French lessons, events & trips
FRENCH LESSONS EVENTS & GIFTS
If you’re a person of un certain âge* who did some rudimentary French at school, we could almost guarantee you remember the phrase “Fermez la bouche*!”
Now we’re grown up, though, it’s time to expand our repertoire*, not only with a few more applications of the word bouche*, but with the real way to tell someone to shut it: ta gueule!*
*a certain age | *Close your mouth | *repertoire | *mouth | *shut your face
All of the tutors here at Lingua Franca are French, with the exception of votre humble serviteur*. The team often comments on how practical the English language is, something that had never occurred to me before starting this job. They claim that things are often called exactly what they are in English, whereas in French the 'thing' has a totally different name.
C'est logique, non?*
So it's always a great feeling when you stumble across instances where French shows a logic that English lacks. It allows you to expand your vocabulary quickly and with a minimum of effort. So what is cette petite astuce*?
By adding the suffix -ier to almost any fruit, you will uncover the word for the tree that bears it. It's a great little hack and it works almost every time.
Note that while many of the fruits are feminine in gender, the trees are all masculine. We couldn't make it too easy now, could we?
*yours truly | It's logical, isn't it? | *this little trick
In the very first lesson of our Absolute Beginner 1 course, we introduce you to the idea of cognates: words shared between languages. English has more than 7 500 of these words from French, and c'est garanti* you'd use at least one a day (think 'garage', 'entrepreneur', 'ballet' 'finance' and 'au pair').
As your learning progresses, we also admit there is another phenomenon at play, that of 'faux amis', or false friends (one of our tutors, Josephine prefers to call them 'bad friends' and she's not wrong!) These are words that look like English words, but have a different meaning (attention!*: attendre, journée and préservatifs may not mean what you think they do). But let's focus on the positive and return to the vrais amis*, which offer what all good friendships do - help and support when you need it.
Take a couple of minutes to regarder la liste* which is helpfully categorised into useful adjectives, nouns and verbs.
Be sure to remind yourself that you're reading French as you run your eye down the list. It can be quite a mind-bending exercise. Bonne lecture*!
*it’s guaranteed | *Be careful! | *true friends/cognates | *look at the list | *Happy reading!
Ne quittez pas la maison* without learning these extremely useful words. Not sure of the meaning of one or two? We couldn’t live without www.wordreference.com here at Lingua Franca. It is always the first tab I open in the morning on my computer and in ten years, I could count on one hand the number of times it has not had a word I was looking for.
*Do not leave home
What would your vocabulary list look like to encapsulate the seasons? A fun exercise to while away le temps*.
*the time
At Lingua Franca we're always encouraging you to take risks with your French. You'll often hear us saying "Just have a guess!" when you're stuck for a word, since we know there's a fairly good chance you'll get it right. French and English share at least 10 000 words, so it's not a bad stratégie* (see?), except when you get it wrong...
The culprit in these instances is usually a faux ami, or a false friend. These are words that look the same or similar in both languages, but have différent* meanings.The naughty Chouchous amongst you will already know to avoid excité* and préservatifs*, but there are many more seemingly innocuous words that can trip you up on your way to conquering la langue française*.
un bouton ≠ a button.
Well, it does actually but it also means a pimple, so attention*.
la monnaie ≠ money.
La monnaie actually means change, so if you hear someone saying "Je n'ai pas la monnaie." it doesn't mean they're broke, just that they might need to break a fifty.
la déception ≠ deception.
We nearly didn't employ someone once when he told us that since he'd worked in sales, he was very familiar with deception. Déception means disappointment, not being untruthful.
la location ≠ the location.
Have you ever seen a sign at a French airport indicating 'location de voitures'? I always assumed it meant the place where the cars were located (and it was never clear to me which cars, by the way), but it made a lot more sense when I finally realised location means 'rental'.
le pain ≠ the pain.
In fact it's the opposite. In France, le pain (bread) is usually synonymous with a whole lot of pleasure.
un tissu ≠ a tissue.
A tissue is un mouchoir, whereas tissu simply means fabric. By the way, for a vrai ami (true friend), you can always say 'un Kleenex' instead of un mouchoir for tissue. The glory of la globalisation*, non?
une prune ≠ a prune. How is that possible? How could it not mean prune? Because une prune is a plum and a prune is un pruneau. Tu piges*?
un slip ≠ a slip. In fact, un slip refers to a pair of men's undies. Not boxers but briefs. Which reminds me, les culottes does not refer to a wide-legged pair of pants. Les culottes is a slang word for women's knickers. Mignon, non*?
By the way, we're not immune to falling into the faux ami trap here at the office either. We're all second-language learners, like you, and have had our share of embarrassing language-related incidents over the years. For example:
Katrina recently responded to a text of Myriam's thanking her for something by saying "Ça me donne beaucoup de plaisir". She thought she was saying “it gives me a lot of pleasure”, meaning, you're welcome. Apparently not. Phrased that way, it means it gives me a lot of physical, even erotic, pleasure, which was really not her intention! She’s since been told the correct phrase is "Ça me fait très plaisir."
Myriam's own slip-up was more a question of pronunciation. When she first arrived in Australia and was setting up the house and buying bed linen, she went shopping for 'shits'. Oops.
The first time someone told Deborah they worked in hospitality, she assumed they worked in a hospital. Tellement mignon*!
Josephine was trying to explain her physique to someone and wanted to talk about her 'measurements' which in French is 'les mensurations'. Translating (almost) directly from French to English she ended up saying that her menstruations were not standard. La honte!*
*strategy | *different | *sexually excited | *condoms | *the French language | *be careful | *globalisation | *Get it? | *Cute, isn't it? | *So cute! *How embarrassing!