Category Archives: French language

French language

Friday’s French – Content, contented, satisfait, satisfied, heureux, happy

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Content is another one of those words that does not necessarily have the same meaning in French and in English.

Je suis contente de te voir = I am happy to see you. You can also say Je suis heureuse de te voir but I’d say it’s more emphatic. Heureux (heureuse) is usually reserved for expressing happiness: Je suis heureux d’être là = I’m happy to be here. Note that in this context, là means “here “and not “there”. I’ve written another post about here and there.

Trois amies bien contentes !
Trois amies bien contentes !

Content in French can also have the meaning of the English contented. Je suis contente de rester là = I am content to stay here or I am happy to stay here. Contentment can also be expressed by using satisfait. Je suis satisfait de mon choix – I am contented with my choice.

I just run not race, I am contented to just jog. – Je cours, je ne fais pas la course. Faire un jogging, ça me suffit.

The above sentence is a good illustration of how different French and English constructions can be be. Also, the English jog has been borrowed as jogging and not jog (like the old footing which doesn’t even exist in English!). J’ai mis un jogging actually means I put a track suit on!

Il a l’air content = He looks happy/pleased, but not “He looks content” which would be “Il a l’air satisfait” which can also mean “he looks satisfied”. 🙂 Are you confused? The trick is deciding when the meaning is the same. There is no real difference between “he looks happy/pleased”, is there? But “content” and “satisfied” in English have the added meaning of being quietly happy, of having achieved peace of mind which is not included in the French verb.

There is, however, an entirely different use of satisfied in English which needs a different verb in French i.e. to be free from doubt.

I’m satisfied that her death was accidental means that I’m convinced about it. You would not use satisfait in French but convaincu (from convaincre = to persuade) : je suis convaincu que sa mort a été accidentelle.

I’m satisfied that I’m right = je suis convaincue d’avoir raison. This is another example of a different construction. In English, we use the conjunction “that”. It’s possible to say Je suis convaincue que j’ai raison” but it wouldn’t really “sound” French. What do my French readers think?

Heureux and happy are fairly synonymous (isn’t that lucky?) except justement (in fact) when heureux means fortunate or lucky. Someone who is heureux au jeu or en amour is lucky at cards or in love. Heureusement qu’il est là = Lucky thing he’s here. A very popular expression in French is “Encore heureux” which means “Good thing” or “Luckily” and has nothing to do with being happy. An example would be “Encore heureux qu’il soit arrivé de bonne heure ou il aurait perdu sa place” which means “Luckily he arrived early or he would have lost his place”. Note the use of the subjunctive “soit” which is correct but you wouldn’t near many people using it.

Flowers & gardens, French language

Friday’s French: poireaux & oignons – leeks & onions

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I was so excited at the market last Saturday when I saw this wonderful shopping trolley. In response to my post on navets (turnips), a reader suggested several expressions including arrête de poireauter from poireau meaning leek. And here is a wonderful example: j’aime pas trop poireauter, which means I don’t like waiting around, very appropriate for the type of trolley that most people take to the market where you often have to wait in a queue.

poireauter

So what is the connection with leeks which, incidentally, is the national emblem of Wales ?

It was in 1866 that planter son poireau meaning “to plant one’s leek” was first recorded. Although poireau means the male member (I’m using a euphemism to avoid attracting unwanted spam), the expression has no erotic connotations. It simply meant “waiting for a long time”, based on the image of the leek sticking up straight from the ground, and the influence of the expression rester planter (stay planted) meaning immobile or unable to move, like our English expression, “he planted himself next to her”.

About ten years later, the expression faire le poireau appeared as an extension to the one above and with exactly the same meaning. The verbal form – poireauter – was soon formed.

leeks

Now I don’t want to dispute this explanation given by expressio.fr, but I’d like to offer my own personal interpretation. We planted leeks this year for the first time. I grew them from seedlings and we then replanted them. They do not stand up straight as you can see from the photo. In fact they are very floppy. They do, however, seem to be taking absolutely ages to grow so maybe that is the origin of poireauter. We certainly seem to be hanging around waiting for them!

