How to write a word in french

Improve Your Written French Today

Whether you want to pen a love letter or submit an essay in France, you need to know how to write in French. Luckily, learning how to write in French is fairly straightforward. Since French uses the Latin Alphabet, you’re already ahead of the game. Improve your writing in French fast with these easy steps.

The Basics of French Writing for Beginners

When it comes to French writing, it’s a little different than speaking French. But, if you know how to read French well, you shouldn’t have a lot of problems.

Before you read the 8 easy steps of learning to write in French, there’s one important factor in mastering French writing: practice. The only way you can truly improve your French writing skills is with a lot of practice. Make sure you write a little bit in French every day. Soon, you’ll find that writing in French is like second nature.

1. Watch Out for French Spelling

One of the biggest obstacles that throws French learners off is spelling. Unfortunately, those silent letters that you don’t pronounce are very much there in writing. Be careful how you spell certain complicated words. You need to master all parts of French grammar to write French correctly.

2. Genders Influence Grammar in French

You may already know that nouns have genders in French. They can either be masculine or feminine. And depending on the gender, different parts of a French sentence need to be conjugated.

• articles: French articles need to be conjugated to reflect the gender and the number of the noun. These can be ‘le’, ‘la’, ‘l”, and ‘les’ for definite articles, and ‘un’ and ‘une’ for indefinite articles.
• pronouns: Pronouns in French are the words that replace the name of the subject in a sentence. ‘He’, ‘she’, and ‘them’ are some examples of pronouns in English. In French, you need to use different forms of pronouns depending on the gender of the subject.
• adjectives: When you’re describing a noun, you use an adjective. And since the noun is the only reason the adjective’s there in the sentence, you need to make the adjective fit the noun in French. There are various ways to conjugate French adjectives depending on the gender and the number of the noun, so make sure you brush up on that knowledge before you write in French.

3. Careful with French Accent Marks

French accent marks also don’t do us any favors. While they’re extremely useful when it comes to French pronunciation, their writing isn’t as straightforward. Try to associate the sound with the written French word. There are only 5 accent marks in French. One is the cedilla (ç), which only works with the letter “c”, and another is the acute accent (é), which only sits on top of the letter “e”. So in practice, there are only 3 different kinds of accents you should look out for in French.

4. Follow the French Sentence Structures

English and French sentence structures are similar in many ways. Both follow the SVO (subject-verb-object) structure, which makes writing in French much easier. And just like in English, the French sentence structure is also flexible. You can switch the words around to emphasize a part of a sentence, but still have the same meaning.

• Tomorrow, I’m going to work.  Demain je vais travailler.
  I’m going to work tomorrow.  Je vais travailler demain.

The most important part of the first sentence is the time the speaker goes to work. The second sentence focuses on the subject, the speaker instead. Still, both sentences convey the same meaning of going to work.

If you want to ask a question in French, you can do so by putting a question word at the beginning of the sentence. Common question words are:

• How  Comment
• What  Que / Qu’est-ce que queue
• What kind  Quel genre
• When  Quand
• Where  Où
• Who  Qui
• Why  Pourquoi

You can also ask a question by switching the order of the verb and the pronoun around, and connecting them with a hyphen:

• Do you speak English?  Parlez-vous anglais ?

It’s important to remember these basic rules of French sentence structure before you start writing in French. If you want to learn how to write in French effectively, practice these 4 steps a lot.

How to Write in French for Intermediate Students

If you’re an intermediate French learner you’re familiar with basic French grammar, and you’re confident in writing in French. But, there’s always room to improve. Once you know the basic steps of how to write in French, it’s time to make your writing even better. You can start paying attention to style, flow, and structure. The tips below will benefit your French writing practice.

5. Try Nominalization

This useful technique will make your sentences better. Nominalization means that you make nouns in the sentence more dominant. While in English, the dominant words are verbs, in French, you can write with the focus of the noun instead, making them more meaningful. Here’s an example to demonstrate.

• Normal sentence: The ice cream is cold. – La glace est froide.
• Nominalized sentence: The ice cream is cold. – La glace, c’est droid.

6. Use French Conjunctions

Conjunctions are the tools to write complex French sentences. Without them, you’re limited to simple and boring sentence structures. As an intermediate student, you can start connecting two equal or unequal sentences to make an even more interesting phrase. Here are the different kinds of French conjunctions you can use to write better in French:

Coordinating Conjunctions:

You use these kinds of conjunctions to connect two equal sentences. The most common coordinating conjunctions in French are:

Subordinating Conjunctions:

If one of the sentences in unequal or dependent on the other, you need to use subordinating conjunctions. These connectors often show causality. The most common conjunctions in French for this category are:

7. Style and Flow

Now that you wield the power of conjunctions, you have to be careful with it. As fun as it is to write long and complicated sentences in French, it doesn’t sound good. Make sure you use appropriate sentence lengths as you’re writing in French.

