First edition

Top 11
Mistakes
French
Learners Make

Benjamin Houy
About the author

Bonjour



I am Benjamin Houy, the founder of French Together.


After years teaching French, I noticed that English speakers often make the
same grammar and pronunciation mistakes again and again. 



This book will help you identify mistakes you probably make and give you
easy ways to fix them, so you can instantly improve your French.



For example you will learn:

• How to determine the gender of a noun with 90% accuracy

• How B.R.A.G.S can help you know whether an adjective goes before or
after a noun

• Why it‘s important to be CaReFuL when you speak French

• And much more




If you want to become a confident French speaker, I recommend you to
start by reading this book and then click here to see how 30-Day French
can help you learn the most common French phrases, learn grammar na-
turally and get a great French accent right from the start.








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Mistake #1: confusing the gender of French nouns

Does the gender of French nouns drive you crazy? Does it feel
like there is no logic at all?
Well, I have a great news for you. Despite what many people
say, there is a reliable way to know whether a French word is
feminine or masculine.
First of all, it's important to know the gender is about the word
itself, not the concept behind the word. It's not because a con-
cept sounds rather feminine that the word used to talk about it
in French will be feminine.
The most reliable way to determine a noun's gender is to look
at its ending. According to a study by McGill University, a noun's
ending indicates its gender with 90% accuracy.
You will be like native French speakers, you will instinctively
know the gender of the nouns you encounter. And I am not the
one saying this will work, several studies have actually proven
that students who focus on nouns' endings when they start to
study French are much more successful at determining nouns'
genders.
Typically masculine word endings (+90%)
-an, -and, -ant, -ent, -in, -int, -om, -ond, -ont, -on (but not after
s/c¸)
-eau, -au, -aud, -aut, -o, -os, -ot
-ai, -ais, -ait, -es, -et

Before you freak out at the idea that you now have to learn the- -ou, -out, -out, -oux
se endings by heart, let me suggest something more effective.
-i, -il, -it, -is, -y
1) Print this list
-at, -as, -ois, -oit
2) Look at it every time you wonder whether a noun is masculi-
• -u, -us, -ut, -eu
ne or feminine
-er, -e´after C (C=t)
This way you will naturally learn to determine a noun's gender
based on its ending. After a few month, you won't even need to -age, -ege, – ` eme, -ome/- ` ome, -aume, -isme
look at the list anymore.
-as, -is, -os, -us, -ex

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-it, -est -ache, -iche, -eche, -oche, -uche, -ouche, -anche

-al, -el, -il, -ol, -eul, -all -ave, -eve, -ive

-if, -ef -iere, -ure, -eure

-ac, -ic, -oc, -uc -ette, -ete, – ˆ ete, -atte, -otte, -oute, -orte, -ante, -ente, -inte,
-onte
-am, -um, -en
-alle, -elle, -ille, -olle
-air, -er, -erf, -ert, -ar, -arc, -ars, -art, -our, -ours, -or, -ord, -ors,
-ort, -ir, -oir, -eur -aille, -eille, -ouille

(if animate) -appe, -ampe, -ombe

-ail, -eil, -euil, -ueil • -igue

-ing

Typically feminine word endings (+90%) Reference: Predictability in French gender attribution: A corpus
analysis1 ROY LYSTER McGill University (Received October
-aie, -oue, -eue, -ion, -te, – ´ ee, -ie, -ue
2004; revised November 2005)
-asse, -ace, -esse, -ece, -aisse, -isse/-ice, -ousse, -ance, -anse,
-ence, -once

-enne, -onne, -une, -ine, -aine, -eine, -erne

-ande, -ende, -onde, -ade, -ude, -arde, -orde

-euse, -ouse, -ase, -aise, -ese, -oise, -ise, -yse, -ose, -use

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The previous list has the advantage of being exhaustive, but you can learn a simpli-
fied, and shorter list.

While there is no precise data available, you can consider that you’ll be right 80%
of the time if you use this simplified list.

Feminine word endings

# •# The majority of words that end in -e or -ion.

# •# Except words ending in -age, -ege, -é, or -isme (these endings often indi-
cate masculine words).

Masculine word endings

• Most words with other endings are masculine.

