Sentence Structure
Sentence Structure
French word order is one of the more comfortable matches for English speakers — both languages build sentences subject-verb-object, in that fixed order, almost all the time. The differences worth flagging early are negation, which wraps around the verb instead of using a single word, and adjective position, which often flips to after the noun.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
Fixed SVO — a good match with English
Je mange du riz. (I eat rice — subject, verb, object, same order as English)
I eat rice. (same subject-verb-object order)
French keeps subject-verb-object order fixed almost everywhere, just like English — a genuine relief compared to languages that put the verb at the end of the sentence. You can generally trust your English word-order instincts as a starting point for a simple French sentence, which isn't true for every grammar point in this course.
Two-part negation wraps the verb
Je ne mange pas de riz. (I NE eat NOT rice)
I don't eat rice. (single negative word 'not', plus an auxiliary 'do')
English negates with a single word 'not' (plus, in most cases, an inserted auxiliary verb: 'I do not eat'). French instead sandwiches the main verb between two negation words, ne...pas, with no auxiliary verb involved at all: ne goes right before the verb, pas right after it. This wraparound shape has no real English equivalent — it's a fresh mental model to build, not a word-for-word substitution for 'not'.
No postpositions — prepositions come first, just like English
sur la table ('on the table' — preposition before the noun)
on the table (preposition before the noun, same order as French)
French, like English, places location and relationship words (sur, sous, dans, avec) before the noun they govern, with essentially no postpositions. This is another comfortable match — if a language you've studied before puts these words after the noun, French won't cause that confusion; it behaves the way English already does.
Adjectives often follow the noun, unlike English
une voiture rouge ('a car red' = a red car) — but une belle voiture ('a beautiful car', adjective before)
a red car (adjective always before the noun in English)
English adjectives always sit before the noun they describe (a red car, never 'a car red'). French usually puts descriptive adjectives after the noun instead (une voiture rouge), which takes real practice to make automatic. A short, common list of adjectives (beauty, age, goodness, size — nicknamed BAGS) actually goes before the noun instead, closer to English word order — this split gets its own full lesson later, but it's worth knowing now that French adjective placement isn't as fixed as English's.