1. English Grammar
Difficulties
From the Perspective of a Francophone.
Created By: Madeline Bermes
Ling 466
July 20, 2011

2. French
Students that speak French as their native language have
difficulties in mastering various forms found in English
grammar due to the direct grammatical differences between
the two languages.
Five particular areas of difficulty in English grammar are
discussed in this presentation.

3. Five Areas of Grammatical Differences:
1. Possessive Pronouns
2. Questions
3. Negation
4. Adverb Placement
5. Tense/Aspect

4. Possessive Pronouns
In French, possessive pronouns agree in gender and number
with the direct object.
La fille aime son vélo. [The girl likes her(masculine) bike.]
vélo is masculine: le vélo.
Therefore, the masculine possessive pronoun is used: son.

5. Possessive Pronouns
However, in English the possessive pronoun agrees with the
subject of the sentence rather than the direct object.
The girl likes her bike.
‘The girl’ is feminine so the feminine possessive pronoun is used: her.

6. Possessive Pronouns
Learning the agreement of possessive pronouns in English is
challenging for Francophones because in their native
language, the agreement is based on a different part of the
sentence. Therefore, learning to create agreement with the
subject rather than the direct object goes against their
natural instinct in regard to possessive pronouns.

7. Questions
(Formation in the present simple is considered here.)
In French, questions can be formed in one of four ways in
the simple present.
For the following examples, consider this statement: Vous chantez. (You sing.)
1. Inversion.
Chantez-vous? [Sing you?(Do you sing?)]

8. French Questions
2. N’est-ce pas formation.
Vous chantez, n’est-ce pas? [You sing, right?]
3. Est-ce que formation.
Est-ce que vous chantez? [Is it that you sing?]
4. Rising intonation.
Vous chantez? [(Do) You sing?]
Voice is used to signify a question. Similar to asking in English “Take a
walk?”

9. English Questions
However, in English questions are formed by inserting the
auxiliary ‘do’ in the simple present tense.
For example:
Do you sing? (From: You sing.)
Do you dance? (From: You dance.)

10. English Questions
Additionally, the auxiliary must agree with the subject.
For example:
Do you sing?
Does he sing?
Do they sing?
Do is used for every form except the third person singular which uses ‘does.’

11. Questions
For Francophones, forming questions in the simple present
can be difficult due to the fact that in French the speaker is
given all the tools to create a question in the statement.
Whereas in English, one must insert a separate word and
make sure that the auxiliary added agrees with the rest of
the sentence.

12. Questions
However, since French can have added auxiliaries used in
question formation rather than inversion such as the est-ce
que and n’est-ce pas forms, it may help to relate the ‘do’
auxiliary’s insertion with these forms to help the students to
remember to add the auxiliary into the question.

13. Negation
In French, negation is marked by ‘ne...pas.’
For example, consider again the statement “Vous Chantez” [You sing.]
To form the negative form ‘ne..pas’ is inserted:
Vous ne chantez pas. [You sing not. (You don’t sing.)]

14. English Negation
(Formation in the present simple is considered here.)
However, in English the auxiliary ‘do’ is again added similar
to what was seen in question formation.
Only this time, ‘do’ is paired with ‘not’ to form the negative.
You do not sing.
You do not dance.
Again, the auxiliary must agree with the subject:
He does not sing.

15. Negation
Forming the negative in English can be challenging for Francophones due to
the fact that the additional auxiliary ‘do’ paired with ‘not’ need to be added
to the sentence to make it negative. Additionally, the items added to the
sentence appear together before the verb which contrasts with French
negation where the ne...pas is found surrounding the verb.
Finally, confusion may be found when contractions appear in the negative
form in English- as they often do. Therefore, the appearance of “don’t” may
cause confusion for ESL/EFL learners.
You do not sing. / You don’t sing.

