French agreement (accords) mistakes that cost you writing marks
Agreement errors rarely block meaning, which is why they quietly cap a band. The accords markers notice, and how to catch them in your reread.
Adèle Sason
Founder, Français Prep
Agreement errors almost never block meaning. Write les décisions important instead of importantes and every reader still understands you perfectly. That is exactly why candidates stop worrying about accords, and exactly why a fluent-sounding text can sit in a middle band: the meaning is fine, but the surface is not French enough to reach the top.
Markers reward range and development far more than they punish accuracy, so removing agreement mistakes will not buy you a level on its own. But a text riddled with them signals a lack of control that caps the linguistic score, and the past participle in particular is a place where a single rule, applied on the reread, cleans up most of the damage.
What has to agree with what?
French agreement runs in a few predictable places. Get these under control and the rest is detail:
- Adjectives agree in gender and number with their noun: une décision importante, des arguments solides.
- Past participles with être agree with the subject: elle est arrivée, ils sont partis.
- Past participles with avoir agree with a direct object only when it comes before the verb: les lettres que j’ai écrites.
- Determiners and quantities match the noun: plusieurs raisons, ces mesures.
Why is the past participle the worst offender?
Because the rule changes depending on the auxiliary, and anglophones have no instinct for it at all, English having no such agreement. With être the participle agrees with the subject, which is relatively easy to see: elle est née, elles sont venues. With avoir it agrees with a preceding direct object, which is easy to miss because the object has moved in front of the verb.
Compare j’ai écrit une lettre, no agreement because the object follows, with la lettre que j’ai écrite, agreement because que stands for the object and comes first. Reflexive verbs add a further layer, but for exam purposes the être rule and the preceding-object rule cover almost everything you will write.
Which accord mistakes do markers actually notice?
Not all agreement slips read the same. Some are near-invisible in fluent writing; others flag a control problem immediately.
| Mistake | Example | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Adjective not agreeing | des solutions efficace | Common and visible; the plural is expected everywhere |
| être participle not agreeing | elle est allé | Basic rule; its absence reads as low control |
| Wrong gender chosen | un problème importante | Signals the noun gender was never learned |
| Preceding-object agreement | les erreurs que j’ai fait | Advanced; getting it right marks an upper band |
The bottom row cuts both ways. Missing it is forgivable because many native writers slip on it too, but getting it right is a small signal of real command that helps a text at the NCLC 7 to 9 border.
What about invisible agreement you can only see in writing?
A cruel feature of French is that much agreement is silent in speech but visible on the page, which is why it costs you in writing specifically. Il est arrivé and elle est arrivée sound identical; only the writing shows whether you tracked the subject. The same is true of most plural adjectives, where the -s is silent: des solutions efficaces sounds like the singular but must carry the ending on paper.
This means you cannot rely on your ear the way you can in speaking. The agreement has to be a conscious visual check, because the sound that would warn you in English is simply not there in French. Candidates who speak reasonably well are often the most surprised by their written accord errors for exactly this reason.
A few high-frequency traps worth pre-loading: tout agrees when it means all (toutes les mesures) but not when it means completely; demi is invariable before the noun (une demi-heure); and colours from nouns like orange and marron do not agree at all. These are small, but they are the kind of detail that separates a controlled text from a merely fluent one.
How do you catch accords in the reread?
You cannot fix agreement while composing, because your attention is on the argument, so build a separate reread pass that looks only at endings. Two quick habits catch most errors:
- Learn each noun with its article, never bare. Store une décision, not décision, so the gender travels with the word and your adjectives follow automatically.
- On the reread, find every être past participle and check it against its subject, then find every que and check whether it triggers agreement. Two targeted sweeps beat one vague reading.
One more habit pays off out of proportion to its cost: when you write a subject that is on, tout le monde or a collective noun, stop and decide its agreement deliberately, because these are the ones that trip up even strong candidates. On is grammatically singular (on est) but its participle and adjectives often agree with the real people it stands for (on est arrivés), a subtlety markers do not penalise but do reward when it is right.
This is the discipline the TCF Canada expression écrite and TEF Canada expression écrite both reward, because a clean surface is one of the few things fully under your control. Draft against the word counter so you leave time for the agreement pass, and remember the trade-off: spend the last two minutes on endings, not on adding a sentence that introduces new ones.
Frequently asked questions
What is agreement (accord) in French?
Agreement is matching words in gender and number: adjectives with their noun, and past participles with either the subject (with être) or a preceding direct object (with avoir). English barely does this, so anglophones have little instinct for it. It rarely blocks meaning but signals how much control a writer has.
When does the past participle agree in French?
With être, it agrees with the subject: elle est arrivée, ils sont partis. With avoir, it agrees only with a direct object that comes before the verb: la lettre que j’ai écrite, but j’ai écrit une lettre with no agreement. Reflexive verbs add another layer, but these two rules cover most exam writing.
Do agreement mistakes lower your TCF/TEF score?
On their own, removing them will not buy you a level, because markers reward range and development more than they punish accuracy. But a text full of agreement errors signals weak control and caps the linguistic score. The preceding-object rule, done right, is a small positive signal at the NCLC 7 to 9 border.
How do I catch agreement errors before submitting?
Use a separate reread pass that looks only at word endings, not at the argument. Find every être past participle and check it against its subject, then find every que and check whether it triggers agreement. Learning each noun with its article also keeps gender attached to the word so adjectives follow automatically.