Learn some common adjective suffixes in French
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| Michael: What are some adjective suffixes in French? |
| Aurore: And why are they useful to know? |
| Michael: At FrenchPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Ben Lee sees a new word that looks familiar, but he isn't sure about the meaning. He asks his friend, |
| "What does "jetable" mean?" |
| Ben Lee: Qu'est-ce que ça veut dire, « jetable » ? |
| Dialogue |
| Ben Lee: Qu'est-ce que ça veut dire, « jetable » ? |
| Justine Jérôme: Ça veut dire « quelque chose que l'on peut jeter », "disposable" en anglais. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Ben Lee: Qu'est-ce que ça veut dire, « jetable » ? |
| Michael: "What does "jetable" mean?" |
| Justine Jérôme: Ça veut dire « quelque chose que l'on peut jeter », "disposable" en anglais. |
| Michael: "It means "something that can be thrown away"; "disposable" in English." |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Michael: French words typically consist of a stem, a prefix, and/or a suffix. In this lesson, we will take a closer look at French adjective endings, or |
| Aurore: la terminaison de l'adjectif. |
| Michael: In linguistics, suffixes are attached to the end of a root word to change the grammatical function or meaning of that word. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: To understand this better, let's take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Ben Lee says "What does "jetable" mean?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Aurore as Ben Lee: Qu'est-ce que ça veut dire, « jetable » ? |
| [Recall 2] |
| Michael: Now, let's take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Justine Jerome says "It means "something that can be thrown away"; "disposable" in English?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Aurore as Justine Jerome: Ça veut dire « quelque chose que l'on peut jeter », "disposable" en anglais. |
| Michael: In our dialogue, Ben asks Justine about the meaning of the word |
| Aurore: jetable. |
| Michael: Justine explains that it means "disposable" in English. In most languages, adjectives are often formed from nouns and verbs. The same is true with French. In this case, the adjective was formed from the verb, |
| Aurore: jeter |
| Michael: which means "to throw away." The meaning was changed when a suffix was added, which, in this case, was |
| Aurore: -able. |
| Michael: In English, the word "able" means having the power to do something. This is interesting, because the same English word is derived from the French suffix in question, which means "worthy of" or "deserving of." Take note that this particular adjectival suffix can only be attached to verbs. To say that something is |
| Aurore: jetable |
| Michael: means that something is "worthy or deserving of being disposed of." |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: So far, we've learned in this lesson that adjectives in French are formed by adding suffixes to the root form of a noun or verb. Doing so changes the meaning and grammatical function of the root word. |
| Expansion/Contrast |
| Michael: French has several other suffixes that are often attached to adjectives. One of them is |
| Aurore: -et. |
| Michael: This is a quite interesting suffix as it can produce either a stronger or softer adjective depending on the root word. For instance, let's take the word |
| Aurore: molle |
| Michael: or "soft." Adding the given suffix, we get |
| Aurore: mollet |
| Michael: which means "fairly soft." Now, let's try another word: |
| Aurore: propre |
| Michael: This word means "clean." Adding the given suffix, we get |
| Aurore: propret. |
| Michael: This time, the suffix produced a stronger adjective, which means "sparkling clean." Another common French adjective suffix is |
| Aurore: -issime. |
| Michael: This particular suffix acts as an intensifier or a superlative, adding the meaning "extremely" or "very" to the root word. There are not too many French words that end in this suffix, but here’s an example of one: |
| Aurore: bellissime. |
| Michael: This word is derived from the word, |
| Aurore: belle |
| Michael: which is "beautiful" in French. With the addition of the suffix, we get a word that could mean "very beautiful," "wonderful," or "precious." Here's another one: |
| Aurore: gravissime. |
| Michael: This word means "extremely serious," and is derived from the word, |
| Aurore: grave |
| Michael: which means "serious" or "severe." |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion |
| Michael: Most adjectival suffixes in French have Latin origins. For instance, the suffix used in our dialogue, |
| Aurore: -able |
| Michael: is from the Latin word "abilis," which denotes the possibility of something to be done. Another one is the suffix |
| Aurore: -ateur |
| Michael: which came from the Latin "ator," meaning "actor." It is added to verbal stems and is meant to signify an agent or actor. Here's an example: |
| Aurore: dévastateur. |
| Michael: This is a French adjective which means "devastating," and is derived from the verb, |
| Aurore: dévaster |
| Michael: which means "to devastate." |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Aurore: À bientôt ! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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