By the end of this lesson you'll be able to write a short paragraph about your family: who they are, how old the younger ones are, what they look like and what they're like.
What you've learned
This unit has been about people and things. Skim this list and go back to anything that feels shaky.
- Name things. You know le, la, l', les from the lesson on gender and articles, and un, une, des from the lesson on indefinite articles.
- Make plurals. You can add -s or -x, and you know journal becomes journaux, from the lesson on plural nouns.
- Talk about family. You know the words from the family lesson.
- Say what people have. You know avoir, ages, and il y a from the lesson on avoir.
- Say whose it is. You know mon, ma, mes and the rest from the lesson on possessive adjectives.
- Describe. You know the words from the lesson on describing people, and how to match and place them from the lesson on adjective agreement.
A few words to hold it together
Most of these you've seen before. Il s'appelle and elle s'appelle are new forms of a phrase you know, je m'appelle.
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| il s'appelle / elle s'appelle | eel sah-PEL / el sah-PEL | his name is / her name is |
| dans | dahn | in |
| la personne | lah pehr-SONN | the personAlways feminine, even for a man. |
| et | ay | and |
| mais | meh | but |
| aussi | oh-SEE | also, too |
| avec | ah-VEK | with |
A model paragraph
Imagine Hugo is writing about family for a French class. Here's the paragraph, line by line.
Dans ma famille, il y a quatre personnes.
There are four people in my family.
Mon père s'appelle Marc. Il est grand et très drôle.
My father's name is Marc. He's tall and very funny.
Ma mère s'appelle Nadia. Elle a les cheveux longs et les yeux verts.
My mother's name is Nadia. She has long hair and green eyes.
Elle est petite, mais elle est sportive.
She's short, but she's sporty.
Ma sœur Léa a seize ans. Elle est timide et gentille.
My sister Léa is sixteen. She's shy and kind.
Nous avons une petite maison à Toulouse.
We have a small house in Toulouse.
Look at how much grammar that small paragraph uses: il y a, possessives, être and avoir, the feature pattern with les, adjectives that match a man and a woman, and petite before its noun.
Look also at what's missing. There's no age for the father, because you can only count to twenty so far. That's fine. When you can't say something yet, say something else.
Your turn
Write your own paragraph on paper or in a notes app. It can be about your real family, or an invented one. Aim for six to eight sentences, and include:
- how many people there are, with il y a
- at least three family members, with their names
- an age, if someone is twenty or younger
- what someone looks like, using hair or eyes
- what someone is like, using a personality word
- a mais or an aussi to link two ideas
- one thing your family has, with avoir
Check your work
Go through your paragraph once for each question below.
- Does each noun have a small word in front of it, like mon, une or les?
- Does the possessive match the noun that follows, and not the owner?
- Did you use avoir for ages, hair and eyes?
- Are colours and most other adjectives after the noun, and BAGS adjectives before it?
What's next
The next unit brings in action. It starts with the lesson on regular -er verbs, so you'll soon be able to say where your family lives and works. Then the lesson on likes and dislikes adds what they love and hate. Numbers past twenty come in the lesson on numbers 21 to 100, so you'll be able to give your father's age too.