Got an Intermediate French Grammar Guide? How to Create One

If you let your intermediate French rest for too long it may be hard to start it up again.

It’s essential that you continue to learn new things about French grammar to ensure that your progress doesn’t stall. And it’s crucial that your learning journey follows a natural path because this will help you to learn efficiently and effectively.

You should start by building on what you already know. You should tackle new grammar points, but make sure that they’re intermediate and not advanced.

In this post, we’ll go over how to formulate a reliable intermediate French grammar guide and get you set up for success!

Why Good Grammar Is Crucial at the Intermediate Stage

Having a good level of grammar can open doors to another world of fluency in French. Being good at grammar helps you to become more self-confident and sure of yourself when speaking a language. When you’re confident in a language, you’ll of course speak more easily and more often!

This will greatly improve your fluency and you’ll progress at a faster rate.

Grammar is also an integral part of any language. We must all learn grammar to understand what we’re saying and how we’re saying it. Something as simple as using vous and tu correctly can make or break a situation. Saying tu to someone interviewing you, for example, will likely result in you not getting that job! We have to respect grammar by learning how to use it correctly.

How to DIY Your Own Guide to Intermediate French Grammar

Step 1: Plan out your daily French grammar study time

Let’s be realistic, most people who are learning a second language also have a job, and as much as we would all like to study for two or three hours a day, it’s probably not a viable option. You have to set yourself realistic and, most importantly, attainable goals. If not, you’ll get demotivated by a lack of regular practice. If your objectives match your busy schedule, though, then you won’t find yourself skipping study time.

Here are some examples of different study schedules that might work for you depending on your obligations and goals:

• Example #1: 10 minutes per day of grammar exercises.

• Example #2: 20 minutes every other day (for instance, Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday).

• Example #3: 30 minutes on Saturday and 30 minutes on Sunday.

• Example #4: 1 hour every Wednesday night.

You have to choose what’s best for you! However, I suggest breaking your study time into smaller but more frequent parts. I recommend this because you’ll study French more regularly, keeping what you’ve learnt fresh in your mind. It also helps learning a language to become more of a fun daily activity, rather than one hour of intensified studying. You’re learning a language, not doing a chore!

Do whatever suits you best, but the key is to plan ahead. Learning a language is like going to the gym. If you don’t plan to go, you never will! Try marking it on your calendar or writing it in your diary. You could even set a reminder on your phone!

Step 2: Note which parts of grammar you should learn

Again, you’ll want to take the basic grammar you learned as a beginner and build on it.

Here are a couple examples:

• As a beginner you learned basic adjectives. As an intermediate learner you can learn comparative adjectives—how to say two things are equal or if something is more or less than something else.

• As a beginner you learned the basic verbs. As an intermediate learner you can choose to focus on certain common but versatile verbs more in depth, like chercher (to look for), aller (to go), avoir (to have) and être (to be). You can also work on building up your verb vocabulary.

All you have to do is build on what you know and you’ll progress!

Here are some subjects that you’ll probably want to cover in your intermediate French grammar lessons:

• Direct and indirect objects.
• The pronouns y and en.
• Comparative adjectives.
• The future simple tense.
• Adverbs.
• Deeper nuances of basic verbs.
• Additional verbs (building on the basic ones you learned as a beginner).

Step 3: Compile a list of resources you can use for learning grammar

As we all know, Google is an endless portal of resources with a huge number of suggestions for learning French.

However, it can be hard to know which ones are good, and which ones are good for learning grammar specifically.

Below are a few places to start.

• The University of Texas created a website called Tex’s French Grammar to help its students. To teach you French grammar, this website uses a funny, entertaining story of two armadillos named Tex and Tammy, following their life together, their friends and even their enemy, Bette the kitten. This site is perfect for anyone who wants to learn grammar with an enjoyable and highly amusing story.

• The WordReference French verb conjugator is a great quick reference to have bookmarked when you’re studying grammar for anything verb-related. While there’s nothing wrong with keeping Google Translate handy for simple look-ups, once you get into questions of tense and mood, it’s best to know exactly what you’re looking at, and these verb charts provide you with the necessary details.

• Bonjour de France is another website that focuses largely on grammar. The website is all in French, so it encourages you to practice using French all the time, and it also gives you the option of choosing your level (from beginner to advanced). After you’ve chosen your level, you’ll immediately be redirected to grammar exercises specifically for your level. If you’re an intermediate learner just starting out on intermediate grammar, your level will be between A2 and B1. The website offers a huge amount of exercises on all different kinds of grammar topics. It has a more scholastic feel than Tex’s French Grammar, but it’s the perfect website for doing exercises and studying online.

Step 4: Plan to work on your other skills as a way of practicing grammar

With great grammar, comes great responsibility. Grammar doesn’t exist in a vacuum and shouldn’t be treated like it does, so along with your grammar study plan, it’s important to take a more holistic approach to learning. Make sure you’re regularly working out all four major language skills with grammar in mind.

Writing in French can also be a great help when you want to learn grammar. You can set yourself challenges—write a letter to the bank, an email to a colleague, a text to a friend. By doing this, you’ll practice using your grammar in different situations and with varied subjects. You can practice both informal and formal writing and test your knowledge of tenses. I recommend that you do writing exercises last in the process of learning a grammar point—to assess your progress, like an end-of-level test!