An expression mentioned by another reader is qu’il s’occupe de ses oignons meaning that he should mind his own business. I dropped in again at expression.fr which gives two explanations. I prefer the second one because it’s a little more elegant.

In the centre of France, one of the signs of a woman’s independence was her right to cultivate a corner of the garden where she grew onions to sell on the market and make some money of her own. Men were often heard to say to women who wanted to stick their noses in their husbands’ business occupe-toi de tes oignons (go look after your onions) or ce n’est pas tes oignons (they’re not your onions). Considering that you only get one onion for each little bulb you plant, I don’t think they could have made much money …

French customs, French language

Friday’s French – Trêve des confiseurs

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I heard a new expression on France Info this week – “l’entre deux fêtes” – which literally means “between two celebrations”, the first being Christmas and the second New Year. It’s the same construction as ‘l’entre-deux-guerres”, which is what the French call the interwar years.

We're spending the "trève des confiseurs" walking off the confectioners' ware at Chambord
We’re spending the “trêve des confiseurs” walking off the confectioners’ ware at Chambord

When I mentioned it to Jean Michel, he said it wasn’t new but I checked it out on google and “l’entre deux fêtes” only has 4,000 hits whereas “l’entre-deux-guerres” has 576,000 so it can’t be that popular. Then he told me something much more interesting. The period between Christmas and New Year is also called “la trêve des confiseurs“. “the confectioner’s truce”. Now that’s intriguing!

The expression first appeared in France around 1875 during a period of lively discussion in the National Assembly (lower house of parliament) between the monarchists, Bonapartists and republicans about the future of the constitution of the Third Republic. In December 1874, all the groups in the National Assemblee agreed that the New Year was not a good time for this sort of debate. To promote peace and harmony, they decided to go their separate ways and take a holiday until the New Year.

The confectioners were delighted and business boomed! As a result, the satiric press coined the expression “trêve des confiseurs”.

Today, the expression is also used to describe the traditional period of slack on the stock exchange and on the football field at the end of the year.

There is another meaning as well – the period in teaching hospitals when medical students devote their time entirely to caring for the sick and are dispensed from university classes.

I don’t know any similar expressions in English to describe the period between Christmas and New Year. Do you?

And just in case you didn’t know, there is no Boxing Day in France!

AllAboutFranceBadge_bisI’m contributing this post to Lou Messugo’s All About France Link-Up. Click here to find out more about Christmas in France! 

French language, Uncategorized

Friday’s French – navet

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“What’s a navet?” someone asked on Facebook this week. “It’s a film that’s a flop”, I answered. But a navet is actually a vegetable – a turnip in fact. So how did we get from turnip to a dud film? Good old expressio.fr came to the rescue.

I know these lovey-dovey carrots aren't turnips but I don't have any turnip photos and I love this one!
I know these lovey-dovey carrots aren’t turnips but I don’t have any turnip photos and I love this one!

Certain sources say you have to go back to the 13th century when the word was already used figuratively to indicate something that wasn’t worth much, perhaps because turnips are cheap and plentiful.

The meaning was never completely lost. “Des naveaulx”, a variant of the word “navet” in the 16th century, meant “not likely” or “nothing doing” and it was not until the mid 19th century that a bad painting was first called a “navet”. The expression was later extended to plays and films.

The French writer and language historian Duneton gives another explanation that isn’t incompatible with the previous one, at least with regard to its 19th century meaning.

In the Belvedere gardens in Rome, there was a statue of Apollo, that was for a long time considered to be a symbol of perfection.

But at the end of the 18th century, a group of young French artists disagreed and nicknamed it “le navet épluché” (the peeled turnip) due to its paleness and the long, smooth form of the limbs which don’t seem to have any muscles.

When the statue was transferred to Paris by Napoleon in 1798 (it has since been returned to Rome), its nickname followed it. In the mid 19th century the term was applied paintings and drawings that didn’t pass muster.