Aim for shorter sentences. Make them explain your point well. But, feel free to mix the flow up with the occasional longer sentences. That’s how you write in French with a nice and smooth flow. And that’s how you perfect your French writing too. It will be a pleasure to read your work.

Writing in French for Advanced Learners

Once you mastered all of the French writing rules, you’re officially an advanced French learner. But, there may still be room to improve your French writing. If you’re looking to kick your projects up a notch, you can learn how to write essays and dissertations in French. These pointers will be useful if you ever attend school or university in France, or you want to take a language exam.

8. Get Familiar with French Essay Structure

When you’re writing an essay, you have to structure it for readability. If you want to learn how French high schoolers are taught to write their essays, this is the structure they follow: thèse-antithèse-synthèse (thesis-antithesis-synthesis). Learn how to write French essays using a traditional French essay structure.

1. Introduction: You begin your essay by having an introduction, which is a context for argument.
2. Thesis: In this section, you present and defend the statement of your thesis. You need to write everything that supports the topic of your essay.
3. Antithesis: The antithesis follows the thesis. This is where you state conflicting evidence and explain other potential substitutes for your essay. Including an antithesis doesn’t mean that you disagree with your original thesis. You just need to show that you thought of all possibilities before arriving to your conclusion.
4. Synthesis: This is your conclusion. This is where you summarize your arguments, and explain why you still stand by your original thesis despite the antithesis.

9. Use Introduction and Conclusion Vocabulary

Certain words can encourage sentence flow by introducing or concluding some parts of your work.

• tout d’abord (firstly)
• premièrement (firstly)
• deuxièmement (secondly)
• ensuite (then)
• enfin (finally)
• finalement (finally)
• pour conclure (to conclude)

You can use these words when introducing a new idea to your dissertation or essay. These words will signal the readers that they are encountering a new part or thought of your writing process.

10. Writing a Dissertation in French

This is the form of writing you encounter in French higher education. It’s a very complex form of French writing, only the most advanced and fluent French learners should attempt it. It’s also a longer piece of academic writing. It may take you weeks to complete research and write your French dissertation.

The French dissertation is similar to essay structure. But, there’s one main difference: your thesis isn’t a statement, but rather a question. It’s your job in the dissertation to take the reader through your thought process and research to answer your question. This logic is known as “Cartesian logic.” It comes from Descartes, who was a well known French philosopher.

History of Written French

French was used in Strasbourg Oaths, and it first appeared in writing in 842 AD. Before then, Latin was the only language used for literature in Europe. However, in the 10th and 11th centuries, French appeared in some religious writings and documents but was not used up to the late 12th century or early 13th century. The first greatest French Literature work, the Song of Roland (Chanson de Roland), was published around the year 1200.

Writing in French Alone Won’t Make You Fluent

You need to learn how to write in French to be proficient in the language. But, it won’t make you fluent. The only way to become fluent is to practice speaking French. While it’s crucial to develop every area of your French knowledge, if you want to be fluent in French, you need a reliable language learning method like OptiLingo.

OptiLingo is an app that gets you speaking, not typing a language. It gives you the most common French words and phrases, so you’re guaranteed to learn the most useful vocabulary. Don’t waste time trying to learn French you’ll never use. Complement your French writing practice with fun speaking exercises when you download OptiLingo!

Have you learned the
French alphabet?

Was it a piece of cake or do you find it rather challenging?

French uses the Latin alphabet, which makes it easy to learn all the letters.

But learning the French letters isn’t just that. Since French pronunciation and writing are out of the ordinary, any French learner needs to learn objectively how to write in French.

At first, learning to write in French may seem hard but it is actually quite easy.

With these 7 steps, you will learn how to write in French in no time.

After this post, you will easily know how to write anything you hear from your
French tutors.

And now let’s dive in.

7 Easy Steps of How to Write in French

We usually learn the French alphabet with some catchy
French songs, improve our French pronunciation with
French tongue twisters but how do we learn and improve our writing skills in French?

That’s what we are going to find out.

The Basics: Pay Attention to Silent Letters

French is one of the languages where you can find silent letters a lot.

In pronunciation those letters you can’t hear but in writing, they are very important. Many of them can even change the meaning if they are omitted.

In French, there are three types of silent letters:

• E muet / Elision

• H muet and aspiré

• Final consonants

The basic rule is that the final consonant of the word isn’t pronounced.

However, like any other rule, here are some exceptions. The letters B, C, F, K, L, Q, and R are usually pronounced at the end of a word.

The other consonants are usually pronounced except some letters which are found in French borrowed words.

Interestingly, the words ‘plus’ and ‘tout’ have their own spelling rules.

Gender And Number Forms and Writing

In French, we differentiate between two genders, masculine and feminine and we have singular and plural.

