PARDON  MY  FRENCH

When searching for a French word, we often gravitate to the easiest and closest English equivalent. However, many expressions use different verbs in the two languages. Grabbing the first verb we think of may not always be the right or best choice. In certain expression...

Once we learn a verb in French, we have a tendency to use it the same as we do in English. However, there are certain English verbs that have two or more equivalents in French. In this post, we will look at three verbs: driving, writing, and swimming, each of which has...

At first glance, there appears to be no rhyme or reason why one French word is masculine and another feminine. For instance, why is le bonheur (happiness) masculine, while la bonté (kindness) is feminine? While the grammatical gender of some French words correlates to...

A lot of students ask if there is logic to French gender. Gender assignment appears to be arbitrary at best. For instance, why is “chair” feminine (la chaise), but "armchair" masculine (le fauteuil)? And sometimes, it seems contrary to logic. A man’s tie is feminine (l...

The letter h

The French letter h is silent. We are taught to treat words beginning with h followed by a vowel like any other word beginning with a vowel. However, not all words beginning with h act in the same way.

In fact, there are two types of h in French: h muet (si...

peu -  a little of this, not much of that

When moving from French to English, I’m often surprised how easy it is to translate certain expressions. For instance, un peu and le peu are almost identical to a little and the little, and used in similar ways. However, these s...

fond is an extremely useful word in French with many practical applications. It comes from the Latin noun “fundus” meaning bottom, farm (piece of land), ground or foundation. The term has evolved, in both English and French, to refer to something that is at the bottom...

I have spoken before about the importance of learning not only the French language, but also the culture surrounding it. After all, we are learning French so that we can speak to the French! And understanding the social courtesies that the French themselves use every d...

Translating from one language to another is not an exact science. It is often hard to know which French word is closest to an English word. This is even more difficult when one English word has two almost equivalent words in French, such as the following words represen...

How the French build sentences: learning to think in French

When we speak French, we have a natural tendency to use the same word order that we use in English. Often this works, as many structures are the same in both languages. For instance, both form questions by rais...