Learn French Adjectives and Adverbs

French Adjectives

Once you start learning French adjectives, you suddenly open all sorts of doors for communication.  You can declare that you are happy, that the world is beautiful, and that you are with a pretty girl.  You can express your glee at the white clouds in the blue sky.

This is because when you learn French adjectives, you are learning how to describe things.  Adjectives describe nouns, bringing them to life by specifying things like mood, color, size, texture, etc.  As you can see, adjectives are an important part of communication!

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French adjectives function a bit differently than English adjectives in two ways:

1. A French adjective must always “agree” with the noun that it is describing, in terms of matching gender and quantity.

2. French adjectives usually go behind the noun, whereas in English, adjectives go before the noun. There are some exceptions to this rule, which we’ll cover below.

Let’s look at these two important points further:

1. Say you want to call something “pretty” in French. The root word for “pretty” is “joli”. Depending on the gender and number of the noun you are describing, the ending may be different. For example:

   Le chapeau est joli.
   La robe est jolie.
   Les gants sont jolis.
   Les filles sont jolies.

   Notice how the ending changes, depending on the gender and quantity of the noun.

   In general, these are the rules that determine the ending of the adjective:

   If the noun is masculine and singular	leave the adjective as is
   If the noun is feminine and singular	add an “e” to the end
   If the noun is masculine and plural	add an “s” to the end
   If the noun is feminine and plural	add an “es” to the end

   Of course, rules are meant to be broken, altered, and adjusted, so not every French adjective will fit into this format, but most of them do.

2. Most French adjectives go behind the noun.  You know the film Moulin Rouge? “Rouge” is the adjective that describes “moulin”, so it goes behind the noun.
   There are certain adjectives that go in front of the noun, however. For example, you know the phrase “nouveau riche”? This phrase means “new money”. The word “nouveau” goes before “riche”, instead of after it.How do you know which adjectives go before the noun, and which ones go after the noun?

   Generally, you can use this acronym to help you figure out which adjectives go in front: BAGS. This stands for Beauty, Age, Goodness, and Size. If an adjective describes the beauty, age, goodness (or badness), or size of something, then it usually goes in front of the noun. For instance:

   La belle fille
   Les nouvelles maisons
   Le grand problème

French Adverbs

Adverbs are handy words that modify adjectives, verbs, or other adverbs. When you get the hang of both French adjectives and French adverbs, you can add a lot more color and life to your conversations by describing things even further!

In English, most adverbs are formed by adding “-ly” to the end of an adjective. For instance:

His smile is nice.  He smiles nicely.

“Nice” is an adjective. “Nicely” is an adverb. They both describe his smile, but in slightly different ways.

In French, most adverbs are formed by adding “-ment” to the end of the singular feminine form of the adjective. For instance:

Le train est lent. Le train arrive lentement.
(Translation: The train is slow. The train arrives slowly.)

In this example, the adjective “lent” is masculine, because it describes a masculine noun (le train).  To turn it into an adverb, you must use the singular feminine form for “slow”, which is “lente”, and add “-ment” to the end.

This may be the general rule, but as you may have guessed, there are plenty of exceptions. This is enough to get your started for now, though!

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