When the cinema came into vogue, the term “navet” was quite naturally used for films that were slapdash, of little interest or didn’t come up to the audience’s expectations.

Fruit and vegetables are used in a lot of expressions in French. I’ve already talked about prunes and aubergines.

Do you know any metaphorical uses of vegetables in French?

French language

Friday’s French – bis, ter and encore!

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Have you ever noticed a number in France followed by bis or ter, particularly on an entrance or gate? Well, it means that a house or property has been divided up, so it’s like our a or b.  He lives at 3a = Il habite au 3bis. Bis comes from Latin – twice – while ter means three times.

photo_334_gate_with_view

An American friend living in France told me the following: “As far as I know, there is no equivalent in the States. Every property has its own street number. I guess this is possible because all the steets and properties are relatively “new” as compared to European ones. When a street is created, all the properties and their numbers are assigned (even if there are no buildings yet on them). And in some cases there may even be some gaps in the numbering to allow for properties being subdivided. But I can’t ever recall the same street number being “shared” as here with the “bis”. Of course, it’s a different matter with apartment numbers which may have a an “A” or “B” etc.”

An Australian friend living in Australia adds: “We have 3a as well as 3 when it is a battle-axe block i.e. a house built in the back half of the property. We have a lot in our street.” Don’t you just love “battle-axe block”?

Another friend, living in France this time, lives at 64a and not 64bis. When they bought their house a few years ago, the previous owner kept some of the land and wanted to keep the number 64 for practical reasons. The municipality assigned our friends the number 64a and not 64bis. However, this is most unusual.

What is the system in your country?

Bis is used in other contexts in French as well. At the theatre, bis means encore which is interesting because in English, we use the French word for again. You can also say rappel from rappeler ,to call back.

To call for an encore is bisser or crier “bis”. Elle a été bissé trois fois = She had three encores. To play an encore is jouer or faire un bis. The pianist gave several encores = le pianiste  donné plusieurs bis.

An itinéraire bis is an alternative route, not exactly a detour which is déviation, but a route to avoid peak traffic, for example.

To go back to encore in French. It doesn’t just mean again. It can also mean still, only, more, even and also – just to mention a few.

Elle s’est encore trompée de rue = She took the wrong street again.

Il restait encore du fromage = There was still some cheese left.

Ce matin encore, il me parlait de son petit fils = Only this morning, he was telling me about his new grandchild.

Encore un peu de thé ? = A little more tea?

Il est encore plus bête que je ne pensais = He’s even sillier than I thought.

Ce n’est pas seulement triste mais encore ridicule = It’s not just sad; it’s also ridiculous.

I’m sure you have lots of other examples with different words in English.

French language

Friday’s French – Important, importance, substantial, substantiel

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Unlike English, important in French can indicate quantity where in English, it only means “of great import or significance”.

e.g. Il y avait un nombre important de demandes : there were a large number of applications.

Il y a un nombre important d'églises en France
Il y a un nombre important d’églises en France – There are a large number of churches in France

In English, we have to choose among a whole range of words such as large, considerable, substantial, big and extensive!

You sometimes see substantiel in French but it is often a loan translation or calque. Substantiel is used more restrictively in French.

Nourriture substantielle = nourishing food

Exposé très substantiel = An essay with a lot of substance

Only in sentences such as il a obtenu des advantages substantiels = he obtained a substantial number of advantages  is it used in the typical English meaning of the word.

My Chambers dictionary gives SIXTEEN different meanings for substantial :

  1. Of or having substance
  2. Being a substance
  3. Essential
  4. Actually existing
  5. Real
  6. Corporeal, material
  7. Solid
  8. Stable
  9. Solidly based
  10. Durable
  11. Enduring
  12. Firm, stout, strong
  13. Considerable in amount
  14. Bulk
  15. Well-to-do, wealth, influential
  16. Of firm, solid or sound value.

