Simple Declarative Sentences in French

What is a declarative sentence?

We use declarative sentences to make statements, declare facts and share opinions. Declarative sentences usually have the word order subject–verb–object. In French, as in English, the subject has to come before the verb.

Read on for a summary of everything you need to know about word order in French declarative sentences. Once you’re done, you can put your knowledge to the test in the online exercises.

Contents

Le chien attrape la balle.

In French, just like in English, it‘s not possible to change the position of the subject (the dog) and the object (the ball) without completely changing the meaning of the sentence.
If we switch the positions, the sentence will have a completely different meaning.
La balle attrape le chien.

How to form declarative sentences

In French, we use the word order subject–verb–object to form simple declarative sentences. If a sentence includes both a direct and indirect object, the direct object usually comes before the indirect object.

Subject Verb Direct object Indirect object
Sandrine a montré le chemin à ses amis.Sandrine showed her friends the way.

However, if the direct object has a relative clause attached to it, we place the shorter indirect object first and then the longer direct object.

Subject Verb Indirect object Direct object Relative clause
Elle a montré à ses amis le chemin qui mène à sa maison.She showed her friends the road that leads to her house.

What is a direct and indirect object?

The object is who or what receives the action of the verb. There are two types in French:

  • A direct object receives the action of the verb directly. It is never preceded by a preposition. We can identify a direct object by asking “who?” or “what?”.
Example:
Elle montre le chemin.She shows the way.
The direct object is le chemin. What does she show? → The way.
  • An indirect object is separated from the verb by the prepositions à or de. We can identify an indirect object by asking to “whom?”, “with whom?”, ”to what?”.
Example:
Elle montre le chemin à ses amis.She shows the way to her friends
The indirect object is à ses amis. To whom does she show the way? → To her friends.

Word order with pronouns

When we replace direct and indirect objects with pronouns (e.g. le, la, me, leur), the pronouns always go before the verb.

Let’s take our earlier example with Sandrine and replace the objects with pronouns:

Example:
Sandrine a montré le chemin à ses amis.Sandrine showed the way to her friends.
→ Elle le leur a montré.She showed it to them.
Both le (replacing “the way”) and leur (replacing “to her friends”) now come before the verb a montré

When we have two object pronouns together, the order of the pronouns matters:

Examples:
Elle me l’a montré.She showed it to me.
The indirect pronoun (me) comes before the direct pronoun (l’)
Elle le leur a montré.She showed it to them.
The direct pronoun (le) comes before the indirect pronoun (leur)

Which one goes first? The order depends which specific pronouns we’re using. The diagram below shows the correct order:

How to create emphasis in sentences

Sometimes, we want to draw attention to a specific part of the sentence: who did something, what they did or when they did it. In French, we can use special structures to do this.

Putting the important information first: C’est ... qui/que/dont

The most common way to emphasise something is to move it to the front of the sentence and put c’est (“it is”) or ce sont (“they are“) before it.

  • To emphasise who is doing something, we use c’est/ce sont + subject + qui
Example:
Simon a mangé la dernière part de gâteau.Simon ate the last piece of cake.
→ C’est Simon qui a mangé la dernière part de gâteau.It was Simon who ate the last piece of cake.

Stressed pronouns for people

When we want to emphasise a person and want to use a pronoun, we need to use a stressed subject pronoun (moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles).

Example:
Je t’ai appelé hier soir. → C’est moi qui t’ai appelé hier soir.I called you last night. → It was me who called you last night.
je becomes moi

The verb after qui has to match the person we’re emphasising.

Example:
Tu m’as appelé hier soir ? → C’est toi qui m’as appelé hier soir ?Did you call me yesterday? → Was it you who called me yesterday?
We need the 2nd person singular to match toi
  • To emphasise what someone is doing, we use c’est/ce sont + object + qui
Example:
Simon avait fait ce gâteau.Simon had made the cake.
→ C’est le gâteau que Simon avait fait.It was the cake that Simon had made.
  • To emphasise when, where or how something happens, we use c’est ... que
Examples:
Nous partons demain.We’re leaving tomorrow.
→ C’est demain que nous partons.We’re leaving tomorrow.
Elle travaille à Paris.She works in Paris.
→ C’est à Paris qu’elle travaille.She works in Paris.
  • Some verbs use de (parler de, avoir besoin de). To emphasise objects introduced by verbs with de, we use c’est/ce sont + object + dont
Example:
Je t’ai parlé de ces amis.I told you about these friends.
→ Ce sont les amis dont je t’ai parlé.These are the friends that I told you about.

Putting the important information last: Ce qui/Ce que/Ce dont … c’est

Instead of moving the important part to the beginning, we can also push it to the end for emphasis.

  • To emphasise the subject, we use ce qui + subject + c’est/ce sont
Example:
Ces chaussures plaisent beaucoup à Julie.Julie really likes these shoes.
→ Ce qui plaît beaucoup à Julie, ce sont ces chaussures.What Julie likes are these shoes.
  • To emphasise the object, we use ce que + subject + …, c’est/ce sont + object
Example:
Julie aimerait acheter ces chaussures.Julie would love to buy these shoes.
→ Ce que Julie aimerait acheter, ce sont ces chaussures.What Julie would love to buy are these shoes.
  • To emphasise an object introduced by the preposition de, we use ce dont …, c’est/ce sont
Example:
Julie rêve d’acheter ces chaussures.Julie dreams of buying these shoes.
→ Ce dont Julie rêve, c’est d’acheter ces chaussures.What Julie dreams of is buying these shoes.
rêver de qqch = dream of something

Using stressed pronouns for extra emphasis

We can also add emphasis by including a stressed pronoun (moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles). This highlights who we’re talking about and suggests a contrast with someone else.

We place 1st and 2nd person pronouns (moi, toi, nous, vous) before the subject and 3rd person pronouns (lui, elle, eux, elles) after the subject. We always use commas.

Examples:
Françoise aime beaucoup nager.Françoise really likes swimming.
→ Françoise, elle, aime beaucoup nager.Now Françoise, she really likes swimming.
Je ne suis pas d’accord avec toi.I don’t agree with you.
→ Moi, je ne suis pas d’accord avec toi.Personally, I don’t agree with you.

Word order with adverbs

We can place adverbs at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a sentence.

Examples:
Demain, Charles ira faire du vélo.Tomorrow, Charles will go cycling.
Charles ira demain faire du vélo.Charles will go cycling tomorrow.
Charles ira faire du vélo demain.Charles will go cycling tomorrow.

The position of the adverb depends on what we want to emphasise. Putting an adverb at the beginning of the sentence often makes it stand out more.

Good to know

Sometimes the word order changes. If a sentence begins with and adverb like aussi (also, therefore), à peine (hardly), peut-être (maybe) or sans doute (without doubt, probably), the verb can come before the subject.

If the subject is a pronoun (like il, elle, nous), we connect it to the verb with a hyphen, and sometimes add -t- in between them to make it easier to pronounce.

Example:
Sans doute ne pleuvra-t-il pas demain.It probably won’t rain tomorrow.
Normal word order: Il ne pleuvra pas. After sans doute, we use inversion: ne pleuvra-t-il – the verb (pleuvra) comes first, then a -t- for pronunciation, then the pronoun (il)