Top 5 basic principles of the French language

English is considered the most dominant language in the world today, with more than 1 billion speakers, of which nearly 50% are native English speakers. The number of people speaking various dialects and sub-linguistic variations is astonishingly huge, but only a fraction of these sub-linguistic variations can speak any spoken foreign language. In fact, for the most part, it has been observed that French is the second primary language worldwide after English, as it was the first to emerge, but there are some countries where French has declined rapidly. France, which is called "Frenchie," is a state in Europe, and one of its regions is Western Sahara (the region that is now known as Mauritania). Although they have very strong roots in Africa, they are also found all over Asia, South America, and especially in the Caribbean. However, their strongest influence is felt in Europe, North America, and Australia. Today, French (also known as Francophone) has become such an integral part of the cultural lives of millions of international citizens across the globe that one may be surprised to see that even if there is no interest in learning it, you or your friends will be able to speak it in many parts of the country, say French at home, and then they will understand each other well enough to meet at restaurants, buy goods, and even in business meetings or social gatherings. This is how we can understand what is expected of them when they start living in this nation. You’ve heard about different French words and words in a French word, so we’ve got here the top 10 crucial rules or principles of French grammatical structure. Let us start at the beginning and keep going till we come to the end!

  1. Grammatical order and directionality

The French grammar orders the sentences in the same way. A sentence must begin with the subject and the object, and the third-person singular verb will usually be placed before the subject. It is further divided into several classes, including active verbs, passive verbs, prepositions, pronouns, etc. Each class will have a specific meaning. The first are classes I, and the second are classes II.

  1. Subject/Object Relationship

The relation between two objects, or rather subjects in French, refers to the spatial relationship. For example, if I want to go to London, I will go to London. Similarly, if I want to eat cake, I will eat a cake, and my request will be accepted. There are three types of relations in French grammar: direct, indirect, and deictic. The two objects have a direct relationship when the object acts directly on the subject. An indirect relation is the one between two objects or elements of another object. Here we have a case where the waiter offers services to clients but not to himself personally. He does not offer any service like taking orders or anything like that. But he knows his job as a waiter. Finally, a deictic relation between two things occurs when the two things are related by the space-time continuum, e.g., God exists; therefore, God creates people. If you are wondering whether our restaurant is far from the city center, yes! Our restaurant is near the town center because our main goal is to serve food. So, we do have a deictic relationship that exists between our restaurant and the town, as well as within our restaurant. To know about deictic relations, let us discuss five key terms.

  1. Pronouns

Pronouns are used to identify certain relations among nouns. They are generally used to show how something relates to someone else. The pronoun is not limited only to humans but also to animals or any other nonhuman thing. We can find examples in our daily lives that it is a boy who works in the house! That is why we use the pronoun ‘he’ and not ‘she’ or ‘it’ unless we are using the first gender. Another example is a woman who says ‘he," as she would like to see her husband standing there. She wants everyone she associates with to be standing close to her, so she uses the pronoun 'he'. The use of the pronoun comes from a Latin root that means a follower or servant, but the exact meaning of this is totally opposite from its original use. Other examples include women who wear dresses. This is probably because they have certain roles that define them as women, and dresses are made out of fabric too, so women wear clothes made of cotton or silk. We can compare these two men and see that women are given more rights and responsibilities just by wearing dresses and behaving according to society’s standards. This helps them maintain their identity and personality. From the above discussion, we can see that there are three aspects of the pronoun: its type, its position, and the number of times a particular word is used. Take note that one person is using the pronoun ‘he," while another is using the pronoun 'she'. Also, one cannot mention both genders equally, e.g., if one sees an old man being walked by a girl, neither boys nor girls can use the pronoun ‘he’.

  1. Passive Voice

The passive voice is not limited to the English language. One can easily see it in Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Persian, or Hindi. The passive voice is often misunderstood and misused, but it is easy to tell when somebody is using it. Sometimes when somebody speaks English, they get confused and look at their partner with their mouth hanging open, but they are actually talking in an informal manner. An example is a father who says, "My children did not attend school this morning’ without saying a single word. Now the question arises as to why he doesn’t say a word when he is asked a simple question like, "Why didn’t you go to school?" People have always thought that it is better to talk in proper ways and with proper vocabulary. Just think if everybody would be sitting in front of a TV set every time, they heard somebody ask that question—wouldn't it create tension? That’s because when we use such tense sentences, we use different forms of contractions, plurals, contractions, etc. Also, we create new words and words that are not present in the dictionary, like plurals, contracted words, and lots of others. These new words help people express themselves creatively. Yesterday’, ‘I will go back home tomorrow," etc. Hence, it is important to learn the difference between passive voice and active voice and use the correct active voice sentences. On the contrary, if somebody is looking to express his thoughts clearly, we should speak in the active voice because our thoughts are true, not the opposite. If we use the passive voice, then we tend to make statements that don’t convey any information, and hence they might not be understood properly.

  1. Verbal vs. non-verbal communication

Verbal communication refers to one or more words made out of speech or written language, and the meaning of these words can never change, e.g. If I am writing this on the paper, I will change the topic every day. Whereas if I do some physical activity like running, throwing a ball, jumping, or playing video games, my body will change to some extent, and eventually my mind will change too. When we talk, our brain makes connections between these words, phrases, or sentences, and then those words combine together to create a complete whole that is composed of multiple words. While talking, our brain receives data through earphones, the nose, eyes, and mouth. Every single feature of the conversation we hold has to be expressed verbally, meaning the data, information, and ideas we are sharing will be put in writing before we communicate them verbally. Therefore, most of the conversations we have with a lot of meaning will be conveyed verbally. For example, in a business meeting, the speaker expresses himself, takes notes, and presents them verbally to the audience. At the end of the meeting, the message may have changed slightly, but the point was still the same. Similarly, when we are communicating with people, we also need to express ourselves and our thoughts, but it will happen for several reasons. Firstly, most of our messages may be changing slowly, like a river flowing smoothly towards the shore until it reaches its destination. Secondly, what goes through our heads may not entirely have the same meaning as we had initially perceived it to; this can be a result of stress, anxiety, lack of sleep, fatigue, etc. These subtle changes in our minds result in communication breakdowns. Not to mention our emotions. If someone’s mood is bad, his or her speech will likely be slow, and he or she may fail to connect with the audience. Thirdly, emotions might have gone out of control, for example, anger, anxiety, sadness, etc. This leads to poor communication skills. Fourthly, speaking from emotion could cause pain, discomfort, and embarrassment. Fifthly, we sometimes forget to speak correctly! After that, we might not get a clear understanding of what the other person wants from the conversation. With these problems, it becomes difficult to build a solid connection with people. Thus, a clear distinction between verbal communication and non-verbal communication should be made. Most of us don’t know how much significance oral and written communication really hold. Why don’t we try to speak or write in the right way, at least to make sure that all the points we are trying to convey are delivered effectively? The following table describes a sample text (in MLA format), which explains how to use the formal mode of discourse when a teacher wants to explain abstract concepts.