By Danielle Maxson, CT
I don’t consider myself a violent person, but studying French grammar sometimes tempts me to throw things at a wall. Why is that “s” at the end of this past participle but not that one? Why did they use “à” instead of “de”? And whose idea was it to reserve an entire tense for reading only and never use it in speech?
As a French learner, I sometimes don’t understand why the language works the way it does. It sounds beautiful, but since I’m trained in Spanish, a much more phonetic language, French can seem impenetrable at times. Despite the similarities between the two languages, I often wish I had a roadmap to help me navigate the grammatical differences.
So, in what was perhaps a burst of unfounded optimism, I decided to enroll in a French-based Advanced Skills and Training (AST) session at the 2025 ATA Conference in Boston. “French-Language Master Class: A Deep Dive into Advanced Grammar” promised an in-depth study of how to use the participe passé, when to use the subjunctive mood, and how to avoid several common mistakes made by native speakers of both English and French.
AST courses are three-hour events intended for advanced-level study of a clearly defined topic. This course was advertised for anyone who can speak French at a B2 level or higher. I wasn’t sure I met this requirement, but taking the class would give me an extended opportunity to practice listening comprehension while learning grammar, a topic I felt comfortable with in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, my working languages. I went ahead and signed up, then emailed the instructor to let her know she’d have a nulle in her class.
So how did the course go? Here are my impressions, from the perspective of a French learner who’s already studied other Romance languages.
Excellent instructor
The course instructor, Grace Shalhoub, is a court-certified translator in France, and she’s taught undergraduate and post-graduate English-to-French translation for over ten years. Her expertise in both teaching and French grammar was on full display. She spent three hours leading attendees through detailed explanations of extremely fiddly grammar points, answering questions clearly, and giving us review exercises to practice with. By the end of hour three, I had learned much more than I’d hoped for.
Grace taught the class entirely in French, so it was definitely for advanced students. As I had suspected, I wasn’t quite up to the level of fluency the course demanded, but I was still able to follow along and understand most of it. The other students were all language professionals who use French as a working language, and some of them spoke to me about their impressions, which were all positive. One participant mentioned that Grace taught the class as if it were for native French speakers, not people who spoke French as a second language. The student appreciated this approach because it gave us all a chance to look at the grammar from a different perspective.
So what did she teach us?
Accord du participe passé
When should the participe passé agree with the subject of its sentence? Before attending Grace’s class, I had quite a lot of trouble understanding the rules around this topic. After attending the class, I know I’m not alone. There are plenty of rules, and triggers for agreement seem to be everywhere.
Grace started off simply, explaining the basic rules for agreement when the participe passé is involved. She then jumped into four types of special cases:
- What to do when direct or indirect object pronouns (COD and COI) are involved
- What happens with pronominal verbs
- When the participe passé is followed by an infinitive
- Agreement after the word on
Each case was illustrated with examples and exercises, and Grace made sure we had plenty of opportunity to practice with fill-in-the-blank sentences. I wish I could tell you I now use the participe passé correctly in all instances. I don’t yet, but I feel better about it.
Le subjonctif
Even though Spanish and Portuguese use the subjunctive mood extensively, I’ve had some difficulty determining when and how to use it in French. In comparison, Spanish seems to strew the subjunctive everywhere it looks, and Portuguese has a future subjunctive that doesn’t have a French equivalent. Grace’s explanations helped tremendously. She started again with the basics and built on them until we had an outline of several instances that may or may not trigger use of the subjunctive.
Can I use the subjunctive correctly in French now? Well, no, but that definitely isn’t Grace’s fault. I probably can identify when it’s been used correctly, however. And I do have extensive notes to help me learn the difference, so I live in hope of conquering this grammatical foe.
Des erreurs communs
This section of the class was a romp through a series of common mistakes and quick explanations on how to correct those errors. We covered:
- Identifying genders for French nouns
- Agreement with the subject
- Numbers
- Prepositions
- Color agreement
- The difference between “de nouveau” and “à nouveau”
Out of all these topics, I was most surprised to learn that in French, color words should not always agree with the noun they modify. If an item is multicolored, the color adjectives do not change to agree with the subject. So you can have “un manteau blanc et noir,” but you’ll also have “une veste noir et blanc.” If you have several jackets and some are all white while others are all black, they are “des vestes noires et blanches.” Grace let us practice this point by describing several photographs of cows in various combinations of brown and white. This exercise both reinforced the point and allowed me a quiet giggle.
We finished off the class with a dictée exercise. Grace read us a series of sentences containing the grammatical traps we’d studied, so we were able to check how well we could produce the correct version independently. My results were so-so, which was no surprise. My main goal with the dictée was to understand well enough to write mostly-correct sentences, and I succeeded. Other students probably did much better.
My opinion
This was a fantastic class, and I’m glad I took it. The topics we covered helped me improve my understanding of French grammar, and Grace was able to keep it interesting and fun. My favorite part of the class was watching the videos she had found to illustrate the different points we studied. Watching Emmanuel Macron curse because he guessed the wrong gender for a French noun was a special highlight for me – it made me feel much less alone in my quest to learn and understand.
If you have the chance to take a class with Grace, I hope you do it. It will be well worth the time and money.
Danielle Maxson, CT is an ATA-certified Portuguese and Spanish to English translator focused on clinical trials, medical records, health care, patient communications, official documents, and special education. Danielle is both a member and former chair of the ATA’s Business Practices Education Committee. She has also authored a series of articles on HIPAA compliance for medical translators. You can find her at https://dmaxsontranslates.com/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemaxsonct/.