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 Mistake #2: pronouncing the wrong final letters

In French, what you see isn't necessarily what you hear, because
Le choc
many letters are silent. To know whether a final letter should be pro-
The final letter is a „c“ so you pronounce it.
nounced or not, think about the CaReFuL rule.

If the French word ends in C, R, F or L (the letters in CaReFuL), the

Le docteur
final letter is pronounced.
The final letter is a „r“ so you pronounce it.

If the word ends with another letter: the final letter is silent
Le ticket
This doesn't work if the final letter is a "e", "b", "k" or "q" though. But The final letter is a „t“, so you don‘t pronounce it. 

since "b", "k" and "q" are almost never used as final letters in 

French, this rule works in most cases.
 Paris


 The final letter is a „s“ so you don‘t pronounce it.
Note: there are exceptions.but with this rule, you will be right in most
situations. As for everything, you will end up knowing instinctively
how to pronounce words as you get a better knowledge of the langu-
age.

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Mistake #3: yes/no questions

In French, you have three ways to ask a yes/no question.

T‘as déjà mangé ?
1. Est-ce que tu veux manger quelque chose ? (lit: do you want


eat something)
Est-ce que tu as déjà mangé ?
2. Veux-tu manger quelque chose ? (lit: want you eat some-
thing?)
Have you eaten?
3. Tu veux manger quelque chose ? (lit: you want to eat some-
thing?)

These three sentences all mean "do you want to eat something?". Note: you will learn why „tu as“ becomes „t‘as“ with mistake #6.

The two first sentences are clearly identified as questions. The first
one because it starts with "est-ce que", the second one because
verb and pronoun are inverted. ça va

But the third sentence could be an affirmative sentence if it wasn‘t It‘s going well (lit: it‘s going)
for the „?“.

The thing is, you won't have a "?" when you speak, so you need to ça va ?
raise the tone of your voice at the end of the sentence to identify it
as a question. how is it going?


Don‘t forget to do it, otherwise people won‘t know you are asking
question and will think it‘s a statement.

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Mistake #4 being overly familiar

As an English speaker, you are used to always saying "you" when

Excusez-moi, est-ce que vous savez où est le métro ?

you talk to someone. What you may not know is that there are two


ways to say you in French:
Excuse me, do you know where the subway is?

• Vous (formal or plural)

• Tu (informal) Salut, comment tu vas?

Hi, how are you doing? (informal)
People may be offended if you use "tu" all the time.

You use ,tu“:

Bonjour, comment allez-vous ?
• with friends
Hello! How are you doing? (formal)
• with people you know well

• with children
Vous êtes où ?
• with people your age if you are a teenager
Where are you?

You use „vous“:

• with strangers Based on „vous“, this sentence could be formal or plural. Howe-
ver, this way to ask a question is informal, so the sentence is in-
• with people older than you
formal (see mistake #3).


If you don't know which one to use, "vous" is a safer choice.

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Mistake #5: always translating to be with "être"

Many of the mistakes made by English speakers in French come

Don‘t worry though, there are many cases where you can use
from literal translation.
„être“ exactly as you would use „to be“ in English.
For example, many English speakers say „je suis faim“ instead of
„j‘ai faim“.
Je suis fatigué(e)
That‘s not correct, because „faim“ doesn‘t mean „hungry“, it means
„hunger“. And like in English, you don‘t use „suis“ (am) before a I am tired
noun in French.

Je suis faim (incorrect)

Je suis énervé(e)
I am hunger
I am angry

J‘ai faim (correct)

In both sentences, the final „e“ indicates that the person talking
I have hunger (the subject) is a woman.

Je suis soif (incorrect)

I am thirst

J‘ai soif (correct)

I have thirst

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Mistake #6; le followed by a vowel

In English, contractions such as „you‘re“ indicate that the La amie => l'amie
conversation is informal.

However, in French, contractions are mandatory. They do not

indicate how formal a conversation is. Le homme => l'homme
In fact, their only goal is to make the pronounciation easier (and
learning French harder).


