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French - Sentence Structures

Understanding French sentence structure is about learning a few core patterns and then seeing how they shift for questions, negation, and pronouns. While the basic order is similar to English, the differences are crucial.

Here is a breakdown from the simplest to the more complex structures.

The Foundation: The Basic Declarative Sentence

Like English, the most basic French sentence follows the Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order.

  • Subject: The person or thing doing the action.
  • Verb: The action.
  • Object: The person or thing receiving the action.

Example:

  • Le chat (S) mange (V) la souris (O).
  • (The cat eats the mouse.)

This SVO structure is the starting point for almost everything else.

Key Difference #1: Adjective Placement

In English, adjectives almost always come before the noun. In French, they usually come after.

  • English: a red car

  • French: une voiture rouge (literally: "a car red")

  • English: an interesting story

  • French: une histoire intéressante (literally: "a story interesting")

Exception: A small group of common adjectives (often remembered by the acronym BANGS: Beauty, Age, Number, Goodness, Size) come before the noun.

  • une belle voiture (a beautiful car)
  • un jeune homme (a young man)
  • une grande maison (a big house)

Key Difference #2: Object Pronoun Placement

This is the biggest structural shift from English and is essential to master.

In English, object pronouns (me, you, him, it, us, them) come after the verb. In French, they come BEFORE the verb.

Example with one pronoun:

  • Statement: Je vois le chat. (I see the cat.)
  • With pronoun: Je le vois. (Literally: "I him see.")

Example with two pronouns: When you have two object pronouns (e.g., "it to me"), they both go before the verb in a specific order.

  • Statement: Il donne le livre à moi. (He gives the book to me.)
  • With pronouns: Il me le donne. (Literally: "He to-me it gives.")

This structure is Subject - Pronoun(s) - Verb.

The Structure of Negation (ne...pas)

Negation in French requires a two-part structure, ne...pas, which acts like a "sandwich" around the verb.

  • ne comes before the verb.
  • pas comes after the verb.

Example (Simple Tense):

  • Je parle. (I speak.)
  • Je ne parle pas. (I do not speak.)

Example (Compound Tense like Passé Composé): The sandwich wraps around the auxiliary (helping) verb (avoir or être).

  • J'ai mangé. (I have eaten.)
  • Je **n'**ai pas mangé. (I have not eaten.)

Forming Questions: Three Main Structures

You can turn a statement into a question in three primary ways in French.

1. Rising Intonation (Informal): This is the simplest way. You just use the standard SVO sentence structure but say it with a rising pitch at the end. It's very common in spoken French.

  • Statement: Tu parles français. (You speak French.)
  • Question: Tu parles français? (You speak French?)

2. Est-ce que (Neutral/Common): This is a very reliable and common way to ask a question. You place the phrase Est-ce que (literally "is it that...") at the beginning of a standard SVO sentence. The word order of the sentence itself does not change.

  • Est-ce que tu parles français? (Do you speak French?)

3. Inversion (Formal): This is the most formal method, often used in writing. You invert the order of the verb and the subject pronoun and connect them with a hyphen.

  • Verb-Subject
  • Parles-tu français? (Speak you French?)

If the verb ends in a vowel and the pronoun starts with one (like il or elle), you must add a -t- between them for pronunciation.

  • Il aime le chocolat. (He likes chocolate.)
  • Aime-t-il le chocolat? (Does he like chocolate?)

Putting It All Together: A Complex Example

Let's build a more complex sentence step-by-step to see the rules in action.

Sentence: "She is not going to give it to them."

  1. Start with the core (SVO): Elle va donner. (She is going to give.)
  2. Add the direct object pronoun ("it" = le): It goes before the infinitive verb it belongs to.
    • Elle va le donner.
  3. Add the indirect object pronoun ("to them" = leur): It also goes before the infinitive. The order is le leur.
    • Elle va le leur donner.
  4. Make it negative: The ne...pas sandwich wraps around the conjugated verb, which is va.
    • Elle ne va pas le leur donner.

This final sentence shows the core logic: SVO is the base, but pronouns move before the verb and negation wraps around the first conjugated verb.