FRENCH, it's an easy-to-follow method anyone can learn to speak modern day conversational French quickly and easily.

     The second is Rocket French, will help you to Speak and Understand French Like a Native, While Cutting Your Learning Time In HALF!
     
     
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     How to Learn French Fast

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Learn basic French : How to say the days of the week

It may not necessary for you to learn all the words in the French vocabulary list, but the days of the week would be most interesting and useful to you. They allow you to build your basic French vocabulary.We will try also to incorporate them into sentences in order to include them into conversations

.

It should be noted that some of  the days of the week in French are named after planets and gods? For example, Monday is named after the moon in English, and in French - lundi (la lune is 'the moon'). Mardi (Tuesday) is named after Mars (Mars).

The names of the days of the week in French are as follows:

Dimanche - Sunday

Lundi - Monday
Mardi - Tuesday
Mercredi - Wednesday
Jeudi - Thursday
Vendredi - Friday

Samedi - Saturday

We will try to incorporate the new French words that we have learned to sentences in order to form some useful French sentences that are widely used in French.

Useful French Phrases

Aujourd'hui nous sommes lundi.
Today we are Monday.

Demain nous serons mardi.
Tomorrow we will be Tuesday.

Hier nous étions dimanche.
Yesterday we were Sunday.

Il y a sept jours dans la semaine
There are seven days in the week

In the following phrases, lundi can be replaced by any of the other days:

ce lundi	this Monday
je ferai ça lundi	I'll do it on Monday
lundi dernier	last Monday
lundi prochain	next Monday
le lundi	on Mondays
le lundi 20 février	Monday the 20th of February
lundi 20	(on) Monday the 20th
tous les lundis	every Monday

•   Notice how the French days do not begin with a capital letter.
•    The French week starts on Monday, rather than Sunday.
•   The English word "fortnight" does not exist in French, however there is an expression "quinzaine", "en quinze jours", which refers to a 15 day period

The simplest method for learning to speak the days of the week is by heart. Read the words out aloud and listen to the pronunciation in the video a few times and you'll quickly learn them by heart.

Good luck! 

5 tips to learn French by listening

Would you like to get better at understanding speech in French? That article will show you who to find opportunities to listen to spoken French.

French is commonly offered as a foreign language in U.S. schools and more than 1.5 million Americans speak French in the home. While you can learn grammar and composition strictly in a classroom, you must hear French spoken correctly to get better at understanding speech in French and to improve your accent when you speak.

There are many ways to improve your listening skills and learn to understand native speakers when they speak, but that needs hard work because the French language has a very unique sound to it.

Here's 5 tips to improve your listening skills and learn to understand native speakers.

1. Obtain digital downloads included in French language instruction materials to hear the language spoken by a fluent French speaker.
2. Join a French language club to practice regularly speaking French and try to seek out fluent French speakers for further practice.
3. Immerse yourself in the French language by listening to the radio in French. That can be in your area if you live in an area where the language is spoken, alternatively,look online forinternet radio stations available through live streaming. Here is a French website that can help you: http://www.franceinter.fr/.
4. Watch movies in French. The Internet has made listening to French content more accessible than ever before, so you can find in it a variety of content to watch in French.
5. Listen to French music by downloading French music from the iTunes store.

Even if you don't understand a word, you're still hearing the intonation and rhythm, the sound and the flow of the language. As you progress, you'll get better at picking out words and interpreting their meanings.

How To Speak With A French Accent

Do you want to know how to speak like a Parisian? If yes, follow these tips because you are going to discover the exact same method that allowed me to learn English in a record time.

Follow these easy steps and you will be able to speak with a French accent in a record time. Try to imagine how your friends will feel when they see that your speak French fluently.

• Learn the rules of French pronunciation and intonation

Learn how to pronounce every single sound and how to correctly stress words. Learning these rules is crucial if you want to speak with the correct accent.

The video below show you how to say some basic words, try to repeat after the singer.

An interesting tip about pronunciation in French:

Roll your RRRRRRs. The first step of learning a French accent is to learn how to pronounce the R-sound. When you say the R, imagine you have a hair stuck in the back of your throat and you're trying to get it out. How would you sound? Hrrr, hrrr, hrrr. 

• Get a free e-book and lessons on learning French

There is a lot of e-book that can help you to learn French quickly and effectively.