 Le ami => l'ami
For example, „le“ (masculine „the“) and „la“ (feminine „the“)
become „l‘„ when they are followed by a vowel or a silent „h“.
Le air => l‘air
An easy way to remember that is to think that vowels all hate
each others, so if there are two vowels next to each others, you
need to delete one of them.
Note: "ami" is the masculine for "friend", while "amie" is the femi-
In this situation, you always delete the first vowel.
nine form. In lots of cases, adding a final "e" is all you have to
This rule also applies to „ce“, „de“, „je“, „me“, „ne“, „que“, „se“, do to make a word feminine.
„te“.

In spoken French, the „e“ in „le“ or „de“ is often dropped. So

„beaucoup de pain“ (lots of bread) may sound like „beaucoup
d‘pain“.

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Mistake #7: connaitre VS savoir

The creators of the French language love nothing more than to

Je connais cet homme, c'est mon voisin.
make you suffer. That‘s why they decided to create two verbs to
say „to know“. I know this man, he is my neighbor.

And of course, since giving the exact same meaning to both would
have made it too easy to learn, they decided to give slight variati-
ons of meaning to each verb. 
 Je connais bien Paris.

I am familiar with/ I know Paris well

Let‘s start with „connaître“:

• Used before nouns, never before verbs Je sais manger avec des baguettes
• Often means „to know a person or place“, „to be familiar I know how to eat with chopsticks
with a person or place“.

Je ne sais pas quoi faire

Savoir:
I don't know what to do
• Used before verbs and prepositions

• Almost never used before a noun

Je (ne) connais personne ici
• Often means „to know how to“
I don‘t know anyone here

Note: dropping the „ne“ is common in spoken French.

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Mistake #8: false cognates

You may not know this but one third of English words come from
Location
the French language.
Rental
This means you already know lots of French words.

That's a great news, because it means learning vocabulary will be

way easier. Bras

You will quickly realize though that some words that look almost i- Arm
dentical in French and English have different meanings.

Here are the most common ones and their meaning in French:
Journée
attendre
to wait Day

Actuellement Librairie

right now/at the moment Book shop

Eventuellement Coin

possibly Corner

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Préservatif

Condom

Check out 11 Common French Mistakes That Will Make You

Feel Awkward if you want to avoid mistakes like this one :).

Passer un examen

To take an exam

Déception

Disappointment

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Mistake #9: who misses who?

You want to tell your French friend or lover you miss him/her, so Tu me manques
you say „je te manque“.
T I miss you
The problem is that you just said „you miss me“. 



In French the person you are missing is the VIP person, so this Paris me manque
person should always be the subject of the sentence.
I miss Paris

Il manque à sa famille

His family misses him

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Mistake #10: faire la bise Vs baiser

This mistake could make you feel awkward, or worse, ruin your On se fait la bise ?
relationship with someone.
Do we kiss each other? (on the cheek)
"Un baiser" is a kiss. And in theory, "baiser" means to kiss.

What your dictionary may not tell you though, is that there is a
more common meaning. On baise?

Nowadays, "baiser" mainly means "to fuck". We fuck?

So if you want to kiss someone on the cheek, use the verb
"faire la bise" (lit: to do the kiss) instead.
Discover more embarrassing mistake here.

Note: if you want to sound more polite, you can say "est-ce
qu'on se fait la bise".

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Mistake #11: position of adjectives

In English, adjectives always go before the noun. In French, it‘s La belle valise
slightly more complicated. The beautiful suitcase


Most adjectives go after te noun. Except the BRAGS.
Un vieux ticket de métro

The BRAGS are adjective that are so full of themselves that An old subway ticket
they always want to be first, and therefore go before the noun.

La maison verte
Here are the BRAGS adjectives:
The green house

• Beauty adjectives: beau, belle, joli

Un homme stupide
• Rank adjectives: premier, deuxième, troisième, dernier, seul

• Age adjectives: jeune, vieux, ancient, nouveau A stupid man

• Goodness adjectives: bon, bonne mauvais

• Size adjectives: grand, petit, gros

Note: not all adjectives related to beauty, age etc follow this
rule. The adjectives above are among the most common
French adjectives though, so knowing them is useful.

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ker?

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