Year 10 - French
Des auteurs francophones : perfect tense with 'être'
Lifestyle and wellbeing: Des personnalités francophones
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This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
This unit focuses on communicating in the perfect tense, revisiting regular and irregular past participle formation, verbs with être and past participle agreement. Pupils will meet the past participles of verbs like ouvrir, écrire and traduire, and revisit perfect tense questions and negation.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to use verbs in the perfect tense with 'être', paying attention to agreement of past participles.
Key Notes
- Verbs which express a change of state, place or condition often use 'être' as the auxiliary verb in the perfect tense.
- Past participles used with 'être' must agree in gender and number with the subject of the verb.
- [i] like 'midi', [u] like 'tu' and [é/ez/er] like 'écrire', SFC and SFE are common endings to past participles.
Vocabulary To Learn
- auxiliary verb: a form of either 'avoir' or 'être' used to form the perfect tense
- past participle agreement: when the ending of a past participle matches the subject of the verb in gender and number
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Verbs never change their spelling to agree for gender or number.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain what you can now say or understand in this lesson.
Verbs which express a change of state, place or condition often use 'être' as the auxiliary verb in the perfect tense. Past participles used with 'être' must agree in gender and number with the subject of the verb.
2. Define this key language word and use it in context. 'auxiliary verb'
a form of either 'avoir' or 'être' used to form the perfect tense. Say or write it in a short sentence so you use the word actively.
3. Correct this common language-learning mistake.
Mistake: Verbs never change their spelling to agree for gender or number. Correction: Past participles with 'être' verbs do agree for gender and number. Embedding this knowledge requires practice, a component of which can be practice of sound-symbol correspondences [i], [u], [é], [SFC], and [SFE].
More Lessons In This Unit
- Le sport pour tous: negation in the perfect tense Study Guide
- Les champions du monde: negation in the perfect tense Study Guide
- Qui a écrit ... ? Perfect tense with predictable and irregular past participles Study Guide
- Qui a gagné ? Yes/no questions in the perfect tense Study Guide
- Une écrivaine francophone: perfect tense verbs like ouvrir, écrire & traduire Study Guide
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