These sixteen terms are the ones students most often need while learning IGCSE French. Each entry gives a plain meaning, an example in French, a term it is easily confused with and a place to learn it. French examples stay in French so you can see the real form.
Use the entries as a reference while you work through the French learning guide. The mistake log and retest queue is a good place to note the terms you keep mixing up.
Sound and spelling
1. Silent letter. A letter written but not pronounced. In ils parlent, the final -ent is silent. Confused with: liaison. Learn it in connecting common sound patterns to written forms.
2. Liaison. A final consonant that is normally silent is pronounced before a vowel. In les amis, the s sounds like a z joining the two words. Confused with: elision, which drops a vowel, rather than adding a sound.
3. Elision. A short word loses its vowel before another vowel, marked with an apostrophe. Le arbre becomes l’arbre, and je aime becomes j’aime. Confused with: liaison. See the module on sound, spelling and intelligibility.
4. Accent. A mark on a letter that can change the word. Ou means “or” and où means “where”. A is a verb form and à is “to”. Confused with: apostrophe, which marks elision and not a change of letter.
Sentence foundations
5. Gender. Every French noun is masculine or feminine. Un livre is masculine and une table is feminine. Confused with: number, which is singular or plural. See choosing articles in an original short description.
6. Definite and indefinite article. The definite article (le, la, l’, les) points to a known thing. The indefinite article (un, une, des) introduces any one. J’ai un chien. Le chien est petit. Confused with: each other, especially after a negative, where un and des become de.
7. Agreement (accord). Adjectives, articles and verbs change to match the noun or subject. Des filles contentes, not des filles content. Confused with: conjugation, which is the verb side of the same idea. Practise in checking adjective placement and agreement in context.
8. Subject pronoun. The word that stands for who does the action: je, tu, il, elle, on, nous, vous, ils, elles. Confused with: object pronoun, such as le or lui, which stands for what receives the action.
9. Register (tu and vous). The level of formality. Tu peux m’aider ? is informal. Pouvez-vous m’aider ? is polite. Confused with: grammar. A wrong register is not a grammar error, but it affects how the message reads.
Verbs and time
10. Infinitive. The base form that appears in a dictionary: parler, finir, aller. Confused with: a conjugated form. Je vais parler uses a conjugated aller plus an infinitive. See using a regular verb for an everyday action.
11. Conjugation. The set of forms a verb takes for different subjects and tenses. Je mange, nous mangeons. Confused with: agreement. Irregular verbs break the usual pattern, as in common irregular present forms.
12. Passé composé. A past tense built from avoir or être plus a past participle. J’ai mangé. Elle est arrivée. It describes a finished event. Confused with: imparfait. See choosing a tense that fits an explicit time reference.
13. Imparfait. A past tense for background, habits and descriptions. Il pleuvait. Quand j’étais petit, je jouais dehors. Confused with: passé composé, which reports what happened. The pair appears together in contrasting a past event with a background description.
14. Futur proche. The near future made from aller plus an infinitive. Demain, je vais visiter mon oncle. Confused with: the simple future (je visiterai), which is a different form.
Reading, listening and vocabulary
15. Faux ami (false friend). A word that looks like an English word but means something else. Une librairie is a bookshop, not a library (une bibliothèque). Actuellement means “at the moment”, not “actually”. Confused with: cognate, a true match such as le restaurant. Practise in reading for meaning.
16. Connector. A word that links ideas: mais, parce que, donc, pourtant, d’abord, ensuite. Je voulais sortir, mais il pleuvait. Confused with: preposition, which links a noun to another word. Connectors matter in developing an original written response.
How to use this page
Do not try to learn all sixteen at once. Pick the two or three that appear in your own corrections, write a sentence of your own for each and check it with your teacher or the lesson. Then return to the list in a week.
If you want help turning these terms into your own working French, read about online one-to-one French tuition.