• Listen to French podcasts

You need to listen to French all day long, so you can try to find a native in your area, you can also look for French podcasts with transcriptions. Listen to it and repeat aloud after the speaker.

I choose for you a song named "Ne me quitte pas" of the great singer Jacques Brel to show you how much this language is interesting.

Why should I learn colors in French ?(1)

Why should I learn colors in French ?

It is often easier to learn another language if you choose one theme and concentrate on understanding the largest number of words of it. In this article, we will learn colors because it  is an important part of students vocabulary and a fun way to master a lot of words  with another language. In this article,I choose to focus on basic colors and their pronunciation.

Differences in pronunciation!

Remember that in French, hard R's have a "uvular roll," and it is pronounced from the back of the mouth, close to the throat. "A" is a short "O" sound.

      Be very careful not to read French words as they are spelled, there are a lot of mistakes in the reading so just go along with the flow.

Yellow=jaune[zhone]

Orange = orange [oronzh]

Red = rouge [roozh]

Pink = rose [rosz]

Brown = brun [brune]

Purple = violet [vee-oh-lay]

Blue = bleu [bleuh]         

      Green = vert [vair]

White = blanc [blahnk]

Black = noir [nwoir]

You can now practice saying the colors you will see in the video. You can also do this exercise when you are travelling in your car or having a shower. Enjoy It!

How to pronounce the French alphabet

Why should I learn the french alphabet ?

A lot of people prefer to learn French online and one thing missing though  websites that offer the service is learning how to pronounce French phrases correctly. Learning the French alphabet and correct pronunciation is key to speaking French fluently, so it may be one thing you should put more focus on.

Learning  the French pronunciation allows you to say correctly the words and phrases you will learn in the future, yet not a lot of courses teach this. So you should practise as much as you can about the pronunciation and the French alphabet itself.

What's the différence between French alphabet and the English one ?

The difference in pronunciation between the French alphabet and the English one is mainly in the way you use your tongue and lips to say them. This is why I told you that this will take some practice!

The tutorial below will teach you pronunciation. Make sure you practise them as much as you can.This will be your number one key to speaking French like the French do.

I will be back with other videos that will help you  to understand how to pronounce certain words and phrases. 

The phonetic pronunciation will help you to correctly pronounce each letter.

A (ah), B (bay), C (say), D (day), E (euh), F (f),G (jzeh) ,

H (ash), I (ee), J (gzeeh), K (kaa), L (l), M (m), N (n),

O (o), P (pay), Q (kyoon), R (airr(rolled r)), S (es), T (tay), U (yooh),

V (vay), W (doopla-vey), X (ix), Y (ee-grek), Z (zed).

3 Tips to learn French Online

                                                                           

                                          3 Tips to quickly learn French Online

French Online courses:

The first of my three tips to quickly learn French would be French online courses. Online courses are very good because they provide more flexibility, indeed, you are able to progress in courses according to your daily activities. I have seen people go from complete beginners to advanced speakers in few months while learning French online. All you need is continuity and in no time you will be a very fluent speaker.

Language learning partners:

My second tip to quickly learn French would be a language learning partners. So to learn online quickly, make sure that the language learning site has a chat room for language learners. You also may join language student networking sites like  Students Of The World to quickly learn French. When you join such sites, you can make French  friends. You can easily strike a friendship wherein, the other person speaks to you in English and you try to respond in French in the case your partner would like to learn English.

Learn French by listening to music:

My last, and it is my favorite tip to quickly learn French is music. I love music and what better way could there be to learn phrases than to sing along with a song. When I was studying the English Language, I made sure to make a list of my favorite English songs. I did some online research for the lyrics of every song I had on my English Playlist.

 I can assure you, singing along with the lyrics of a song is the fastest way to learn a language. Just do this until you will be able to sing the song without looking at the lyrics. That means you have mastered the phrases in that song.

In conclusion, there a many more tips you can use to quickly learn French. Those mentioned in this article are just a few out of a thousand. In fact, these are my personal tips to learning a language quickly. As a teacher and language professional, I am called to be fast and accurate as far as language learning is concerned.  I wish you the best in your language study.

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More articles :     Good Reasons to Learn the French Language
                         
                           How to pronounce the French alphabet
                         
                          How To Learn French: French For Beginners