An adjective agrees in gender and number with the noun it modifies. The adjective's masculine singular form is its default form; this is the form listed in dictionaries, and is typically the form used when the adjective is used as a noun. Most adjectives' feminine singular forms are formed from their masculine singular forms by adding -e, though some common endings have different patterns; adjectives ending in -eux, for example, typically have feminine singular forms ending in -euse. Similarly, most adjectives' masculine and feminine plural forms are formed from their corresponding singular forms by adding -s, though sometimes -x is added instead, and nothing is added if the corresponding singular form already ends in -s, -x, or -z.
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French adverbs, like their English counterparts, are used to modify adjectives, other adverbs, and verbs or clauses. They do not display any inflection; that is, their form does not change to reflect their precise role, nor any characteristics of what they modify.
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In French, articles and determiners are required on almost every common noun; much more so than in English. They are inflected to agree in gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural) with the noun they determine, though most have only one plural form (for masculine and feminine). Many also often change form when the word that follows them begins with a vowel sound.
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French conjunctions basically operate the same as English conjunctions.
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Every French noun has a grammatical gender, either masculine or feminine. The grammatical gender of a noun referring to a human or other mammal usually corresponds to the noun's natural gender (i.e., its referent's sex or gender). For such nouns, there will very often be one noun of each gender, with the choice of noun being determined by the natural gender of the person described; for example, a male singer is a chanteur, while a female singer is a chanteuse. In some cases, the two nouns are identical in form, with the difference only being marked in neighboring words (due to gender agreement; see below); a Catholic man is un Catholique, while a Catholic woman is une Catholique. Nonetheless, there are some such nouns that retain their grammatical gender regardless of natural gender; personne ("person") is always feminine, while (at least in "standard" French) professeur ("teacher") is always masculine (except in Québec where professeure is used for feminine) , regardless of the sex of the person being referred to.
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French prepositions link two related parts of a sentence. In word order, they are placed in front of a noun in order to specify the relationship between the noun and the verb, adjective, or other noun that precedes it.
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French pronouns are inflected to indicate their role in the sentence (subject, direct object, and so on), as well as to reflect the person, gender, and number of their referents. While English draws some of these distinctions as well, French draws them in many places where English does not; as a result, there are many more pronouns in French than there are in English.
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French verbs are a complex area of French grammar, with a conjugation scheme that allows for three finite moods (with anywhere from two to five synthetic tenses), three non-finite moods, three voices, and three grammatical aspects. Ultimately, verbs have seven simple tenses (present indicative, imperfect indicative, simple past, future indicative, present conditional, present subjunctive and imperfect subjunctive) and seven complex tenses (the perfect forms of each simple tense).
The simple past, imperfect subjunctive, and their compound tenses, however, are rarely used in modern French. In addition, the imperative mood derives conjugation normally from the present subjunctive.
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