Depending on the sentence and also the whole context, you have to pay attention to writing whether it is about masculine or feminine forms.

You also have to pay attention to plural forms. For the words in plural, the letter -s is usually added. That letter, however, isn’t pronounced but it is essential to be written so that you can know that it is about the plural. The whole context also depends on it.

So, just like you pay attention when you use articles, pronouns, or adjectives, you have to be careful when you are writing them down.

The Importance of Sentence Structure

English and French don’t only have similar vocabulary but also similar sentence structures. Both languages use a subject-verb-object structure as well as the flexibility to change the structure if needed, so this should be an easy part of writing in French.

• Demain je vais travailler.- Tomorrow, I’m going to work.  

• Je vais travailler demain.- I’m going to work tomorrow.  

Questions are also similar in English and French.

If you want to ask a question, you can use a question word, just a line in English.

In French, however, you have one more possibility and that is replacing the order of the words in a question and using a hyphen, like in the following example.

• Parlez-vous anglais ?- Do you speak English?  

Try With Nominalization

Nominalization is using non-noun words as nouns and making words more dominant.

Thanks to this method, your sentences will be better and you will understand how the writing works because you will see it in practice.

Let’s take a look at the following example:

• La glace est froide.

• La glace, c’est froid.

The first sentence is the usual one, and the other is used with nominalization.

The meaning of both sentences is the same, ‘The ice cream is cold.’

If you want to continue practicing your writing skills, here are
some great examples that can help you with this technique.

Use Conjunctions Wisely

One of the easiest ways to connect words in a sentence is with conjunctions.

Conjunctions are words that connect words among themselves in a sentence, making it sound logical and grammatically correct.

Commonly used conjunctions in French are:

• Car- Since, because

• Donc- So, therefore

• Et- and

• Mais- But

• Ni- Neither

• Or- Yet, well

• Ou- Or

Conjunctions not only help you sound like a native but also help you to improve your writing skills.

Here are some extra exercises for using conjunctions in sentences.

Conclusion Words

Along with the introduction, conclusion words can help you go with the flow, especially if you are writing an essay in French.

The following conclusion words are the most commonly used in French.

• Deuxièmement- Secondly

• Enfin- Finally

• Ensuite- Then

• Finalement- Finally

• Pour conclure- To conclude

• Premièrement- Firstly

• Tout d’abord- Firstly

You can use them to start or finish a new paragraph, conclude the topic, or express your thoughts and opinions.

Besides being useful, they show others your level of proficiency.

Keep in Mind Essay Structure

No matter if you are a beginner and you are practicing to write properly or you’ve achieved an advanced level of proficiency and you are preparing a specific essay, it is essential to be familiar with basic essay structure.

• Introduction

Introducing your audience to an essay in the introduction part determines the whole essay.

• Thesis

In the thesis part, you have to present and give details about the topic. Here, you write everything you know and support about the given topic.

• Antithesis

The antithesis is the part of the essay where you conflict and show the opposites of the thesis, in an objective way. Here, you don’t have to agree or disagree with the topic. You only have to show the pros and cons of the topic.

• Conclusion

In other words, this is the synthesis part of the essay., where you summarize the thoughts, opinions, and information and show why you agree or disagree with them.

Final Thoughts

So, what do you think?

Is learning to write in French hard?

Sure it isn’t the simplest thing you can find in learning the language but with these 7 steps, you will learn to write correctly and improve your writing skills.

And when your writing skills are impressive, your other language skills are also on a high level so, with the help of
French tutors, you can easily move toward the desired proficiency level called fluency.

I. Greetings/ Salutations for French Letters

If you know the person, you can use the following:

For personal correspondence where you do not know the person you are writing to, you can choose from the following:

II. How to close your letter

Just like the salutations, you will also need to use the correct closing at the end of your letter.

Closing Expressions for French Formal or Business Letters

*These two are not too formal, and could be used for less formal situations.

Again, please take note that the above translations are more or less the equivalent expressions in English.

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III. Some example French letters

Let’s take a look at two sample letters below. The first one is a personal letter and the second is a business letter.

Example 1: Personal Letter

Example 2: Business Letter

IV. Additional Tips in Letter-Writing

Of course, starting and ending a letter written in French is just the tip of the iceberg. Here are more tips in writing letters in French.

Bonus: How to write an email in French

Let’s face it, writing an email in French is another hurdle you must surpass. Whether you’re writing an email to your boss, a colleague, or someone you barely know, you gotta make sure everything’s in place before you hit the send button.

No worries to you because we’re going to discuss here how to write emails, too!

How to end formal emails

Like in English, there are also a set of email phrases and expressions commonly used when signing off in formal emails. Aside from the usual «merci» or «merci beaucoup», here are some ways on how to sign off an email in French:

 Conclusion

Here are some FAQs about Letter in French