What this is
Nothing new. Every rule and every word here came from M9, M10, or M11 — and the Block A and B machinery underneath is still doing its job in every sentence.
What’s new is the mixing. In M11 you learned the contractions on their own, in sentences built to show them off. Here they turn up inside jouer du piano and à côté du marché and venir du Canada, where they’re not the point of the sentence and nobody announces them. That is the difference between knowing a rule and having it.
Three things in this block are especially prone to collapsing back into English habits once you stop paying attention to them. This review targets all three.
The three collision points
aller and venir each do two unrelated jobs
| Motion | Construction | |
|---|---|---|
| aller | je vais à la gare — I’m going to the station | je vais partir — I’m going to leave |
| venir | je viens du parc — I’m coming from the park | je viens de partir — I’ve just left |
What follows the verb is the only thing that tells you which. A place means motion. An infinitive means the timeline.
And they can sit side by side: je viens de rentrer du Canada has both. The first de is part of venir de + infinitive; the du is de + le Canada. Same two letters, two unrelated rules, three words apart.
savoir and connaître split one English verb
Connaître takes a person, a place, a thing you’re acquainted with. Savoir takes a fact, or an infinitive meaning know how to.
Je connais ton frère, mais je ne sais pas où il habite.
The second half is the test. English uses know both times; French cannot.
chez versus à
Chez takes a person. À takes a building. Chez le dentiste and à la piscine — the dentist is somebody, the pool is not.
The timeline, in one sentence
Je viens de manger, mon frère est en train de manger, et ma sœur va manger.
Just finished, in the middle, about to start. One infinitive, never changing, three different first verbs. This is the whole of M10, and it costs no new tense at all.
Remember that the middle one is an emphasis device. Plain je mange already covers both I eat and I am eating, so être en train de is for when something interrupts or contrasts — not the default translation of an English -ing.
The preposition system, in one stack
Every à and de in French is doing one of a small number of jobs, and they pile up without interfering:
Mon fils commence à jouer au football avec les enfants du quartier.
- commence à — the preposition a verb demands before an infinitive (M11)
- au — jouer à for a game, then à + le football fusing (M11)
- du — possession, de + le quartier fusing (M11)
Three decisions, three different rules, one ordinary sentence. Nobody stops to explain them, which is exactly why they have to be automatic.
The same stacking happens on the de side:
Elle essaie de jouer du piano.
The de of essayer de and the du of jouer de land next to each other and come from completely unrelated rules.
What to watch for in this review
The verb’s preposition is not negotiable and not predictable. Commencer à, essayer de, vouloir + nothing. If you find yourself deducing it from meaning, you will get it wrong roughly half the time.
Negation never moves a preposition. Je ne sais pas conduire. Elle ne fait jamais la vaisselle chez sa mère. Ne and pas close around the conjugated verb, and everything after it stays exactly where it was.
Questions front the preposition. Avec qui est-ce que tu vas au cinéma ? — English strands with at the end; French will not.
Weather is always il fait. Never il est. And the country after it still takes whichever of en/au/aux its gender and number demand.
Block A and B are still load-bearing. Ma nouvelle collègue ne connaît personne ici needs adjective agreement, the ne … personne negation, and an M9 verb, all at once. If any one of them has gone quiet, this is where you’ll notice.