French can give you a dangerous amount of confidence.
You learn a rule. You understand the rule. You apply the rule.
And then French quietly moves the rule.
French and me: an uneasy beginning
My French education began at an all-girls comprehensive school under the terrifying gaze of Madame Murphy.
She was tiny, formidable and unmistakably French, with peroxide-blonde hair scraped tightly back into a chignon, demi-lune glasses perched on her nose and blue eyeshadow.
We were all terrified of her.
Whenever she said “Voyons voir, mesdemoiselles…”, what we heard was:
She would slowly scan our terrified faces before selecting someone to go to the chalkboard and put up the homework.
I generally sat there like a rabbit caught in headlights, praying not to be chosen.
If I had known then that I would eventually live in France and marry a Frenchman, I might possibly have paid a little more attention.
Possibly.
But probably not enough to save me from asking my husband for a toilet when what I actually wanted was a female puppy.
French grammar: confidence followed by consequences
I knew un chiot meant a puppy.
So, trying very hard to be grammatically correct, I naturally assumed that if we wanted a female puppy, I should say une chiotte.
My husband looked bemused.
Then he fell about laughing.
- un chiot = a puppy 🐶
- une chiotte = a loo 🚽
What I thought I was saying: a female puppy.
What I actually said: a toilet.
Apparently there are rules in French.
And then there are exceptions designed specifically to give your husband material for years.
Please don’t translate English word for word
This is where confidence can become dangerous.
You’ve just eaten a fabulous French lunch. Several courses have passed. Possibly cheese. Possibly dessert. Possibly both.
You are completely satisfied and want to say:
“I’m full.”
Do not automatically translate that word for word.
Je suis pleine may sound perfectly logical.
Unfortunately, depending on context, it can mean something much closer to “I’m pregnant.”
What you meant: I’ve had enough to eat.
What you may have announced: There may be a baby on the way.
Safer options are:
- Je n’ai plus faim — I’m not hungry anymore.
- J’ai assez mangé — I’ve eaten enough.
The same goes for being hot.
In English: “I’m hot.”
In French: J’ai chaud.
Not necessarily je suis chaude.
What you meant: The temperature is rather high.
What you may have suggested: I’m feeling rather frisky.
Useful distinction.
Particularly at the dinner table.
False friends: words that look helpful and aren’t
Then there are the words that look so reassuringly familiar that you barely pause before using them.
Which is exactly when they strike.
- Actuellement means currently, not actually.
- Éventuellement means possibly, not eventually.
- Une librairie is a bookshop, not a library.
- Une location means a rental or hire, not a location.
And un préservatif?
Surely that means preservative.
No.
It means condom.
What you thought you were discussing: food additives.
What everyone else thinks you’re discussing: safe sex.
Possibly best discovered before making polite conversation over dinner.
And while we’re here:
Un conservatoire is not the lovely covered terrace or glass extension you’ve just added to your house.
It’s a music or arts school.
So if you proudly tell someone you have a conservatoire at the back of the house, you haven’t built somewhere sunny to drink your coffee.
You have apparently opened a small academy in the garden.
French nouns: apparently everything has a sex life
Then there is grammatical gender.
- A table? Female. Une table.
- A sofa? Male. Un canapé.
- A chair? Female. Une chaise.
- A desk? Male. Un bureau.
Nobody asked the furniture.
French simply decided.
And yes, there are patterns.
And exceptions.
And exceptions to the exceptions.
By this point you stop asking why and simply accept that the sofa is male and the table is female and everyone appears perfectly comfortable with this arrangement.
The letter S would like to know whether it is working today
French pronunciation is full of letters that are written down but appear to be on flexible contracts.
Take the final consonants.
Sometimes silent.
Sometimes not.
Sometimes silent until another word appears, at which point they suddenly spring into action.
Which brings us to liaison.
Les amis?
Yes. The S is working today.
It links to the next word with a little Z sound.
Les haricots?
Absolutely not.
The S has gone home.
“But the H is silent.”
WE KNOW.
Welcome to French.
The reason is that haricot begins with what is called an h aspiré, which blocks the liaison even though the H itself isn’t actually pronounced.
Perfectly reasonable.
H: present but refusing to participate
The French letter H deserves special recognition.
Quite often it is silent.
Sometimes it is silent but still changes how the words around it behave.
So it makes no sound whatsoever, yet occasionally has enough authority to stop two perfectly innocent words from joining together.
I can only admire the confidence.
French H is essentially the colleague who contributes nothing during the meeting but still somehow has veto power.
And then there are the letters you may or may not pronounce
Do you pronounce the final S?
