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French grammar wheels
Grammar Wheels
"I gave my three books to her at the market." — Change any wheels to see how French encodes each shift.
Common questions about French
What can I toggle on the French wheel?
Subject (je, tu, il/elle, nous, vous, ils/elles), tense (past, present, future), aspect (simple, progressive via 'être en train de', perfect with avoir / être), mood (indicative, subjunctive, imperative), polarity, voice, and the tu / vous register dial.
How does the wheel handle the subjunctive?
Switching mood to subjonctif inserts a 'que' clause and rewrites the verb stem (parle → parle, sait → sache, a → ait). The wheel shows the trigger and the inflected verb together so the link between them is visible.
What changes when I flip between tu and vous?
The pronoun swaps and the verb ending changes from -es / -s to -ez. Vous-as-formal-singular keeps adjectives in the singular, while vous-as-plural shifts agreement to plural; the wheel labels which is which.
Why does the past participle sometimes pick up -e or -es?
With être auxiliaries, and with a preposed direct object on avoir verbs, the past participle agrees with that noun in gender and number. Toggling subject gender or moving the object adds or strips the agreement ending.
Does the wheel cover negation and clitic placement?
Yes. Toggling polarity wraps 'ne ... pas' around the verb, and object pronouns (le, la, les, lui, leur, en, y) sit before the verb with elision where needed. The wheel reorders them as you switch them in.
Sources for French
The grammatical descriptions on this page are informed by the following published reference and descriptive grammars. Grammatical facts themselves are not subject to copyright; the scholars who documented them deserve attribution.
- Grevisse, Maurice & Goosse, André (2008). Le Bon Usage, 14e éd. De Boeck. — The definitive French grammar reference ("the grammar bible"), continuously updated since 1936; ~1600 pp covering all aspects of French grammar with extensive examples from literary and contemporary sources. [via static/grammar-library/fra/grevisse-goosse-2008-bon-usage-14e.pdf]
- Riegel, Martin; Pellat, Jean-Christophe & Rioul, René (2011). Grammaire méthodique du français, 4e éd. Paris: PUF (Quadrige Manuels). — Major university-level reference grammar, widely used in French linguistics departments; comprehensive, methodical approach to syntax, morphology, and semantics. [via static/grammar-library/fra/riegel-pellat-rioul-2011-grammaire-methodique.pdf]
- Hawkins, Roger & Towell, Richard (2015). French Grammar and Usage, 4th ed. Routledge Reference Grammars. ISBN 978-1-138-85110-8. — Practical usage-focused reference grammar. [via static/grammar-library/fra/hawkins-towell-2015-french-grammar-usage.pdf]
- Fagyal, Zsuzsanna; Kibbee, Douglas & Jenkins, Fred (2006). French: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge University Press. [via static/grammar-library/fra/fagyal-kibbee-jenkins-2006-french-linguistic-intro.pdf]
- Detey, Sylvain; Durand, Jacques; Laks, Bernard & Lyche, Chantal (eds.) (2016). Varieties of Spoken French. Oxford University Press. — PFC project methodology and global French varieties. [via static/grammar-library/fra/detey-durand-laks-lyche-2016-varieties-spoken-french.pdf]