French Grammar and Reflexive Verb Exercises

French reflexive verbs are a difficult subject for French learners to master, but French grammar and reflexive verb exercises can help you to perfect this challenging aspect of the French language. In order to get oriented into reflexive verbs, check out the LoveToKnow Emotions Slideshow.

The reason French grammar and reflexive verb exercises are so difficult for native English speakers learning French is because the structure is very different in French and in English.

In English, the sentence "I'm washing my hair" puts the owner of the hair into the expression 'my hair'. In French, the owner of the hair that is expressed with the reflexive pronoun that comes before the verb. For example, to express that you are washing your own hair, you would say: Je me lave les cheveux, whereas to say 'I'm washing YOUR hair', you would say: Je te lave les cheveux. Once you understand that the first word 'je' is the subject of the sentence, and the second word is the object, reflexive verbs make much more sense. It's the same person who performs and receives the action of the sentence.

Students looking to perfect their usage of reflexive verbs can do so with online grammar tools that focus on reflexive verbs. Sites such as Quia.com offer many grammar exercises, both for reflexive verbs and for every other aspect of French grammar you can imagine.

Reflexive verbs can be practiced through online activities as well as online worksheets that can be printed out and used at home or in the classroom. The following links are only a selection; many more can be found online if you or your students need even more practice than these provide.

• A UK website called 'At School' offers helpful basic exercises for working on reflexive verbs in French. The following exercises are great for the first time that reflexive verbs are introduced to French students. The first two exercises: Reflexive Pronouns and Reflexive Pronouns and Verbs enable students to learn to associate the French subject pronouns with the proper reflexive pronoun and the correct verb form. A final check is to match the subject pronoun to the reflexive pronoun and verb, followed by the rest of the sentence; the end result is a complete, grammatical, sentence in which the reflexive verb is used correctly.

• In order to practice the imperative (commands) in reflexive verbs, try this quiz: Reflexives. Remember that the 's' comes off the end of the 'tu' form (instead of 'laves', 'lave'); 'wash your hair' would be lave-toi les cheveux. This quiz will enable you to perfect a usage of reflexive verbs that is quite common in daily language usage, but is not often focused on in French classes and textbooks.

• Also on Quia, a series of activities allow students of French to practice reflexive verbs through using digital flashcards, word searches, and word matching games created by a Quia user named Mademoiselle Smith.

Whether you are a teacher of French or a student of the language, reflexive verbs can pose quite a problem. These resources will hopefully prove to be useful for both learning the language or offering your students the resources they need in order to be able to learn it themselves.

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