French Grammar - Rule of THUMB and Pronouns

The majority of people, when they first dabble in learning a language like French, tend to acquire relatively easy phrases like the numbers or the alphabet as well as a few key expressions like "I love you" or "Good morning!"

This approach tends to make the learner immediately feel like they are part of the new language community. If they happen to know people who speak this target language, these initial baby steps at learning are certain to earn a few smiles and much approval!

When you decide to get serious about learning a language, this is when you tend to look at grammar. Quite simply, grammar is what allows you to create content in any language. You are no longer just reciting lines you learned from a website or a traveler's guide. Now you are able to produce something of your own. This is the key role that grammar plays and is the reason why it needs to be an integral part of any learner's language agenda.

Let's examine a simple topic in grammar - the subject pronouns. These are basically words that establish who's doing any given action.

I - je; You - tu, He - il, She - elle, We - nous, They - ils

At this point, you'd probably feel relieved. Whew, this looks just like English. It's a one-to-one match.

The word You = the word tu and so on and so forth.

But this is exactly one of the core underlying problems I'd like to address here. One of the very first realities you need to truly grasp if you're going to learn a language is that things don't quite work the same way in all languages. Language is like a trip to Wonderland. Things down the rabbit hole tend to get a bit unstable and weird.

For instance if we were to flesh things out a bit and present a more complete chart of the pronouns above, we'd have.

I - je; You - tu/vous, He/It- il, She/It - elle, We - nous/on, They/It - ils/elles???

And this is the point where people start feeling a really uncomfortable. What? How can the word You be two different things? How can an It also mean He and a She? Why are there two words for We? And I thought It was already il and elle. Now it's also the plural ils and elles? Is French grammar confusing you yet?

Why have I mentioned all of these examples? Because I want to make absolutely sure that you're going down the right path when it comes to learning French grammar - and that path is definitely NOT rote memorization. This is one of the major problems I see many people who learn a second language stumbling over. Consequently, they quickly get flustered and give up before they've really even started.

When you learn a grammar rule, it is to be taken as a guideline but almost NEVER an absolute.

This is especially true when it comes to French grammar because French is notorious for being the language of exceptions even more nefarious than English.

The right idea is to look at everything as if you were putting together the pieces of a puzzle. See how things blend together. Appreciate the differences and how nothing is ever 100%, and above all else, give yourself time! Learning French isn't going to happen overnight, but your brain will eventually be able to absorb all of the finer points and compartmentalize them so that make a bit of sense!

Now let's resolve these apparent paradoxes above:

How can the word You be two different things?

You is both tu and vous because the word You in English is both singular and plural. Tu is the singular You, and vous is the plural You (guys) as well as being the singular formal form of You.
You is also both tu and vous because in the singular form, tu and vous are the informal and formal way (respectively) to say You to people. If you just met somebody, you wouldn't use tu. That would be rude. English doesn't have these differences for the word You.

How can It also mean He and a She?

Because all nouns (people, places, things, and ideas) are masculine or feminine. Yes, a chair actually has a gender in French

So instead of saying It is green if you were referring to a green chair, in French, you'd say Elle est verte(She is green).

Why are there two words for We?

Yes, We in writing or formal situations tends to be nous but when we are talking it's usually translated as on. This is because conjugations with nous are a LOT more complicated than on, so just to save time and make life easier, we tend to stick with on when speaking.

I thought It was already il and elle. Now it's also the plural ils and elles?

Sometimes words that are singular in English are plural in French. Take the following sentence.

The information was useful - Les informations etaient utiles.

So then if you replaced the word information in both languages by a pronoun, you'd get:

It was useful - Elles etaient utiles.

The Elles in this case now translates into It. Thus, this final conundrum has been resolved.

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Learning Korean: 3 Important Differences Between English and Korean Grammar

Korean and English have very different grammar structures, which can make learning Korean challenging for native English speakers. How should you overcome this challenge? The best way is to tackle the problem head on, by directly comparing Korean and English sentence structures. This article will give a very brief review of basic grammar concepts and then discuss the three main grammatical differences between Korean and English.

Quick and Easy Grammar Refresher

To get the most out of this article, you must understand some basic grammatical concepts. Most importantly, you need to understand subjects, objects and verbs. Simply put, a verb is a word that expresses action or being, words like eat, walk, and tell. The subject of a sentence, on the other hand, is the word that takes the action of the verb. Finally, the object in a sentence is the "thing" involved in the action. It often answers the "who," "when," or "where" kinds of questions.

For example, in the sentence "Ryan wrote a letter," the verb is "wrote." Ryan is the one who did the writing, so he is the subject, and the letter is what Ryan wrote, so it is the object. Do you notice the order in which those words were placed?

Word Order: Korean vs. English

The order of the words in the sentence above is subject + verb + object. In Korean, the order of the words in a sentence is subject + object + verb. So, in this case, using Korean grammar, the sentence would read like this:

"Ryan letter wrote." Or, in Romanized Korean, laieon eun pyeonji leul sseoss-eoyo.

Laieon = Ryan (there is no "R" sound in Korean)

pyeonji = letter

sseoss-eoyo = write

This is the most important part of Korean grammar that you need to know. You'll have to fight all of your natural instincts, but you must place the verb at the end of the sentence when speaking Korean.

Korean Subject and object Markers

This is an easy comparison. In English, there are no subject and object markers. In Korean, there are. Take a look at the example sentence I wrote above. Did you notice that there are 5 words in the Korean sentence but that I only translated three of them? The two words I didn't translate are "eun" and "leul." I didn't translate them because there is no direct translation.

Notice that the word "eun" follows the word "Laieon" (Ryan). Laieon is the subject of the sentence; therefore, it is marked with the subject marker "eun."

The word "pyeonji" (letter), on the other hand, is the object, so it is marked with the object marker "leul." These markers can be confusing at first, but don't worry. They come naturally once you begin to use them regularly.

Articles

Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of nouns. In English they are the words "a/an" and "the." Look at the sample sentence above one more time. You may have thought that I made a typo when I wrote the sentence, "Ryan letter wrote?" Actually, however, the sentence is correct when written in the Korean form because in the Korean language there is no use of articles at all.

Summary

Korean and English have very different grammar structures, which can make learning Korean a bit difficult for native English speakers. You can make the process much easier, however, if you understand the difference in word order, the difference in the use of subject and object markers, and the difference in the use of articles.

Best of luck in this and all of your learning endeavors.

Want to learn Korean online? Check out my Rocket Korean Review.

Also, be sure to grab a copy of my FREE (for the time being) new book called "Ordinary Ways to Learn a Language Extraordinarily Fast" at http://www.liveinasiablog.com/learning-a-new-language/

Have a great day.

Ryan Wiley
Founder
The Live in Asia Blog

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