How well do you know your prepositions and pronouns? Take this test to find out! The following topics will be covered: penser à and penser de, savoir and connaître, après avoir and après être, manquer à, IOPs and DOPs. To get the most out of it I recommend you do it under test conditions (if you need a refresher before beginning though feel free to check out the relevant posts). Answers can be found in the comments.
Abbreviations used in this test: pp means past participle; IOP means indirect object pronoun; DOP means direct object pronoun
1. Translate into French: They missed their dog when they were on holiday
2. Fill in the blank with ‘à’ or ‘de’: Frédérique commence à avoir le trac quand elle pense ___ ses examens
3. Indicate whether or not the ‘f’ in ‘français’ should be capitalised: Il a enseigné le français comme langue étrangère pendant vingt ans. Give your reasoning.
4. Fill in the blank with ‘à’ or ‘de’: Tu sais ce que je pense ___ lui
5. Give the pp of the following verbs: lire, venir, apprendre, être, avoir
6. Translate into French: Karen gave him the textbook
7. Indicate whether or not the pp needs to agree: Elle s’est cassé la jambe en jouant au foot. Give your reasoning.
8. Fill in the blank with ‘à’ or ‘de’: On doit penser ___ un nom qui convient au bébé
9. Fill in the blank with ‘savoir’ or ‘connaître’: Est-ce que tu ___________ de bons restaurants à proximité ?
10. Translate into French: Do you miss your father?
11. Fill in the blank with the correct article or preposition: Elle a amené beaucoup ____ gens à la fete
12. Give the pp of the following verbs: faire, écrire, ouvrir, apporter, mentir
13. Fill in the blank with ‘avoir’ or ‘être’: Après _______ quitté la France, M. Martin s’est installé à la Réunion
14. Fill in the blank with ‘savoir’ or ‘connaître’: Vous _______________ que les crevettes me font mal au ventre
15. Sa famille vit à Rome ; il ________ voit pendant les vacances (fill in with the right DOP/IOP)
16. Fill in the blank with the correct form of ‘avoir’ or ‘être’: Ils ________ parti pour Singapour après leurs examens (don’t forget to make any necessary agreements)
17. Quand j’ai envie de parler de mes difficultés personnelles, je _____ fais avec mes amis (fill in with the right DOP/IOP)
18. De or des? La vie est pleine ______ possibilités
19. Indicate whether these verbs use avoir, être or both in the passé composé: devenir, aller, sortir, lever, montrer
20. De or des? Michel a besoin _______ articles de revue pour ses recherches
Grade Descriptors
0-5: You need more revision (and maybe some sleep and vitamin C/omega-3)
5-10: Turn off the TV when studying French
10-15: Not bad! Keep trying for that perfect score
15-17: You are well on your way to becoming a pro!
18-20: Kudos! You are a certified pro! Keep up the good work.
GUIDE de CORRECTION
1. Leur chien leur manquait quand ils étaient en vacances – Remember in French the entity being missed and the one doing the missing trade places, so the resulting phrase structure is something like Person A is missed by Person B instead of Person B misses Person A
2. à – she is thinking about something cognitively, not giving an opinion
3. It shouldn’t be capitalised because it is referring to the language – capitalisation only occurs when it is a noun referring to the people (e.g. Les Français sont fiers de leur langue)
4. de – Here the set-up is that of an opinion: You know what I think of him (i.e. my opinion of him)
5. lu, venu, appris, été, eu
6. Karen lui a donné le livre – if you’re wondering why it is ‘lui’ and not ‘le’, it is because of the syntax of donner: donner qch à qn. The person being given something is indirect (hence ‘lui’ which is an IOP is needed)
7. No agreement because of the presence of a direct object (la jambe) after the verb casser
8. à – Penser is being used in a reflective sense here, namely reflecting on a fitting name for the baby
9. connais – Knowledge of places is one of the uses of connaître
10. Est-ce que ton père te manque ?/Ton père te manque-t-il ? [‘vous’ can also be used in place of ‘tu’] see 1
11. de
12. fait, écrit, ouvert, apporté, menti
13. avoir – quitter uses ‘avoir’ in the passé composé
14. savez – According to the speaker prawns give them a stomach-ache, so grammatically speaking this is a fact which means savoir is needed
15. la – To see something or someone is voir qch/qn, so a DOP is needed. ‘Famille’ in French exists as a singular noun, and since it is also feminine, we need ‘la’
16. ils sont partis – ‘partir’ is one of the DRMRSVANDERTRAMP verbs which can only be employed with être. There are no objects to worry about here, so the pp agrees with the subject ils
17. le – ‘le’ is the pronoun used to replace a phrase or part of it instead of a particular object. In this case the phrase being replaced is ‘parler de mes difficultés personnelles’
18. de – expressions of quantity in French are usually preceded by the preposition de
19. devenir – E only, aller – E only, sortir – both, lever – both, montrer – A only
20. d’ – besoin is always employed with de; since ‘articles’ begins with a vowel de contracts to d’
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Hi Ferdinand,
I just used one of the free WordPress themes – Lovecraft – and changed the background colour and a few other things 🙂
Hmm is anyone else experiencing problems with the pictures on this blog loading? I’m trying to determine if its a problem on my end or if it’s the blog. Any responses would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Wyatt,
I’m not sure what might be causing that, but maybe you could try using a different browser or closing some tabs which may be slowing it down.
Hope this helps 🙂