Word labels

masculine noun

nom masculin — use le / un: le chat, un chat. Before a vowel or silent h, le becomes l': l'arbre.

feminine noun

nom féminin — use la / une: la maison, une maison. Also l' before a vowel: l'école.

noun

a noun whose gender is missing from the source data — check before writing it.

verb

verbe — aux. shows which helper verb builds the passé composé: avoir (most verbs) or être (movement verbs and all reflexives).

adjective adverb preposition

adjectif · adverbe · préposition

pronoun conjunction interjection

pronom · conjonction · interjection · also numéral (number) and article

mɛzɔ̃

pronunciation in the International Phonetic Alphabet; the 🔊 button says the word aloud

cuisine

the field a sense belongs to (cooking, music, cinema…)

Conjugation panel

inf. · pres. part. · past part.

infinitive (manger, "to eat") · present participle (mangeant, "eating") · past participle (mangé, "eaten")

je · tu · il/elle · nous · vous · ils/elles

I · you (one person, informal) · he/she · we · you (plural or polite) · they. Before a vowel or silent h: j', m', t', s', n', qu'.

affirmative

je mange (I eat) · j'ai mangé (I ate) · je me lave (I wash myself)

negative

wrap the verb in ne … pas: je ne mange pas · je n'aime pas · in compound tenses it wraps the helper: je n'ai pas mangé · reflexive: je ne me lave pas · commands: ne mange pas, ne te lave pas

question

inversion: manges-tu ? · mange-t-il ? (the -t- separates two vowels) · as-tu mangé ? With je, French prefers est-ce que je mange ? In speech you can also just raise your voice: tu manges ?

(e) (s)

with être the past participle agrees with the subject, like an adjective: elle est allée, ils sont allés, vous êtes allé(e)(s)

—

form does not exist (impersonal verbs only have il: il faut, il pleut)

Tenses

Présent

je mange — I eat / I am eating. Your main tense at A1.

Passé composé

j'ai mangé — I ate / I have eaten. The everyday past: aux. + past participle.

Imparfait

je mangeais — I was eating / I used to eat. Background and habits in the past.

Plus-que-parfait

j'avais mangé — I had eaten.

Futur simple

je mangerai — I will eat. (At A1 you can also say je vais manger, I am going to eat.)

Futur antérieur

j'aurai mangé — I will have eaten.

Passé simple

je mangeai — literary past, found in books, never in speech.

Conditionnel présent / passé

je mangerais / j'aurais mangé — I would eat / I would have eaten. Also polite requests: je voudrais.

Subjonctif présent / passé / imparfait

que je mange / que j'aie mangé / que je mangeasse — after il faut que, wishes, doubt. The imparfait form is literary.

Impératif

mange ! mangeons ! mangez ! — commands and suggestions.

Finding your way

A–Z tabs

chapters of the book; a page holds 20 entries in columns. Tap a letter, or press and drag along the tabs to scrub through the alphabet.

Progress bar

shows where you are in the letter; drag it to scrub through all the pages of that letter.

Mouse wheel · swipe

the cards have momentum: a notch moves about one column, spinning builds speed, and with speed left at the edge of a page the pages riffle over and keep going. Flick hard on a phone for the same effect. Over the A–Z tabs the wheel changes letter.

Keyboard

← → entries · PgUp PgDn pages · A–Z chapter · / search · ? this key

Links

tap a translation to jump to that word on the other side of the dictionary