16. Adverb Placement
In French, the adverb is placed after the verb.
Jean mange toujours. [Jean eats always.]
S V Adv
Jean chante bien. [Jean sings well.]
S V Adv
Jean lire lentement. [Jean reads slowly.]
S V Adv

17. English Adverbs
In English, the adverb’s placement is more flexible.
DeCapua (2008) states, “Unlike nouns and adjectives, the position of [these]
adverbs is flexible. . . In verb phrases, [these] adverbs can occur between the
auxiliary verb (helping verb) and the main verb. Generally, the sentence
position of an adverb depends on what the speaker wants to stress or
emphasize.”
The different positions that an adverb may occupy give way to the adverb
modifying different parts of the sentence which can alter the
interpretation.

18. English Adverbs
For example:
Sweetly, she recited the poem.
She sweetly recited the poem.
In each sentence, emphasis is different due to the position of the adverb.
However, each sentence is grammatically correct.
For instance, in the first sentence sweetly seems to describe her
demeanor and personality more than the way she articulated the poem.
In the second sentence, sweetly seems to refer to the actual articulation
of the words in the poem.

19. Adverb Placement
Due to the flexible placement of adverbs in English, a native
French speaker may encounter problems regarding where to
place an adverb. Since most explanations refer to the
abstract idea of stress and emphasis from the different
placements, as DeCapua (2008) does, the form may be hard
to master by Francophone students.

20. Tense/Aspect
According Ayoun and Salaberry (2008), “The purpose of
tense is thus to order events along a time line—in other
words, to situate events in reference to other events—whereas
aspect reflects the speaker's internal perspective on a given
situation.”

21. Tense/Aspect
Definite and Indefinite Past
In French, both the definite and indefinite past are conveyed by the use of the
passé composé.
For example:
Il a écrit une lettre. [ He wrote a letter.]
The use of the passé composé expresses the definite (he sat down, wrote,
and finished a letter on Tuesday at 3pm) and indefinite (he wrote a letter
at some point, it may be unfinished, it is uncertain when) past aspects.

22. Tense/Aspect
In English, there is a difference in the way that the definite and indefinite past
are conveyed:
Present Perfect [Indefinite]
Simple Past [Definite]

23. Tense/Aspect
For example:
a) I have walked through the park.
b) I walked through the park.
In sentence (a) the present perfect is used and an indefinite aspect is
expressed.
I was in the park and walked the paths, possibly numerous times, at
some point or points in my life.

24. Tense/Aspect
b) I walked through the park.
In sentence (b) the simple past is used to express a definite aspect.
I went to the park, I started my walk on one path and I completed the
walk, on Sunday afternoon.

25. Tense/Aspect
Since the passé composé is used for the expression of both
definite and indefinite aspects in French, an ESL/EFL student
may have difficulties understanding when to use the present
perfect or simple past.
Additionally, since the passé composé is formed by an auxiliary (être or avoir)
+ past participle, students may tend to over use the present perfect due to its
similarity in form.

26. Review
For Francophones, there are areas in English grammar that
are bound to cause confusion. The five areas addressed here
were:
1. Possessive Pronouns
2. Questions
3. Negation
4. Adverb Placement
5. Tense/Aspect

27. Review
Once an instructor is aware of these difficult areas of English
grammar, and understand why the challenges arise for
Francophones, they can successfully address the forms in a
way that brings light to the confusing areas and hopefully
aide the students through learning English grammar.

28. Sources
Jansma, K. (2011). Motifs: an introduction to french. Boston; Heinle Cengage
Learning.
Kelton, k. (2011, February 02). Français interactif. Retrieved from: http://
www.laits.utexas.edu/fi/home.
DeCapua, A. (2008). Grammar for teachers: A guide to American English for
native and non-native speakers. New York; Springer.
Ayoun, D. and Salaberry, M. R. (2008), Acquisition of English Tense-Aspect
Morphology by Advanced French Instructed Learners. Language Learning,
58: 555–595.