Key French Grammar Rules

Why This Matters

French grammar isn't just a set of arbitrary rules to memorize—it's the structural backbone that determines whether your communication sounds natural and comprehensible to native speakers. On the AP French exam, you're being tested on your ability to manipulate these structures accurately across all four skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Whether you're crafting an email reply, delivering a cultural comparison presentation, or interpreting an authentic text, grammatical precision directly impacts your score on every rubric.

The grammar concepts below connect to larger patterns: agreement systems, temporal expression, register and formality, and sentence-level coherence. Understanding why French requires gender agreement or when to deploy the subjunctive gives you the tools to self-correct in real time during the exam. Don't just memorize conjugation charts—know what communicative function each structure serves and which errors are most likely to obscure your meaning.

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Agreement Systems: Making Everything Match

French is an agreement-heavy language, meaning multiple elements in a sentence must "agree" in gender, number, or person. Mastering these patterns prevents the small errors that accumulate and hurt your scores on written and spoken tasks.

Subject-Verb Agreement

• The verb must match its subject in person and number—this applies even when the subject is separated from the verb by other elements
• Collective nouns like la famille or le groupe typically take singular verbs in French, unlike English where plural is sometimes acceptable
• Compound subjects joined by et require plural verb forms; subjects joined by ou or ni...ni follow the nearest noun

Gender and Number Agreement (Nouns and Adjectives)

• Every French noun has a grammatical gender (masculine or feminine)—adjectives, articles, and past participles must align with this gender
• Plural formation usually adds -s, but watch for irregular patterns: -eau → -eaux, -al → -aux, and invariable forms like fils
• Adjective agreement requires adding -e for feminine and -s for plural, with spelling changes for adjectives ending in -eux, -if, or -er

Adjective Placement

• Most adjectives follow the noun they modify (une voiture rouge), but common adjectives of Beauty, Age, Goodness, and Size (BAGS) precede it
• Placement can change meaning—un homme grand (a tall man) vs. un grand homme (a great man)
• Multiple adjectives typically maintain their usual positions relative to the noun, connected by et if both precede or follow

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The Verb System: Conjugation, Tense, and Mood

French verbs carry enormous communicative weight, encoding not just when something happens but also the speaker's attitude toward the action. This system is where intermediate learners often plateau—push through by understanding the logic behind each category.

Verb Conjugations (Regular and Irregular)

• Regular verbs follow predictable patterns based on infinitive endings: -er (parler), -ir (finir), -re (vendre)—learn these three models thoroughly
• Irregular verbs like être, avoir, aller, faire, and pouvoir appear constantly and must be memorized across all tenses
• Stem-changing verbs (acheter → j'achète, appeler → j'appelle) follow patterns you can predict once you recognize the type

Tenses (Present, Past, Future, Conditional)

• Present tense (le présent) describes current actions, habitual actions, and general truths—also used for narration in informal contexts
• Passé composé vs. imparfait—the most tested distinction: passé composé for completed, bounded actions; imparfait for ongoing states, descriptions, and habitual past actions
• Future and conditional share similar stems but differ in function: future for predictions and plans (je parlerai), conditional for hypotheticals and polite requests (je parlerais)

Mood (Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative)

• Indicative mood presents information as factual or certain—this is your default mode for statements and questions
• Subjunctive mood expresses subjectivity: doubt, emotion, desire, necessity—triggered by specific expressions like il faut que, je veux que, bien que
• Imperative mood issues commands using verb forms without subject pronouns (Parle!, Parlons!, Parlez!)—reflexive verbs attach pronouns after the verb (Lève-toi!)

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Determiners and Pronouns: Specifying and Replacing

These small words do heavy lifting in French, specifying which noun you mean and allowing you to avoid repetition. Errors here can make your meaning unclear or your speech sound choppy.

