French Grammar For Dummies

Introduction 1
Part I: Getting Started with French Grammar 5
Chapter 1: French Grammar in a Nutshell 7
Chapter 2: Sounding Out French Words 17
Chapter 3: Using Nouns and Determiners 35
Chapter 4: Describing Nouns with Adjectives 55
Chapter 5: Dealing with Numbers, Dates, and Times 69
Part II: Constructing Sentences, Saying No, and AskingQuestions 85
Chapter 6: Acquainting Yourself with the Present Tense 87
Chapter 7: Acting on Oneself and on Each Other: Pronominal Verbs107
Chapter 8: Just Say No: Negative Words and Phrases 119
Chapter 9: Handling Questions and Exclamations 131
Part III: Beefing Up Your Sentences 155
Chapter 10: Saying Where, When, and How withAdverbs 157
Chapter 11: Picking Up Prepositions 171
Chapter 12: It's All Relative: MakingComparisons 187
Chapter 13: Using Pronouns 203
Chapter 14: Adding the Gerund and the Passive to YourRepertoire 227
Part IV: Talking about the Past or Future 237
Chapter 15: Noting Past Actions with the PresentPerfect 239
Chapter 16: Reminiscing and Describing Ongoing Past Actions withthe Imperfect 253
Chapter 17: Projecting Forward with the Future 265
Part V: Expressing Conditions, Subjectivity, andOrders 283
Chapter 18: Wondering with the Conditional 285
Chapter 19: Surveying the Subjunctive 301
Chapter 20: Giving Orders with the Imperative 319
Chapter 21: Discovering Compound Tenses 333
Part VI: The Part of Tens 341
Chapter 22: Ten Common French Grammar Mistakes (And How to AvoidThem) 343
Chapter 23: Ten (Or So) Useful French Idioms 349
Index 353