To help a child identify French nouns, verbs and adjectives, look at the word inside a sentence and try changing part of that sentence. Meaning alone does not always identify a word class. These French grammar exercises include answers and explanations for English-speaking parents supporting schoolwork in French.
Start with one short French sentence
In “Le petit chien marche,” chien is a noun, marche is a verb and petit is an adjective. The determiner “le” accompanies the noun. Here, the adjective describes the dog and the verb tells what is happening.
The Alloprof first-cycle word-class reference provides French terminology. Use the labels and sentence manipulations your child already encounters in class. This activity focuses on three classes rather than teaching the whole grammar system.
Try three checks
- For a noun, look for its determiner in these examples: un vélo, la table, des chiens. This is a clue, not a rule that every French noun always has a preceding determiner; proper names are one exception.
- For a verb, change the time: “Le chien marche” becomes “Le chien marchait.” The changing word is the verb in this example.
- For an adjective, substitute another adjective: “le petit chien” becomes “le grand chien.” The group keeps the same construction.
Combine clues. Describing a verb only as an “action word” is incomplete: être is a verb too. A written form can also have a different class in a different sentence.
Exercise 1: identify the words
Find one noun, the verb and an adjective in each sentence.
- La grande tortue avance.
- Le ballon rouge roule.
- Les oiseaux bruyants chantent.
- Un chat calme attend.
Your child can underline rather than copy everything. If they choose “la” as the noun, ask which word names the animal and show the whole group, “la grande tortue.”
Answers and checks
- Noun: tortue; verb: avance; adjective: grande.
- Noun: ballon; verb: roule; adjective: rouge.
- Noun: oiseaux; verb: chantent; adjective: bruyants.
- Noun: chat; verb: attend; adjective: calme.
Check the verbs by shifting to a past-time sentence: avançait, roulait, chantaient, attendait. The adult can say these forms aloud; do not require your child to write a tense they have not learned.
Exercise 2: the same form in two roles
Compare “La marche est longue” with “Lina marche lentement.” In the first sentence, marche is a noun accompanied by “la.” In the second, marche is the verb: “Lina marchait” changes its tense. Ask what changed in the sentence rather than memorizing a label without context.
Continue with French plural agreement practice. Our French present-tense article treats conjugation as a separate task.