WOW! What a useful word. Unfortunately it doesn’t give examples but I’ll try and find some. You can see that the solution in French is different every time.

He sustained a substantial loss = Il a subi une perte considérable.

My father was a very substantial man in his heyday = Mon père était un homme imposant dans la force de l’âge.

That is a very substantial argument = C’est un argument de poids.

The house has a substantial structure = La maison a une structure solide.

He offered substantial proof of his innocence = Il avait des preuves convaincantes de son innocence.

They run a substantial business = Ils ont une grosse affaire.

They are in substantial agreement = Ils sont d’accord sur l’essentiel.

His objections were substantial = Ses objections étaient bien fondées.

She comes from a substantial Scottish family = Elle vient d’une famille prospère écossaise

Une modification substantielle d’un contrat  concerns the substance of an agreement i.e. an essential component such as remuneration or qualification. This is called a substantial amendment in English but un élément substantiel d’un contrat is an essential part of a contract and not a substantial part.

Substantial completion is a term widely used  in construction and applies when the contractor has substantially but not completely performed the contract requirements. In French this is known simply as achèvement but we’re getting into legal subtleties here!

Do you know any other examples in which important/important and substantial/substantiel have different meanings in English and French?

French language

Friday’s French – gens, personnes, monde, peuple, people

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People learning French seem to find it difficult to know how to translate the word people! It’s because there are several different words that can be used depending on the context and meaning: gens, personnes, monde, peuple, people. Aïe!

Il y avait beaucoup de monde au marché. Il y avait plusieurs personnes habillées en noir. Les gens avaient l'air content parce qu'il faisait soleil.
Il y avait beaucoup de monde au marché. Il y avait plusieurs personnes habillées en noir. Les gens avaient l’air content parce qu’il faisait soleil. – There were lots of people at the market. Several people were dressed in black. People looked happy because it was sunny.

Let’s start with a few examples and see how they are used.

Les gens intelligents = clever people

Les personnes âgées = old people

Les jeunes (gens) = young people

Beaucoup de gens/monde = a lot of people

Il y avait beaucoup de monde = the place was full of people

Plusieurs personnes m’ont parlé de l’accident. = Several people told me about the accident.

Combien de personnes ? = How many people?

Ce sont de drôles de gens = They’re strange people.

Que vont penser les gens ? = What will people think

Le peuple australien = the Australian people

Les gens de la campagne = country people

Can you see a pattern emerging? Well I can’t !

Why don’t we say les personnes intelligentes and les gens âgés ? And why not les jeunes personnes ?

I checked my Larousse dictionary to see if I could find a difference

GENS :

  1. Personnes en nombre indéterminé – People when there is an indeterminate number [Les gens flânaient dans la rue – People were wandering in the streets]
  2. Les hommes en général – Men in general [Les gens sont influencés par la publicité – People are influenced by advertising]
  3. Telle ou telle personne, ou la personne qui parle – Such and such a person, or the person speaking [Vous avez une façon de recevoir des gens ! – You have a way of welcoming people!]
  4. Personnes appartenant à un état, à une profession – People belonging to a state or profession. [Les gens du spectacle – People in show business]

OK, it’s clear for n° 4 and maybe fore n°2 but it doesn’t really explain why we talk about personnes intelligentes but gens âgés.

So I asked the question on my French translators’ list and got some very different answers, some of which are contradictory which just goes to show that even the French don’t agree on usage!

1. It’s always better to use personnes when you can.

2. Les gens intelligents et les personnes intelligentes sont différents. Maybe, but if it is, it’s very subtle. I googled the two expressions and in most of the examples they seem pretty interchangeable to me, with 30,900 hits for personnes intelligentes and 165,000 for gens intelligents!

4. Personnes is used when it could be perceived negatively such as personnes âgées, personnes handicapées (yes, handicapped is politically correct in French!) and gens when it’s positive : jeunes gens, braves gens. Ok, but what about les gens tristes?

