Conjugating French Without Hesitating
A workbook: the présent, the imparfait, the futur and the passé composé, with every answer worked out.
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- One page per chapterEvery chapter is a web page at its own address: it can be read, shared and printed on its own.
- Readable offlineThe site installs itself and can be read again with no network. A page already open stays open.
- The text can be reusedUnder CC BY 4.0: adapt it, translate it, print it, and sell the print run too.
What this volume contains
A practice workbook for French conjugation, made of short sets of exercises and their full worked answers. The exercises are in French, because French verb forms are what the book trains; every explanation is in English. Four tenses of the indicative, the verbs used most often, and enough repetition for the forms to come by themselves. Conjugation belongs to the French language and not to any one country: this workbook holds wherever that language is written.
What the volume assumes you already know Assumes that a simple French sentence can be read and written, and that the explanations are read in English. It installs the finding of the verb and of its subject, then the four most used tenses of the indicative.
The contents
- 1Before you startWhy this workbook exists, what it covers and what it leaves aside, how to use it, and who the house owes its content to.
- 2Chapter 1. Finding the verb and its subjectBefore conjugating, you have to know which word you are conjugating and what you are agreeing it with: finding the verb, its infinitive, its subject, and cutting the form in two.
- 3Chapter 2. The présent of -er verbsThe largest family of verbs in the language, the one whose infinitive ends in -er, and its six présent forms to be installed once and for all.
- 4Chapter 3. The présent of être and avoirThe two most used verbs in the language, the two most irregular ones, and the words that sound so much like them that they take their place by mistake.
- 5Chapter 4. The présent of the other common verbsThe verbs of the finir type, then the small band of very common verbs whose stem changes along the way: aller, faire, dire, pouvoir, vouloir, venir, prendre, voir.
- 6Chapter 5. Review · the whole présent mixed upA review that deliberately mixes every verb seen so far, because a page on which every verb is alike gets filled in without thinking.
- 7Chapter 6. The imparfait, the tense markerThe most regular tense in the language: one single set of endings for every verb, and a stem that is built almost always in the same way.
- 8Chapter 7. The imparfait of verbs that changeThe places where the imparfait is written otherwise than it is heard: the i that is not pronounced, the cedilla, the e of the person nous, and a review of the présent.
- 9Chapter 8. The futur, built on the infinitiveA tense built on the whole infinitive, with an r that is always heard and an e that is written without being heard.
- 10Chapter 9. The futur of verbs that changeAbout ten verbs refuse to keep their infinitive in the futur: their stems are learnt once, and the endings do not move.
- 11Chapter 10. The passé composé, a tense in two piecesAn auxiliary conjugated in the présent, a past participle behind it, and the trap of the infinitive that is pronounced exactly like the participle.
- 12Chapter 11. Passé composé: être or avoirThe short list of verbs conjugated with être, the agreement rule that comes with it, and the contrast with the verbs that take avoir.
- 13Chapter 12. General review of the four tensesThe last review, the one that mixes everything: recognising a tense, changing tense, and choosing for yourself with nothing to tell you.
- 14AnswersEvery worked answer in the workbook, arranged in the exact order of the exercises, with the reasoning that produces each answer and not only the result.
- 15GlossaryEvery grammar word used in this workbook, defined in the workbook's own terms and arranged in alphabetical order.
- 16Conjugation tablesThe tables of the model verbs drilled in this workbook, the table of their past participles, and the match between the stage of this volume and the school systems of the countries where French is taught.
- 17SourcesThe documents this workbook rests on, with their address and the date on which each was consulted for this edition.
The volume in detail
- Shelf
- Reading and writing
- Stage in the progression
- Foundations
- What the volume assumes you already know
- Assumes that a simple French sentence can be read and written, and that the explanations are read in English. It installs the finding of the verb and of its subject, then the four most used tenses of the indicative.
- Chapters
- 17
- Estimated pages in print
- ≈ 105
- Formats served
- Reading online
- Languages published
- 2
- Licence of the text
- CC BY 4.0
- Checked on
The caveat about mistakes
Every volume from this house is read by someone who did not write it, and its exercises are done again before publication. The double check reduces mistakes, it does not remove them: this volume may still hold some. Report what you find to labibliotheque@odersa.org, giving the chapter and the exact sentence; ODERSA corrects it, redates the volume and says what changed. This book informs and trains: it replaces neither an official curriculum, nor a teacher, nor a professional in the field.
The colophon
- Written by
- ODERSA
- Checked by
- A separate reading pass, carried out by someone who did not write this volume: the reasoning gone over chapter by chapter, the exercises done again with nothing but the content already given, the worked answers compared one by one.
- Typeset
- Set in Source Serif 4 and Public Sans, two typefaces under the OFL licence, by this house's own generator, with no outside dependency.