Lesson 1 — Bienvenue !

By the end of this lesson, you can:

• Greet someone
• Introduce yourself and say your name
• Ask and give a nationality
• Conjugate être (to be) and s'appeler (to be called) in the present
• Tell apart tu and vous — the two French "you"

📝 Notes

① vous or tu? English has only one word for "you" — French has two. Vous is formal singular ("you, sir") and plural ("you all"). Tu is informal singular only — for friends, family, kids, classmates. Compare it to German Sie / du or Spanish usted / tú. The safe rule when you're not sure: use vous until the other person uses tu with you.

• Bonjour, monsieur. Vous êtes italien ? (formal — to a stranger)
• Bonjour, Alice. Tu es française ? (informal — first names already)

② et elle, c'est Nicole, elle est française. When you point someone out, French often uses c'est ("it's…") to introduce them, then switches to il / elle to keep talking about them. Note française with a final -e — French adjectives change to match the gender of the person or thing they describe (more on that below).

1. Verb conjugation A different ending for every person

In English, most verbs change form only in the 3rd person singular ("I work, he works"). In French, the verb takes a different ending for almost every person. That's called conjugation. Verbs are sorted into three groups by their infinitive ending: -er (group 1, regular), -ir (group 2, regular), and a third group of irregular verbs. être ("to be") is, as in English, irregular — and very common.

2. Masculine and feminine Every noun has a gender

English nouns have no gender — a table is just "a table". In French, every noun is either masculine or feminine, even objects: un journal (a newspaper, m.) but une revue (a magazine, f.). For objects there's no real logic — you have to learn each noun together with its article (un / une, "a").

For people, the gender follows the person: un homme (a man) / une femme (a woman). Adjectives must agree with the noun they describe — they pick up an extra -e in the feminine, which often makes a previously silent consonant audible.

• C'est un journal. (m.) — It's a newspaper.
• C'est une revue. (f.) — It's a magazine.
• Il s'appelle Yves.  —  Elle s'appelle Alice.
• Yves est français. [pronounced "fran-SAY"]  —  Alice est française. [pronounced "fran-SEZ"]

3. Asking questions Three ways to ask the same thing

(a) Yes/no questions. French has three ways to ask one. They all mean the same thing — only the register changes:

• Vous êtes italien ?  — spoken, by far the most common: just say the statement with rising intonation ↗
• Est-ce que vous êtes italien ?  — spoken, slightly more formal; est-ce que is a "question marker" with no English equivalent
• Êtes-vous italien ?  — inversion (verb + subject), formal / written

(b) "Wh-" questions. Use a question word: qui (who), que / qu'est-ce que (what), où (where), comment (how), combien (how much / how many), quand (when), pourquoi (why).

• Vous vous appelez comment ? (spoken — question word at the end)
• Comment est-ce que vous vous appelez ? (neutral)
• Comment vous appelez-vous ? (inversion — most formal)

4. The question word qui Asking about people

Qui means who. It can be the subject of the sentence:

• — Qui est-ce ?   — C'est Nicole.
• — Qui êtes-vous ?   — Je suis Alice Doucet. / Je m'appelle Alice Doucet.