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Learn French with the grammar on the card.

A French word is not usable without its gender, its conjugation and its register. Every NuanceDeck card carries them, inside real sentences where the silent letters are greyed, the liaisons are tied and the tense is named under the verb.

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partir
être parti
verb

je pars · nous partons · ils partent

to leave, to go away (from a place)

Examples · 3

  • Mes sœurs sont parties à la montagne samedi.My sisters left for the mountains on Saturday.
  • Nous allons partir juste après le déjeuner.We are going to leave right after lunch.
  • Dans mon ancien travail, je ne partais jamais avant huit heures.In my old job, I never left before eight o'clock.
The verb partir, as a NuanceDeck card shows it.

What French demands

Four things a word list leaves out, and a learner pays for later. Each one is on the card.

The gender, on the article

A noun learned without its article is half learned. Every noun card leads with its article in the colour of its gender, so an elided article still tells it, and the sentences confirm it: an adjective that agrees, a plural, a partitive.

l'œufl'eaule chevalla merle fromagela fleur
Le cuisinier a choisi un œuf frais pour la salade.The cook chose a fresh egg for the salad.

The tense, named under the verb

The French past is two tenses, and one sentence often holds both: what was going on, and what happened. Every conjugated verb that is not in the present carries the name of its tense, one brace from the auxiliary to the participle.

Au début, j'ai cru que tu étais fatigué.At first, I thought you were tired.Les pommes étaient belles et j'en ai acheté un kilo.The apples were beautiful and I bought a kilo of them.

Tu or vous

French changes what you say with who you say it to, and it changes everything at once: the verb, the small words, the reply. Cards teach both, side by side.

Tu peux me passer le pain, s'il te plaît ?Can you pass me the bread, please?Bien sûr, tiens.Of course, here you go.Vous pouvez me passer le pain, s'il vous plaît ?Can you pass me the bread, please?Bien sûr, tenez.Of course, here you go.

What is written, and what is said

French spells letters it does not pronounce and links words it writes apart. Silent letters are greyed, and a liaison is tied with the sound you hear printed under it. The same word can change: a letter heard in the singular goes quiet in the plural.

Nous avons choisi un petit hôtel au bord de la mer.We chose a small hotel by the sea.Mon frère mange deux œufs et moi, un seul œuf.My brother eats two eggs and I eat just one egg.

The whole verb, laid out

Conjugation is not picked up from context alone. Each verb comes with its full table, the ending in bold and the unheard letters greyed, so you can see that six written forms are often three spoken ones.

French conjugation explained, with 51 full tables ›

parler · Présent

singularplural
1stje parlenous parlons
2ndtu parlesvous parlez
3rdil parleils parlent

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