成人快手

Learn how to say which pets you have in French with these useful phrases.

Talking about your pets in French

An orange cat

If you want to say what pets you have, you need the verb (to have).

First subject pronouns go before the verb to tell us who is doing the action, like 'I' in English:

FrenchEnglish
JeI
J' (in front of a vowel or the letter h)I
TuYou
ElleShe
IlHe
An orange cat

Then add the correct form of the verb avoir. Can you spot how the spelling of avoir changes as the person doing the verb changes?

FrenchEnglish
I have
You have
She has
He has

For example:鈥

  • 鈥 I have a cat 鈥
  • 鈥 You have a rabbit
  • 鈥 She has a mouse
A horse

Try using to make sentences with the lists of animals below.

Note that in French, nouns are grouped into either masculine or feminine nouns, so the word for 'a' in French is

  • for masculine nouns
  • for feminine nouns

You can learn more about this in Masculine and feminine nouns.

Masculine nounsEnglish
a cat
a dog
a rabbit
a stick insect
a guinea pig
a rat
a snake
Feminine nounsEnglish
a spider
a mouse
a tortoise

Saying a pet's name

To say a pet鈥檚 name, we can use (who is called) for 1 pet and (who are called) for more than one (plural) Here are some examples below:

FrenchEnglish
I have a rabbit called Crumpet
I have two fish called Fish and Chips
I have a dog called Rocky
I have two cats called Marbles and Pebbles

Using the negative in French

To say you don鈥檛 have any pets, you need to use the negative form of the verb.

Look at the positive and negative statements below. Can you spot the differences?

  • Positive: J'ai un animal - I have a pet
  • Negative: Je *n鈥檃i pas d鈥*animal - I don't have a pet

To turn a positive statement into a negative one, follow these three steps:

  1. Add ne or n' (before a vowel) in front of the verb avoir.

  2. Add pas after the verb.

  3. To say 'any', you replace the indefinite article (un / une) with de or d' (before a vowel).

Try making your own negative statements with some of the animal words above. Here are some examples to get you started:

FrenchEnglishFrenchEnglish
I have a catI don't have a cat
I have a dogI don't have a dog
I have a mouseI don't have a mouse

Talking about other animals in French

To ask what something is, you can say 鈥 What is it?

A monkey

To answer, use 鈥 it is.

  • 鈥 It's a monkey!
  • 鈥 It's a lion!
  • 鈥 It's a spider!

is the word for 'it' and is the word for 'is'.

As ce ends with e and est also begins with a vowel, the e at the end of ce is replaced by an apostrophe to make it easier to say.

  • Ce + est = C'est

If you want to say 'it鈥檚 not', you use .

Like before to form the negative, you add n' before the verb (as the next letter is a vowel) and pas after the verb:

  • 鈥 It鈥檚 not a monkey
  • 鈥 It鈥檚 not a lion
  • 鈥 It's not a spider

Try making your own phrases using c'est and ce n'est pas with the useful animal nouns below:

Masculine nounsEnglishFeminine nounsEnglish
an elephanta whale
a liona goat
a birda giraffe
a monkeya frog

How do you form plurals in French?

Lion

To talk about more than one animal, you usually add s at the end of the noun to make it plural.

To say 'some' instead of 'a', you replace un and une with 鈥 some.

  • (a cat) becomes (some cats)
  • (a dog) becomes (some dogs)

Remember:

There are exceptions to look out for when talking about more than one animal in French.

If the word ends in -al, the ending changes to -aux.

  • (an animal) becomes (some animals)
  • (a horse) becomes (some horses)

If the word ends in u, you add x instead of s.

  • (a bird) becomes (some birds)
Lion
Two dogs

If you want to say what an animal is when there is more than one, you say 鈥 they are.

means 'are' and it is a form of the verb (to be).

  • 鈥 they are dogs

  • 鈥 they are cats

  • 鈥 they are birds

  • 鈥 they are horses

Two dogs

Key French sounds

Below are some important French sounds that you have heard in this topic. Try practising them yourself out loud.

  1. gn

The letters gn make the sound similar to that in the middle of the English word 'onion'. This sounds like n followed by y.

鈥 spider

Remember that the e at the end of the word is silent.

  1. il and ill after a vowel

When they appear after a vowel, the letters ill sound like the y sound in English.

鈥 a frog

Don't forget that the e on the end of the word is silent.

  1. ien

This makes two sounds: the French sound for i followed by the nasal sound for the letters in.

鈥 a dog

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