FRENCH GRAMMAR DRILLS Eliane Kurbegov New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto Copyright © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data- base or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 0-07-159362-4 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: 0-07-147513-3. All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. 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For more information about this title, click here Contents Preface vii Part 1 Articles and Adjectives 1 Definite Articles 3 2 Indefinite Articles 15 3 Demonstrative Adjectives 19 4 Possessive Adjectives 21 5 Interrogative Adjectives 25 Review 1 27 Part 2 Plurals, Quantity, and Partitive Articles 6 Plural of Nouns 33 7 Quantity 35 8 Partitive Articles 39 Review 2 43 iii Part 3 Adjectives 9 Agreement of Adjectives 51 10 Position of Adjectives 59 11 Comparative and Superlative Forms of Adjectives 63 Review 3 65 Part 4 Adverbs 12 Position of Adverbs 69 13 Formation of Adverbs 73 14 Comparative and Superlative Forms of Adverbs 75 Review 4 77 Part 5 Subject, Stressed, and Object Pronouns 15 Subject Pronouns 83 16 Stressed Pronouns 85 17 Direct and Indirect Object Pronouns 87 18 Other Object Pronouns: y and en 95 Review 5 99 iv Contents Part 6 Possessive, Demonstrative, and Interrogative Pronouns 19 Possessive Pronouns 107 20 Demonstrative Pronouns 109 21 Interrogative Pronouns 111 Review 6 113 Part 7 Relative Pronouns 22 The Relative Pronouns qui and que 117 23 The Relative Pronouns qui and lequel After Prepositions 119 24 The Relative Pronouns où and dont 123 25 Ce Before qui, que, and dont 127 Review 7 129 Part 8 Prepositions and Conjunctions 26 Prepositions 135 27 Geographical Expressions 143 28 Prepositional Expressions and Idioms 151 29 Conjunctions 159 Review 8 163 Contents v Part 9 Basic Verbal Structures 30 The Present Participle, Present Tense, and Imperative 167 31 The Near Future, Simple Future, Future Perfect, and Present Conditional 179 32 Imparfait and passé composé 187 33 Imparfait and conditionnel 197 34 The Past Infinitive 199 Review 9 203 Part 10 Other Verbal Structures 35 The Present and Past Subjunctive 211 36 Reflexive Verbs and the Passive Voice 217 37 Negations 225 38 The Interrogative 229 39 Stem-Changing and Irregular Verbs 233 40 Verbal Expressions and Idioms 267 Review 10 273 Answer Key 281 vi Contents Preface If you’ve picked up this book, you know that to learn a language well—to read and write and to understand others and be understood yourself—at some point you just have to buckle down and deal with the grammar. French Grammar Drills will enable you to take charge of the grammar that you need to know French well by providing you with plenty of writing drills to reinforce your knowledge and enhance your ability to speak, read, and write with finesse. You will be able to work at your own pace while focusing on those aspects of grammar that require the most attention. Since so many grammatical elements in French vary as a function of the gender and number nouns, the book starts with a chapter on articles and tips showing you how to distinguish between masculine and feminine genders, as well as singular and plural forms, before moving on to chapters examining adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions. The remain- ing chapters are devoted to verbal forms and tenses. The emphasis in the verb chapters is on those tenses of the indicative and subjunctive modes that are most frequently used in contemporary and conversational French. A variety of exercises will reinforce your ability to manipulate the French language. There are exercises after each set of explanations so you can imme- diately apply what you have learned. In addition, ten sets of review exercises follow each group of related chapters. They are found following the study of articles and adjectives (Part 1); after plurals, quantity, and partitive articles (Part 2); after the study of adjectives, including comparatives and superla- tives (Part 3); after the study of adverbs (Part 4); after the study of subject, stressed, and object pronouns (Part 5); after possessive, demonstrative, and interrogative pronouns (Part 6); after relative pronouns (Part 7); after prepo- sitions and conjunctions (Part 8); after the study of verbs in the future, condi- tional, imparfait, and passé composé, including present and past participles (Part 9); and after the study of the subjunctive, reflexive verbs, the passive voice, negations, interrogatives, irregular verb forms and verbal expressions (Part 10). These review exercises are given specific contexts with the aid of vii Copyright © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click here for terms of use. various “vignettes” that give you the opportunity to challenge yourself in communicative, real-life situations. You will find answers to all the exercises in the answer key at the back of the book. Once you’ve worked your way through French Grammar Drills, not only will you find yourself confidently on your way to fluency, this book will remain a unique resource anytime you need to clarify or review essential grammatical concepts. viii Preface Part 1 Articles and Adjectives Copyright © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click here for terms of use. This page intentionally left blank 1 Definite Articles Definite articles accompany nouns representing specific things and people. They are usually translated into English as the, although they are sometimes omitted in English. Gender and number of nouns The definite article (the in English) varies according to the gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural) of the noun it accompanies. Several abbreviations related to articles and nouns, as well as the distinction between familiar and formal speech, are used throughout the book. They are: m masculine f feminine s singular pl plural fam. familiar form. formal Use le before a masculine singular noun starting with a consonant. le livre the book le père the father Use la before a feminine singular noun starting with a consonant. la porte the door la dame the lady Use l’ before a singular noun (masculine or feminine) starting with a vowel or a mute h; the definite articles le and la change to the form l’: 3 Copyright © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click here for terms of use. l’homme (m) the man l’affiche (f) the poster Use les before any plural noun (masculine or feminine): les garçons the boys les filles the girls Since the use of le or la before a singular noun depends on the gender of that noun, here are a few rules of thumb to help you remember the gender of nouns.