5. Semantically, when using personnes the human dimension is stronger while gens is a neutral term. Personnes âgées shows respect for the elderly.

6. Jeunes gens is the plural of jeune homme and excludes jeunes filles.

7. Jeunes gens can also mean jeunes filles.

8. Personnes is used to distinguish a particular group such as grandes personnes (adults), personnes sourdes (the hearing impaired).

9. Correct French always “sounds” right. Yes, but only if you are brought up hearing correct French in my opinion!

10. Maybe gens is more difficult to use with an adjective because it can be either masculine or feminine or both.

My personal feeling is that it is mostly a question of what people usually use. In French, personnes âgées is by far the more prevalent expression (17,300,00 hits on google as opposed to gens âgés).

If you’re talking about a nebulous group – sad people, happy people, clever people, people in the street, people who live alone – you would use gens: les gens tristes, les gens heureux, les gens intelligents, les gens dans la rue, les gens qui habitent seuls.

If the group is more specific (with the exception of personnes âgées which is the more usual term as state above), such as the people on my left, the people who arrived late, the people concerned, you would use personnes: les personnes à ma gauche, les personnes qui sont arrivées en retard, les personnes concernées.

But despite all this, personnes and gens are not always interchangeable. I started writing this post after hearing an English speaker use the wrong one but now I can’t for the life of me remember what it was!

However, in the initial set of phrases, it is not possible to say plusieurs gens, combien de gens, que vont penser les personnes or les personnes de la campagne. It would just sound odd!

And one last word before I finish off. People is used in French to mean celebrities.

Any questions???

French customs, French language

Friday’s French – service civil, service civique, civil service, fonction publique

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Le balayeur de rue est un fonctionnaire
Le balayeur de rue est un fonctionnaire

France Info is by far my favourite radio station. I like it because it keeps repeating the news all day so that if you tune off at any time, the same information will soon come round again. I usually listen when I’m cooking or eating by myself. They don’t just do news. They also have regular features such as the meaning of words.

Yesterday, they were talking about the difference between service civil and service civique.

Until it was absolished by Jacques Chirac in 1996, 10 months’ service militaire was compulsory in France for all men over the age of 18 if considered fit. Call-up could be delayed if the conscript was a full-time student in higher education. Conscientious objectors were required to do two years of service civil as opposed to militaire. Nothing to do with our civil service.

Service civil was then replaced by service civique which is voluntary community work open to all young people from 16 to 25. They are paid 573 euros per month for a minimum of 24 hours a week for 6 to 12 months. So service civil no longer exists.

What we call the civil service in Great Britain or the public service in Australia is known as la fonction publique in French. Civil servants are fonctionnaires. Un haut fonctionnaire is a top-ranking civil servant or senior official while un petit fonctionnaire is a minor official.

La fonction publique covers a much broader range of activities than our civil service. There are about three million fonctionnaires (also known as agents de l’Etat). They include teachers, social services staff, post office workers, police officers and employees of the French rail services.

They are recruited by competitive examination and successful candidates are known as titulaires. Because of their almost total job security, they are often stereotyped as having unfair advantages compared to employees in the private sector. It’s certainly easier to get a mortgage or rent an apartment if you’re a fonctionnaire.

Whence expressions such as il a une mentalité de fonctionnaire – he has the mentality of a petty bureaucrat. C’est un vrai fonctionnaire means he’s a petty bureaucrat. Petty of course is a deterioration of the French word “petit”.

Bureaucrate also exists, and is both masculine and feminine. Paperasserie (administrative) is red tape and dates back to the 1500s. Paperasse is paperwork. Which reminds me. I have more forms to fill out. I’m still trying to get my address changed everywhere.

French language, Italy, Loire Valley châteaux, Weekly Blogger Round-Up, Wine

Weekly Blogger Round-Up: Blois Castle – Marsala in Sicily – French Slang for Money

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I have three totally different subjects for this week’s blogger round-up. Susan from Days on the Claise gives us a lively and interesting history of Blois Castle, while Mary Kay from Out and About in Paris takes us to Sicily where she spent New Year in the snow, starting with Marsala. To finish off, Phoebe from Lou Messugo talks about French slang for money. Enjoy!