Sometimes.
The D?
Sometimes.
The T?
Maybe.
Unless you don’t.
Unless there’s a liaison.
Unless there mustn’t be a liaison.
Unless the word happens to be one of those exceptions everyone else apparently learned at birth.
I was discussing exactly this with a French friend only the other day.
There is something strangely comforting about discovering that even native speakers sometimes have to stop and think about their own language.
Above, below… surely those should sound different?
Then there are dessus and dessous.
Dessus means on top / above.
Dessous means underneath / below.
To an English-speaking ear, particularly when they are said quickly, they can sound alarmingly similar.
Why, in a language with thousands of perfectly good sounds available, would you give two opposite meanings to words distinguished mainly by one tiny vowel?
In French they are not actually pronounced the same: the last sound in dessus uses the French u, while dessous uses the ou sound.
To French ears: completely different.
To my ears for quite some time:
Another excellent moment to smile confidently and hope there is some pointing involved.
Words English speakers simply cannot persuade their mouths to say
Then there are the words that look harmless on the page but turn into a full physical challenge when an English speaker attempts them.
Écureuil.
It means squirrel.
You know what it means.
You have heard French people say it effortlessly.
Your brain knows exactly what needs to happen.
Your mouth has resigned.
You begin confidently, lose control somewhere around the middle and finish by making a noise more usually associated with moving heavy furniture.
But before any French person gets too smug about this, I have a useful retaliation.
Ask them to say:
thistle
My husband Jac still cannot pronounce it properly.
Attempts are made.
Concentration increases.
Everyone starts laughing.
Eventually he abandons English altogether and announces:
“CHARDON!”
Which is French for thistle.
Problem solved.
So really, nobody wins.
To be fair, English is completely ridiculous too
We cannot seriously criticise French without acknowledging the linguistic chaos happening on our own side of the Channel.
- knife
- Wednesday
- receipt
- salmon
- subtle
- gnome
- Worcestershire sauce
Letters everywhere, apparently included for decoration.
And before we laugh too hard at anyone struggling with écureuil, perhaps ask them to pronounce Worcestershire and see how smug we all feel then.
So neither language has the moral high ground.
Both appear to have been designed partly to communicate and partly to catch foreigners out.
The secret shortcut: words ending in -tion
There is, however, some good news.
One of my favourite French cheats is this:
If an English word ends in -tion, there is a decent chance that a very similar French word exists.
Information. Situation. Invitation. Organisation. Conversation. Réservation.
Give it your best French pronunciation and suddenly you appear to possess vastly more vocabulary than you actually do.
It is one of those rare moments when French seems to be helping.
Do not become overconfident.
We have already established where that leads.
Sometimes pronunciation matters more than you expect
There are also names and words which French people may genuinely struggle to understand if you pronounce them the English way.
Take Leroy Merlin.
Say it as an English speaker might read it off the page and you may get a completely blank look.
Say it the French way — roughly “Luh-rwah Mehr-lan” — and suddenly everyone knows exactly which enormous DIY shop you mean.
This is one of those moments when living in France teaches you that knowing the word is only half the battle.
The other half is persuading somebody else that you know it.
And sometimes French just sounds beautiful
For all the traps, there are French words I love simply because of how they sound.
- Libellule — dragonfly.
- Coquelicot — poppy.
- Luciole — firefly.
- Hirondelle — swallow.
Even before you know what they mean, they sound delicate and lyrical.
And then there are the words that sound far more glamorous than their meaning deserves.
Pamplemousse.
Sounds like something served with champagne on a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean.
Means: grapefruit.
Pantoufle.
Possibly an exclusive Parisian perfume.
Means: slipper.
And then there is my current favourite.
Poubelle.
Surely Poubelle is a mysterious French woman in pearls, descending the grand staircase of a château.
No.
It means:
bin.
A bin.
Possibly even a wheelie bin.
That may be the greatest linguistic injustice of them all.
The mistakes you never forget
The thing about speaking another language is that your worst mistakes are often the ones you remember forever.
I still remember being at the school gate and confidently saying something which, in my head, meant:
“Oh, he’s already introduced himself.”
Judging by the reaction around me, what actually came out had taken a rather unexpected linguistic detour.
That is the great thing about linguistic humiliation.
You may wish the ground would swallow you at the time, but you will never forget the correct version again.
Probably.
And that, really, is the point.
Speak.
Make mistakes.
Laugh at yourself.
Ask questions.
Have another go.
Because if you wait until your French is perfect before opening your mouth, you may be waiting a very long time.
And some of the best stories come from getting it spectacularly wrong.
Ask me how I know. 😉