0h4l4lw0d3

[twilit willow]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[quaint hazel]

My => mon/ma/mes
Mine => le mien/la mienne/les miens/les miennes

Your => ton/ta/tes
Yours => le tien/la tienne/les tiens/les tiennes

His/her => son/sa/ses
His/hers => le sien/la sienne/les siens/les siennes

Our => notre/nos
Ours => le nôtre/la nôtre/les nôtres

Your(pl) => votre/vos
Yours(pl) => le vôtre/la vôtre/les vôtres

Their => leur/leurs
Theirs => le leur/la leur/les leurs

[deft latch]

where is each of them used?

[quaint hazel]

the same place as the english equivalent

[deft latch]

so, there is no difference between ''mon'', ''ma'' and ''mes''?

[quaint hazel]

that's the gender and number of the object

mon is masc (or before a vowel), ma is feminine, mes is plural

id imagine youre familiar with le/la/les for the others

[deft latch]

if ''mes'' is ''my'' in plural, then what is ''notre'' for.

[quaint hazel]

our

[deft latch]

yes, theyre ''the''.

[quaint hazel]

my shoes => mes chaussures
our shoes => nos chaussures

[deft latch]

oh wait, i figured it out, ''mes'' is when youre a single person that owns a lot of stuff, and ''notre'' is when youre a lot of people that own one thing.

ok, i get this.

[quaint hazel]

yea

gender and number of the object, unlike english

his grandmother => sa grand-mère

for example

[deft latch]

yes i get it.

[deft latch]

thanks a lot, i understand this entire thing now.

[quaint hazel]

👍 glad I could help!

[deft latch]

tho, there is one more problem, and the biggest of them all, the conjugation. i think french's verbs conjugation is super hard, cuz you got a lot of conjugation times with each of them having its own termination modification, and 3 verb groups with each of them having a unique termination (with one of them not even following any rule), and with all pronouns having each a termination modifier of their own, it feels so inconvenient to memorise all termination combinations. do you have any easier method for them? like a pattern i could follow or smth.

[quaint hazel]

I mean, literally 99% of verbs are -er verbs, all of which are regular except for aller (there are some slight changes to a few of them due to pronunciation rules that you can learn but no other true irregulars)
-ir is relatively regular, with only a handful of irregulars iirc
-re has one most common pattern but is the one you'll have to study the most
There are patterns, there aren't that many verbs that are 100% irregular and don't really follow any pattern. It might help to try looking at a bescherelle? It basically contains conjugation patterns. But I'd also mostly just recommend practicing and listening. When you hear it enough (and most irregulars are common verbs) you'll pick up on it and it'll just sound natural. It's also ok to look up the conjugation of a verb as well if you're not sure

[deft latch]

i was tought in school that the first and the second group (er and ir) are the ones that follow the rules, except for some of them, the third group has no defined termination, and doesnt follow any rules, it can end with anything, and can become anything when conjugated, even turning into a completely different word, like how ''teach'' becomes ''tought'' in the past (in english), you could say its the irregular group but in french.

[deft latch]

whats a bescherelle?

[quaint hazel]

That's how natives learn it, but usually learners learn the 3 endings and their regular endings before learning the irregular patterns for each

ER
-e
-es
-e
-ons
-ez
-ent

IR
-is
-is
-it
-issons
-issez
-issent

RE
-s
-s

-ons
-ez
-ent

-re is just the one with the most patterns/irregularities so natives generally just chuck it in with all the other irregulars

[quaint hazel]

A bescherelle is like a dictionary for conjugation, it gives you example verbs with their conjugations for each conjugation pattern - regular and irregular