The French verb “entretenir” is derived from the Latin word “intratenere,” which means “to keep up,” “maintain,” or “nourish.” “Entretenir” has a range of meanings. Basic Definition and Conjugation The verb “entretenir” can be translated into English as “to maintain,” “to sustain,” “to keep,” or “to nourish.” It is a regular -ir verb and follows…
Basic Meaning and Conjugation At its core, “croire” signifies the act of believing or having faith in something. It is an irregular verb and follows a slightly modified pattern in conjugation. Let’s take a look at its present tense conjugation in indicative mood: The past participle of “croire” is “cru.” So “j’ai cru” means “I…
French possessive adjectives are used to describe to whom something or someone belongs. Their English equivalents are words like “my,” “your,” “his,” “her,” “its,” “our,” and “their.” They replace articles They are used instead of an article. Articles are words like “un,” “une,” “le,” “la,” “l’” (l + apostrophe), “de,” “du,” “de la,” “de l’” (de…
Reflexive verbs (called “verbes pronominaux” in French) are always conjugated with être in the Passé Composé. Se réveiller Meaning je me suis réveillé I woke up, have woken up tu t’es réveillé you woke up, have woken up il s’est réveillé he woke up, has woken up nous nous sommes réveillés we woke up, have…
“Tout baigne” is a French saying that literally means “everything bathes.” This conjures up visions of a perfect summer beach setting, where some people lay in the sun and others splash about in the water. The meaning of the saying seems to confirm this, because it means “everything is going well, it’s happening for the best,…
In French, you don’t always have to use the Future Simple tense to talk about the future. You don’t even have to use the Near Future tense. You can just use the Present Tense, provided that you also specify a time that will occur sometime in the near future, eg “this evening,” “tomorrow,” or even…
“Cinquième colonne” is a French idiom that means “fifth column.” It translates as “traitor, enemy spy organisation, spy, or secret service for a foreign country.” The idiom dates back to 1936, during the Spanish Civil War. The Nationalists of General Franco announced that the capital of Spain, Madrid, would be attacked by five columns of…
The Past Conditional tense in French expresses the idea that you WOULD HAVE done something, if conditions had been different in the past. In English, it uses either the words “would have” or “‘d” (apostrophe d) + “have.” The past conditional of the English verb “to give” is either “I would have given” or “I’d…
When you want to say that something DIDN’T happen in the past, you will need to make a negative statement in the Passé Composé. This is easy to do. You wrap the “ne…pas” (or other negative term) around the “avoir” or “être” part of the Passé Composé. Verbs conjugated with AVOIR (most verbs) French English…
When “em” and “en” are used as prefixes (meaning at the start of a word) in French, they are always nasal vowels. Prefix Example Phonetics Audio em- emmener ɑ̃mne emmener em- empirer ɑ̃piʀe empirer en- enamourer ɑ̃namuʀe enamourer en- ennuyer ɑ̃nɥije ennuyer But be careful “én” (with an acute accent) is not the same as…