Time for some Grammar
Don’t worry, nothing complicated, now you are the perfect tourist. You can say “Bonjour“, “Oui/Non“, “Merci” and “Aurevoir” so you have the minimum required to sound like a polite person when traveling to France, that’s nice !
But we want to speak French right ? So for that we need to understand how to build simple sentences.
I’ll try to break down the grammar points in a easy way as I personally believe there is no benefit to learn big chunks of grammar. So I’ll introduce specific concepts every time we need something new to express an idea.
Subject–Verb–Object (SVO) in French
So now that we want to make our first sentences rather than just saying words, what is the most basic French sentence structure ?
The normal word order in a simple sentence is Subject – Verb – Object, just like in English. This is called “phrase déclarative” which “declarative sentence”. It is used to communicate an information
It shows who does the action, what the action is, and who or what receives the action.
- Subject (S): the person or thing doing the action.
- Example: Le chat (the cat)
- Verb (V): the action.
- Example: mange (eats)
- Object (O): the person or thing that receives the action.
- Example: la souris (the mouse)
Complete example:
- Le chat (S) mange (V) la souris (O). → The cat eats the mouse.
So, the pattern is:
👉 Subject + Verb + Object
👉 Le chat mange la souris.
💡 Tip: Most French sentences follow this order, but it can change in questions or in more complex sentences.