Sentence Structure

Here is an example of how a sentence is structured in French:

Subject     +      Verb

Subject     +      Verb

Le garçon dort	The boy sleeps
La femme chante	The woman sings
Le chien court	The dog runs

We have seen in previous lessons that if a noun is accompanied by an article and/or and adjective, they have to agree in gender and number:

Le petit garçon dort	The small boy sleeps
La petite fille chante	The small girl sings
Les petits garçons dorment	The small boys sleep
Les petites filles chantent	The small girls sing

If the sentence has a direct or indirect object, they are placed after the verb:

Je lis un livre	I read a book
Il aide son père	He helps his dad
Mon ami achète une voiture	My friend buys a car
La mère parle à son fils	The mother speaks to her son

If in the sentence there is both a direct and an indirect object, the order that they go in is free, although if you want to highlight one or the other it should go first:

Je donne à mon père un tableau	I give a painting to my father as a present (I want to highlight that I gave a present to my father)
Je donne un tableau à mon père	I give a painting to my father as a present (I want to highlight that I gave a painting to my father)

However, if the objects are substituted by their corresponding pronouns, then you have to follow a determined order which we will look at later:

Je donne à mon père un tableau	I give my father a painting
Je lui donne un tableau	I give him a painting
Je le donne à mon père	I give it to my father
Je le lui donne	I give it to him

VOCABULARY

les adjectifs qualificatifs

High	Haut	Small	Petit
Tall	Grand	Strong	Fort
Low	Bas	Weak	Faible
Short	Petit	Pretty	Joli
Wide	Large	Ugly	Laid
Narrow	Étroit	Straight	Droit
Short	Court	Twisted	Tordu
Long	Long	Rich	Riche
Slow	Lent	Poor	Pauvre
Fast	Rapide	Square	Carré
Light	Léger	Rectangular	Rectangulaire
Heavy	Lourd	Round	Rond
Big	Grand

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