French Family and Friends

Possessive Adjectives Change With the Noun, Not the Owner

In French, mon/ma/mes (my) agree with the gender and number of the thing you own, not with your own gender. A boy and a girl both say ma sœur.

TON and SON Follow the Same Pattern

Ton/ta/tes (your, casual) and son/sa/ses (his/her) follow the exact same gender-agreement rule as mon/ma/mes.

Describing How Someone Looks

These physical adjectives describe height, size and looks. Most have a separate masculine and feminine form.

• •grand / grande = tall / big
• •petit / petite = small / short
• •beau / belle = handsome / beautiful
• •joli / jolie = pretty
• •mince = slim / thin
• •fort / forte = strong
• •jeune = young
• •vieux / vieille = old

Most Adjectives Add -E for the Feminine Form

The simplest rule is to add -e to the masculine form for feminine agreement. But a few common adjectives are irregular, so they just have to be memorised.

• •Regular: petit → petite, grand → grande, intelligent → intelligente
• •Irregular: beau → belle, vieux → vieille

Describing Someone's Personality

Personality adjectives tell you what someone is like, not what they look like.

• •gentil / gentille = kind
• •drôle = funny
• •timide = shy
• •intelligent(e) = intelligent
• •sympa = nice / friendly
• •patient(e) = patient
• •généreux / généreuse = generous
• •sérieux / sérieuse = serious

Family Vocabulary

These are the core words for talking about the people in your family.

• •le frère / la sœur = brother / sister
• •la mère / le père = mother / father
• •la grand-mère / le grand-père = grandmother / grandfather
• •le meilleur ami / la meilleure amie = best friend
• •le cousin / la cousine = cousin

Direct Object Pronouns: le, la, les

Once you have already mentioned a person, you can replace their name with le (him), la (her) or les (them) instead of repeating it. In French, these pronouns go before the verb.

• •le and la shorten to l' before a vowel sound: Je l'aime. = I love him/her.

Indirect Object Pronouns: lui and leur

Lui (to him / to her) and leur (to them) are used with verbs that take à, like parler à quelqu'un (to talk to someone).

• •lui = to him OR to her (same word for both)
• •leur = to them (for a group)

Putting It Together: Describing a Family Member

A strong description combines a possessive, the family word, and one or two adjectives that agree in gender.

Common Mistakes

These are the slips learners make most often with possessives, adjectives and pronouns.

• •✗ Ma frère / ✓ Mon frère (frère is masculine, so it needs mon, even though 'my' doesn't change in English)
• •✗ Il est belle / ✓ Il est beau (match the adjective to the person's gender, not the sentence subject in general)
• •✗ Son sa sœur uses the owner's gender / ✓ Sa sœur agrees with sœur, not with whether the owner is male or female
• •✗ Je vois le / ✓ Je le vois (the object pronoun goes before the verb, not after)