If you have some knowledge of French and want to polish your skills, French Essentials For Dummies focuses on just the core concepts you need to communicate effectively. From conjugating verbs to understanding tenses, this easy-to-follow guide lets you skip the suffering and score high at exam time.

• French 101 — get the lowdown on the basics, from expressing dates and times to identifying parts of speech

• Gender matters — see how a noun's gender determines the articles, adjectives, and pronouns you have to use

• The here and now — learn how to conjugate verbs in the present tense, choose subject pronouns, and form the present participle

• Way back when — get guidance on working with the past tense, including hints about when to use the compound past (passé composé) and when to use the imperfect

• What lies ahead — discover the different ways to express the future

Open the book and find:

• A review of numbers, dates, and times

• The parts of speech

• How to determine a noun's gender

• How to select the correct preposition

• Rules for making adjectives agree

• Tips for asking and answering yes/no questions

• Ways to spice up your descriptions

• Ten important verb distinctions

Learn:

• The basics of French grammar and sentence construction

• How to conjugate regular, irregular, and stem-changing verbs

• To express ideas about the past, present, and future