French/Lessons/Family

Jean and Chantal are discussing what types of pen they have.

Jean - J'ai un stylo rouge.

Chantal - Moi, j'ai un stylo bleu. Et toi, tu as un stylo rouge.

Jean - Aussi, j'ai un stylo jaune.

Of course, you can use avoir for anything you have!

Chantal - J'ai deux frères et trois sœurs, et toi ?

Jean - J'ai un frère et une tante.

Chantal - J'ai deux tantes et un oncle.

Avoir is also used to describe age

Jean - J'ai quatre ans. Et toi ?

Chantal - J'ai trois ans.

Avoir, meaning to have, is conjugated irregularly.

Formation
Remember to liaison between "nous avons", "vous avez", and "ils ont/elles ont".

Expressing age
Avoir is used to express age.

Interrogatives
The above uses avoir affirmatively. You can also use it interrogatively. A small complication arises, in that without some help, the result does not sound very good. The use of an euphonic (pleasing to the ear) is used with vowels before the pronoun. Thus, the letter -t- is placed between the verb and the pronoun:

Ai-je ? (Have I ?)

As-tu ? (Have you ?) informal (hast thou)

A-t-il ? (Has he ?)

A-t-elle ? (Has she ?)

Avons nous ? (Have we ?)

Avez vous ? (Have you ?) formal

Ont ils ? (Have they ?) masculine

Ont elles ? (Have they ?) feminine

The use of liaison fullfils the euphonic for "ont".

Examples:

A-t-il la farine ? Oui, Monsieur, il a la farine.

Avons nous la viande ? Oui, Monsieur, nous avons la viande et le pain.

Avez vous la table ? Oui, Madame, j'ai la table.

The preposition is used to express possession or association:

De can also be translated as 's:

Recall that replaces de le, and  replaces de les.

Usage
Possessive adjective are used to express possession of an object.



In English the possessive adjective agrees with the subject (his sister, her brother). But in French, possessive adjectives act like all other adjectives: they must agree with the noun they modify.

Whether son, sa and ses translate to his or her is indicated by context:

Notre, votre, and leur modify singular nouns, regardless of gender; nos, vos, and leurs modify plural nouns:
 * l'appartement :
 * la maison:

Liaison and adjective changes
Liaison occurs when mon, ton, and son are followed by a vowel.

Liaison also occurs with all plural forms, since they all end in s.

Mon, ton, and son are used before a feminine singular noun that starts with a vowel or silent h:

Recall that the expression means there is … or there are …:

The interrogative form of il y a is. That is, il y a is inverted to y a-t-il, meaning is there? or are there?, within questions:

Both How much … and How many … are translated as.

If the person or thing it refers to is countable, combien de is always followed by a plural noun:

However, with uncountable nouns, such as and, the singular form is used:

As with il y a, other nouns and verbs can be inverted within questions. For example, can become :

To speak about complex family relations, you use de mon, de ma, and de mes: