Emily Monaco
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French Sentence Structure: Your Guide to Making Your French Flow
You don’t begin learning French by immediately building long, complex sentences.
In fact, you probably don’t build any sentences at all. You start with words, phrases and grammar points then slowly start putting that all together.
Once you grasp French sentence structure, it will be much easier to pick up on the rest of the language.
To make things easier, I’ve created this guide with everything you need to know about French sentence structure, from the simplest sentences to more complex forms.
Contents
- Basic French Sentence Structure
- Types of Sentences
- Structuring Questions in French
- Pronoun Placement in French Sentences
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Basic French Sentence Structure
We have to start at the beginning with basic French sentence structure.
Like English, a French sentence will most often be formed with a subject, a verb and an object.
Unlike other romance languages, French does not drop the subject in most cases.
Also keep in mind that you will need to conjugate any verbs to match the subject, tense and mood.
In order to build even the simplest French sentence, you will need two or three elements.
Subject-Verb Sentences
If a sentence uses an intransitive verb (a verb that indicates being or motion), such as aller (to go), courir (to run) or être (to be) it will be a Subject-Verb (SV) sentence:
Je suis. – I am.
Je in this sentence is the subject, and suis is the intransitive verb.
Since intransitive verbs do not need to take objects, the subject and verb is all that you need.
This is one of the simplest French sentences you can build.
Subject-Verb-Object Sentences
If a sentence uses a transitive verb, it will be a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) sentence:
Tu as un chat. – You have a cat.
Tu in this sentence is the subject, as is the transitive verb and un chat is the object.
Remember that all nouns require an article in French, so even though this sentence has three parts, it actually has four words.
With these formulas, learning French sentence structures may seem like it’s a bit robotic. To strike a balance between those sentence formulas and natural French speech, watch authentic French videos on FluentU.
FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.
You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Click here to check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.
By watching these subtitled videos, you can see the subtle differences between spoken and written French. Eventually, you’ll be able to master those skills so you sound like a native when you speak and when you write.
Types of Sentences
Statements
A statement is the most straightforward type of sentence. It will simply give you information and will typically follow the SVO structure although a SV sentence can also be a statement.
Here are some examples of French statements:
J’ai mangée une pomme. — I ate an apple.
Tu vas venir avec nous à la fête. — You’re going to come with us to the party.
Nous avons beaucoup de vin. — We have a lot of wine.
Commands
To give a command, you must use an imperative sentence, which can only be used with tu, nous or vous.
Tu and vous are used to give basic commands, while nous is inclusive and includes the idea of “Let’s.”
The biggest structural difference between imperative sentences and regular statements is that the subject may be implied.
In other words, you can simply drop the subject and leave just the conjugated verb:
Va !— Go!
Allons-y ! — Let’s go!
Sois sage ! — Be good!
Note that the imperative form is the only sentence structure that allows the subject to be dropped.
Exclamations
Just like in English, you can add emphasis to any statement by adding an exclamation point.
The difference between “let’s go” and “let’s go!” is that the exclamation point adds a whole new sense of excitement or urgency.
Je ne peux pas attendre ! — I can’t wait!
Comme c’est mignon ! — How cute!
Quel soulagement ! — What a relief!
Questions
A question is an interrogative statement that is used to request some kind of information.
A question may elicit a yes/no response or be open-ended.
Allez-vous venir ? — Are you coming?
Qu-est ce que c’est ? — What is it?
Quand partons-nous ? — When are we leaving?
Negative Sentences
In order to make any French sentence negative, you must surround a verb with two words.
In front of the verb, you will always have ne, although this is often omitted in spoken French.
Following the verb you will have the word which indicates the type of negation.
Some of these structures include:
Ne… pas — Not
Ne… rien — Nothing
Ne… jamais — Never
Ne… personne — Nobody
Ne… plus — Not anymore
Ne… aucun — None
Examples of these are:
Je ne suis pas contente. — I am not happy.
Tu ne sais rien de ça ? — You don’t know anything about that?
Elle ne boit jamais d’alcool. — She never drinks alcohol.
Il n’aime personne. — He doesn’t like anybody.
Nous n’allons plus à l’église. — We don’t go to church anymore.
Elles n’aiment aucun homme. — They don’t like any men.
Structuring Questions in French
There are three basic question forms in French, each with its own rules.
Inversion Questions
One of the easiest sorts of questions to ask in French is called an inversion question. It is so named because of the way in which the question is formed: by inverting the subject and the verb of the sentence:
As-tu un chat ? — Do you have a cat?
The question form of the sentence puts the verb before the subject, with a hyphen to show that the two have been inverted. These questions can only be answered by yes or no.
Question Tags in French
The basic question tag in French is “Est-ce que.” It marks the beginning of a yes/no question, much in the same way that inversion does.
The difference here is that the sentence that follows will retain the basic French sentence structure.
Est-ce que tu veux venir ? — Do you want to come?
Qu’est-ce que is a variation on this question tag. By putting que or “what” at the beginning, you can ask a question requiring a more elaborate answer.
Qu’est-ce que tu veux manger ? — What do you want to eat?
Question Words in French
If you want to ask an even wider variety of questions, you can use French question words alongside the est-ce que structure.
French question words include:
- Qui (who),
- Quand (when)
- Où (where)
- Pourquoi (why)
- Comment (how)
These words are simply tacked on to the beginning of an est-ce que question in order to have the desired meaning:
Qui est-ce que tu appelles ? — Who are you calling?
Quand est-ce qu’on part ? — When are we leaving?
Où est-ce qu’on va ? — Where are we going?
Pourquoi est-ce que tu pleures ? — Why are you crying?
Comment est-ce que ça marche ? — How does it work?
Questions With Intonation
Sometimes you may hear someone ask a question in French that does not invert the structure, use a tag or a question word.
So how do you know that it’s a question? It’s because of intonation!
In spoken French, you can make almost any sentence a question simply by raising your voice a little bit at the end of the sentence:
On va voir un film ? — Should we go see a movie?
Tu veux manger un truc ? — Want to get something to eat?
This sort of structure is acceptable in casual, spoken French, but not in written or formal French.
If you want to sound like a native, you’ll have to learn to pick up on these various sentence structures and incorporate them into your casual French.
Pronoun Placement in French Sentences
One of the most difficult French sentence structure ideas for French language learners to grasp is undoubtedly where to put the pronouns.
The reality is that it is actually pretty simple once you know the difference between a direct and indirect object.
A direct object is the object of a transitive verb, while an indirect object is not. For example:
I gave him the ball.
The ball is the direct object. You know because the sentence cannot exist without it. Him is the indirect object.
Now let’s look at this in French:
J’ai donné le ballon à Jacques. — I gave Jacques the ball.
In French, if you need to replace these words with pronouns, the sentence would be written like this:
Je le lui ai donné. — I gave it to him.
Object pronouns in French are preposed, so they appear before the verb. Direct object pronouns such as le (it; him), la (it; her) and les (them) always appear before the indirect object pronouns lui (to him; to her) and leur (to them).
This rule is also applicable for more complex pronoun sentences.
Keep practicing!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
