Intro To French Grammar: “that”

Grammar isn t a subject that particularly excites the majority of us, but with even a little understanding of how grammar works, the way in which you learn French can be immediately made easier and more fluid. Luckily, English and French have a lot in common, but when learning your first foreign language, it can be difficult to make yourself aware of how and why we use certain words in English.

For example, the word that has several meanings: to join or replace a noun i.e. that car , to lead into a sentence i.e. I believe that , or to denote size or quantity Is it really that far? We think of all of these words as the same, which leads people learning French to make the common error of using one word in all situations (which is wrong most of the time). By going through some key phrases in English and breaking them down to work out exactly what we want to say, we then don t get as confused when thinking of what the translation would be.

For example, using the word that :

• I want to try that.
• I loved the food that I ate last night.
• I don t think it s that warm outside.

1. I want to try that in this sentence the word that is referring to the thing we want to try we could rephrase this as the thing over there or the thing on the table but however we phrase it, we re talking about one specific thing, and this is how the word that changes the sentence. We call it a pronoun or a word that replaces a noun. Therefore, the French word celui-l meaning that one over there works perfectly.

Je veux go ter celui-l .

2. I loved the food that I ate last night in this sentence the word that joins the sentence together. This we would call a relative pronoun or a word that joins an object in a sentence (the food) to an action (the eating). Confusingly, the French have a different word completely for this, which is que . It s important to remember, though, that despite it sounding and looking the same in English, the word we re using here is grammatically a different word to the first example.

J ai ador la nourriture que j ai mang hier soir.

3. I don t think it s that warm outside in this sentence the word that emphasises the word after it, i.e. warm . You could take the word out of the sentence, but then the meaning changes subtly. What we re trying to say is that we don t think it s freezing outside, but it s not really all that warm, which is different to just saying it s not warm at all. This actually counts as an adverb as it s describing the adjective warm , and so we use the French equivalent si .

Je ne pense pas qu il fasse si chaud en dehors.

Grammar is a dull topic and it s often best to teach and learn through exposure, i.e. reading texts, hearing speech and making mistakes, just as a toddler would do when learning English. However, a few snippets here and there to bolster key points can really help to push your learning speed to the next level.