Commonly Made Mistakes When Learning French

There are a few commonly made mistakes when learning French. Perhaps the most important thing is not worrying about being wrong. Making errors is an essential part of any learning process. As long as you learn from those mistakes, you will continue to improve. Here are just a few of the most common mistakes new speakers make.

One of the most common mistakes is gender. In complete contrast to the English language, all nouns in French are either masculine or feminine. It is important to learn these correctly in order to convey the meaning of the word, as some meanings are dependent on their gender.

Specifics of French

French has two words for you ‘tu’ and ‘vous’. One is formal, and one is familiar. For friends and family ‘tu’ is used. ‘Vous’ is used with strangers, acquaintances, and formal situations. ‘Vous’ is always used as the plural.

Another common mistake is capitalizing the same words in French as we do in English. Capitalization isn’t as prevalent in French as it is in English. Languages, days of the week and months aren’t capitalized in French.

Accents are very important in signalling the correct pronunciation of words. To be able to say and write a word properly requires an understanding of these. Take time to learn correctly the effect accents have on the pronunciation of different words.

French Verbs

The verb ‘to be’ is sometimes replaced with the verb ‘to have’. It is worthwhile being aware of this right from the beginning to avoid confusion. Contractions are also a common mistake. In French, if a short word that ends in a vowel is put next to a word that begins with a vowel, the last vowel of the first word is dropped and replaced with an apostrophe. For example ‘Je aime’, becomes ‘J’aime’.

In a subordinate clause in French the word ‘Que’, (that) is needed. In English this is optional. For example, in English it is optional as to whether you say ‘I know that you are amazing’, or ‘I know you are amazing’. In French ‘that’ must be included.

A great source of confusion is the verb ‘manquer’. If not aware of it, it can slip you up time and time again. “Manquer’ means ‘to miss’, when put in the sentence ‘I miss you’ is said ‘tu me manques’, which literally translates as ‘you are missing to me’.

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