Articles (Definite, Indefinite, Partitive)

• Definite articles (le, la, l', les) refer to specific or general categories—French uses them where English often omits articles (J'aime le chocolat = I like chocolate in general)
• Indefinite articles (un, une, des) introduce non-specific nouns; des becomes de after negation and before adjectives preceding nouns
• Partitive articles (du, de la, de l') express unspecified quantities of mass nouns—Je veux du pain (I want some bread)

Pronouns (Subject, Object, Relative, Possessive)

• Subject pronouns (je, tu, il/elle/on, nous, vous, ils/elles) replace noun subjects; on is increasingly common in spoken French for nous
• Object pronouns follow a strict order before the verb: me/te/se/nous/vous → le/la/les → lui/leur → y → en
• Relative pronouns (qui, que, dont, où, lequel) connect clauses—qui for subjects, que for direct objects, dont for de constructions

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Sentence Construction: Negation, Questions, and Complexity

Building grammatically correct sentences requires knowing how French handles negation, forms questions, and adds descriptive elements. These structures appear in every section of the AP exam.

Negation

• Standard negation surrounds the conjugated verb with ne...pas—in compound tenses, both elements wrap the auxiliary (Je n'ai pas mangé)
• Informal spoken French frequently drops ne, but maintain both elements in formal writing for the AP exam
• Specialized negations include ne...jamais (never), ne...rien (nothing), ne...personne (no one), ne...plus (no longer)—each has specific placement rules

Question Formation

• Three methods exist: intonation rise (Tu viens?), est-ce que + statement (Est-ce que tu viens?), and inversion (Viens-tu?)—inversion is most formal
• Question words (qui, que, quoi, où, quand, comment, pourquoi, combien) typically begin the question, followed by inversion or est-ce que
• Inversion with noun subjects requires adding a pronoun: Marie vient-elle?—this formal structure appears in written texts you'll interpret

Adverb Formation and Placement

• Most adverbs form by adding -ment to the feminine adjective (lente → lentement); adjectives ending in -ant/-ent use -amment/-emment
• Common adverbs (bien, mal, vite, souvent, toujours) are irregular and must be memorized
• Placement typically follows the conjugated verb; in compound tenses, short adverbs go between auxiliary and participle (J'ai bien dormi)

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Advanced Structures: Expressing Nuance

These constructions allow you to express complex relationships, make comparisons, and demonstrate the grammatical sophistication that earns top scores on presentational tasks.

Comparatives and Superlatives

• Comparatives use plus...que (more than), moins...que (less than), aussi...que (as...as)—the adjective still agrees with its noun
• Superlatives add the definite article: le/la/les plus or le/la/les moins—placement follows normal adjective rules
• Irregular forms must be memorized: bon → meilleur → le meilleur; bien → mieux → le mieux; mauvais → pire (or plus mauvais)

Prepositions

• Prepositions of place follow patterns: à + cities, en + feminine countries/continents, au(x) + masculine countries
• Verb + preposition combinations are idiomatic: penser à (think about), penser de (think of/have opinion about), s'intéresser à (be interested in)
• Temporal prepositions distinguish duration (pendant), starting points (depuis), and deadlines (dans, en)

Reflexive Verbs

• Reflexive verbs use pronouns (me, te, se, nous, vous, se) indicating the subject acts upon itself—essential for daily routines (se lever, se coucher, s'habiller)
• Agreement in passé composé depends on whether the reflexive pronoun is a direct object: Elle s'est lavée (agrees) vs. Elle s'est lavé les mains (no agreement—les mains is the direct object)
• Reciprocal meaning can also apply: Ils se parlent (They talk to each other)

Passive Voice

• Formation uses être + past participle, with the participle agreeing in gender and number with the subject (La lettre a été écrite)
• Agent introduction uses par (by): Le livre a été écrit par l'auteur
• Alternative constructions like on + active verb (On parle français ici) often replace passive in spoken French

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Quick Reference Table

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Self-Check Questions

1. Which two grammar concepts both require you to consider the gender of a noun: article selection or verb conjugation? How do their agreement rules differ?

2. You're writing an email reply (courriel professionnel formel) and need to ask your correspondent to send information. Which question formation method best matches this register, and why?

3. Compare the functions of passé composé and imparfait: if you're describing what the weather was like when an event occurred, which tense handles each part of that sentence?

4. A student writes "Elle s'est lavé les cheveux" without agreement on the past participle. Is this correct? Explain the rule that applies.

5. In an FRQ asking you to compare family structures (structures familiales) across French-speaking regions, which grammar structures would you need to express "more traditional than," "the most common," and "as diverse as"?