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BASIC INFORMATION
There are around 120 million (120,000,000) people who speak the language in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, the Carribean, French Guyana, a number of African countries, and by a minority in the United States. Some characteristics of French that you will notice are the "slurrings" (liaisons) and elisions of letters in the standard language, also a characteristic of formal Portuguese. The written language employs a historical spelling, meaning that the orthography does not reflect the actual spoken language.

PRONUNCIATION
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French stress is quite even. As a general rule, the stress always falls on the last syllable.

For many, among the most difficult concepts of French pronunciation is that of the "silent" letters. The written letters -c, -d, -e, -es, -r, -s, -t, and z tend to be silent at the end of a word unless followed by a vowel (or h + vowel, as "h" is silent). This is where "liaison" (linking) plays an important role. Some final consonants "link" with the vowels that follow. Les hôtels (lay-zotehl), les hommes (lay-zohm), and les hôpitaux (lay-zopitoe) are all examples of this phenomenon (the first meaning the hotels, the second meaning the men, and the third meaning the hospitals). The French "e" sounds like the "u" in butter (but pronounced through rounded lips), "é" as the "ay" in way, and "è" like the "e" in let. When unstressed, "e" can stand as a silent letter at the end of or even within a word.

The grave accent can distinguish homophonous words from one another, for example:

ou (or)                                        où (where)
la (the)                                       là (there)
[il/elle] a ([he/she] has)             à (to, at, in)

A grave accent is written over an "e" when it carries the final stress in the word, or the "e" in the following syllable is weak or silent.

Ex:    J'achète I buy (from the verb acheter [to buy])
J'achèterai I will buy

In French, a word with only one syllable consisting of a consonant + e does not flow well; most often a speaker drops the short "uh" sound of the "e." When such a word precedes another beginning in a vowel sound, the "e" is contracted both in speech and in the written language (ex: je + achète = j'achète, ce + est = c'est [it is]). Less formal speech and text will reveal even more contractions, especially of "e" (ex: je + ne + veux + pas = j'veux pas! [I don't wanna!]).

BASIC GRAMMAR
The French noun has either a masculine or feminine gender. In the singular, the masculine tends to end in a consonant and the feminine in -e.

Words in -tion/-sion (related to Spanish -ción/-sión, Portuguese -ção/-são, French -tion/-sion, Italian -zione/-sione, Romanian -t¸ie [sometimes -t¸iune]/-sie [sometimes -siune], and Catalan -ció/-sió) are feminine, just as in those languages.

In forming the plural, a consonant adds "s", and -e becomes -es. Words ending in "s" remain the same. If we take the word expulsion (expulsion; as Spanish expulsión, Portuguese expulsão, French expulsion, Italian espulsione, Romanian expulsare, and Catalan expulsió), for example, the plural is expulsions.

The articles match the gender and number of the noun:

Indefinite (a/an)

Definite (the)

The articles usually accompany the noun, and it is common to see them where English would reject them: Vous étudiez la physique? (Do you study Physics?).

The French verb follows many of the same basic principles as its sister languages, so don't be surprised if you recognize a verb, verb form, or usage of a verb as being similar to Spanish, French, etc. As in any Romance Language, the present indicative active of the verb often occurs where English would use the present participle (for example, je parle means "I speak" or "I am speaking in fables").

The French verb follows the same basic principles as those of other Romance languages languages, so don't be surprised if you recognize a verb, verb form, or usage of a verb as being similar or exactly like that of Spanish, Italian, etc. As in any Romance Language, the present indicative tense of the verb occurs in most situations where English would use the present participle (in French, for example, je parle means "I speak" or "I am speaking).

French has three verb terminations ("infinitive endings"): -er, -ir, and -re. Here are the regular present indicative tense conjugations for each of the infinitive endings, including sample verbs:

* Quite a few verbs in "-re" have "irregular" conjugations.

*Tu is used for familiar/informal situations when addressing a single person, vous for either more than one person or for formally addressing one person.

* The pronouns, unlike any other Romance language, must be used with the verb.

Adjectives agree with the noun, and most always follow them: une chose blanche (a white thing), les choses blanches (the white things). An adverb is simply formed by adding -ment to the feminine form of the adjective: lentement (slowly; from lent slow). One interesting note is that adjectives with stressed vowel endings attach -ment to the masculine form of the adjective; eg: vraiment (really, from vrai real, true).

BASIC WORDS AND PHRASES
These phrases reflect the standard language, and do not account for local variations, dialects and créoles:

Bonjour! = Goodday!
Salut! = Hello!/Hi!
Comment ça va? = How are you?, How's it going?
Comment allez-vous? = How are you? (formal)
Bien. = Well.
Mal. = Badly.
Comme si, comme ça. = So-so.
Très... = Very...
Quel est ton nom?/Comment tu t'appelles? = What's your name? (informal; standard spoken language)
Comment t'appelles-tu? = What's your name?
Comment vous appelez-vous? = What's your name? (formal)
Et toi? = And you?
Et vous? = And you? (formal)
Monsieur = Sir, Mr
Madame = Madam, Mrs
Madamoiselle = Miss
Enchanté/Enchantée. = Pleased to meet you. (from male/female)
S'il te plaît. = Please.
S'il vous plaît. = Please. (formal)
Pardon. = Excuse me.
Voici... = Here is...
Voilà... = There is (over there)...
Il y a... = There is/are...
Oui. = Yes.
Non. = No.
Merci. = Thank you.
De rien. = You're welcome.
Pas de quoi. = You're welcome.
Quoi? = What?
Qui? = Who?
Pourquoi? = Why?
Quelle heure est-il? = What time is it?
Adieu! / Au revoir! = Goodbye!, See you later!

Joshua Rudder, talktume@hotmail.com.