Articles in French: how to understand?

In the eyes of Russian people, France looks like something sophisticated and intelligent. The rich culture of this country attracts tourists from all over the world, the architectural heritage strikes the mind of sophisticated connoisseurs, and traditions encourage quiet relaxation and unhurried dreams. To visit France is the number one goal for all the romantics of the world. But before you realize your plan, you should get acquainted with the local language: the French do not like to speak English and are extremely reluctant to listen to it.

French is the language of elite society

The nineteenth century went down in Russian history as French: in those days, the noble society could not imagine communicating in another language. Until now, it is considered a sign of luxury and wealth, and those who perfectly possess it are people of considerable intellect. However, learning the language of moody France is not so simple: in addition to many tenses and irregular verbs, there is complexity less extensive, but no less significant - the articles in French.

Why are articles needed?

It is difficult for a Russian to understand what function the articles perform in French, since they have no analogues in their native language. However, the availability of the articles to the French is extremely important: with their help they convey information about whether the subject of the conversation was mentioned earlier, whether it was first encountered in the speech or about some part of it. The articles in the French language play one of the main roles, so it is impossible to miss this topic, considering that it is useless to know it.

Types of French Articles

Unlike common English, which contains only two articles, French can boast of the presence of three types of particles: definite, indefinite and partial. Separately, you will have to memorize fused articles, but this task is the last in the list of those that should be performed for a complete understanding of French grammar.

Definite article

The French language is one of the most common particles. Each text will necessarily contain more than one dozen certain nouns. Such particles are used with those words that were previously encountered, or with those that are a priori unique.

For example: Le Soleil éclaire la Terre - The sun illuminates the Earth. In this case, both the Sun and the Earth mean unique concepts - they are alone in the world, and there can be no talk of any other.

Une femme traverse la rue. La femme est jeune et belle. - A woman crosses the street. The woman is young and beautiful. In this case, we are talking about a woman already familiar from the previous remark, therefore a certain article is used. For ease of understanding, you can mentally replace it with the words "this", "this", "this."

Indefinite article

On an unfamiliar object, on the contrary, indicates an indefinite article. In French, it can be used before nouns that apply only to a particular class.

For example: C'est une belle bague - This is a beautiful ring. In this case, the word "ring" is not only used for the first time, but also means classiness - not everyone has beautiful rings.

Une femme lui a téléfoné. - The woman called him. The word "woman" has not been seen before, and besides, who exactly called, is not specified, so the word is faced with the indefinite article une.

This type of article can be mentally defined by the words "some", "some", "some." For the correct use of this grammatical unit, you only need to understand the meaning of its application: the indefinite article indicates something unknown and non-specific.

Partial Article

The partial article in French is used to denote uncountable objects and abstract concepts. Uncountable objects include food, substance (air, water), material, generalizing words (noise, for example).

Special attention should be paid to the shape of this particle. They are formed by adding the preposition de to a certain article. For greater clarity, it is better to familiarize yourself with the table.

Examples of use: Je mange du viande - I eat meat. In this case, the partial article indicates that the action occurs with a separate unit of the product. “A man cannot eat all the provisions,” the French think, “it should be noted.”

Vous avez du courage. “You are brave.” Courage is an abstract concept that cannot be measured.

French articles: ways to memorize

For a better understanding, it is worthwhile to study the topic, of which the French language mainly consists, - "Articles". Exercises will put everything in its place, and the topic is easy to remember. A good example of exercises are tasks in which you need to insert one of the types of articles in the place of the pass.

Exercise 1

Use the article that is appropriate in meaning.
1) Marie adore __ roses (answer: les).
2) Robert écrit __ texte, c'est __ texte sur __ cinéma (answer: un, un, le).
3) C'est __ nappe. C'est __ nappe de Julie. __ nappe est sur __ bureau (answer: une, la, la, le).

There are several ways that help you not to get confused in the use of articles. They mainly consist in structuring grammar rules. Thus, it must be remembered that the indefinite articles in the French language are used with nouns that are encountered for the first time, as well as with unknown concepts. Partial article - with something abstract and uncountable. With the words “water” and the names of food products, the partial article can be mentally replaced with the word “part”. Only a certain article remains, which applies in all other cases.

The articles help to correctly understand the interlocutor’s speech, translate any text, and easily compose a sentence. In French, they are very important, because the correct structure of the sentence is provided by these particles. You don’t need to cram rules: understanding is what really matters. And it will definitely come, you just need to try a little.