Things we never said: the château of Blois

by Susan from Days on the Claise, an Australian living in the south of the Loire Valley, writing about restoring an old house and the area and its history and running Loire Valley Time Travel.

Blois is somewhere we drove through many times before we moved to France, as it’s on the road to the Paris airports.

days_claise_salamander_blois

However, until March ’14 we had never visited the chateau, despite knowing that it is somewhere that really repays a visit with many treasures and some good renaissance architecture, both things of which we are particularly fond. So here are some highlights:

The chateau sits in the middle of town. It was purchased by Louis d’Orléans, brother of mad Charles VI, at the end of the 14th century under somewhat scandalous circumstances when he seduced the young wife of the previous owner. His son Charles inherited, but taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, he was held in captivity for 25 years. Finally in 1440 he was able to return to Blois, which became his favourite residence. He spent the next 30 years writing poetry and rebuilding the chateau, a reaction to the end of the Hundred Years War that was not untypical of his class. Then to everyone’s amazement, he fathered a son and heir at the age of 71. Read more

Marsala: Pantone’s 2015 Color of the Year, a fortified wine and a town in Sicily

by Mary Kay from Out and About in Paris, an American by birth, Swiss by marriage, resident of Paris with a Navigo Pass for the metro that she feels compelled to use

out_and_about_marsalaMarsala. It’s THE current buzz word among fashion and interior designers, make-up artists and graphic designers. Some love it and some hate it. Yet, chances are that you’ll see a lot of this terracotta red shade in 2015. It’s going to be on the catwalks of Paris, the wall of your trendy friend’s apartment and on fashionistas’ lips. Marsala is Pantone’s Color of the Year.

To kick off my series of posts about our recent vacation in Sicily, I thought I would start with a short one about Marsala. This charming town located on the island’s windswept western coast is famous for its glistening white marble streets, stately baroque buildings and fortified wine. Read more

Money, slang, synonyms and all that …

by Phoebe from Lou Messugo, a traveller, francophile, expat, mum and foodie now living in Roquefort les Pins where she runs a gîte after many years of travelling and living in Asia, Eastern Europe and Australia

lou_messugo_moneySomething my son said a few days ago got me thinking.  He said the word “argent” (money) has the most synonyms in the French language.  I can’t vouch that this is an absolute fact as it’s an incredibly hard thing to verify but it would appear to be highly likely from the research I’ve done. Using several dictionaries, Wikipedia and talking to my sons and French friends I’ve come up with a list of 102 words! So even if that’s not the most differences for one little word, it’s certainly a hellava lot. Read more

 

French language

Friday’s French – Retraite, retrait, pension

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I thought that it might be appropriate at the moment to deal with the term retraite in French which means retirement. A similar word is retrait meaning withdrawal as in un retrait d’argent – a cash withdrawal.

Jean Michel qui profite de sa retraite
Jean Michel qui profite de sa retraite

So retraite sort of means withdrawing from one’s working life and, from what I gather, suffering from withdrawal symptoms … Now having withdrawal symptoms in a drug or alcohol situation is expressed in French as être en état de manque where manque literally means something missing.

And that is definitely what Jean Michel is experiencing – something vital is missing from his life – the recognition and power of a managerial position and I’m not much of a substitute!

Retraite doesn’t only mean the act of retirement, but also the money you receive when you retire. Il a une bonne retraite : he has a good pension, as opposed to une petite retraite. You can also say une pension de retraite. Otherwise pension is used in French in the same way as in English e.g. une pension de guerre (a war pension), une pension d’invalidité (a disablement pension), une pension réversible or de réversion (a survivor’s pension).

A retiree or pensioner is un retraité ou un travailleur en retraite. Compulsory retirement is mise à la retraite (which sort of sounds like putting out to pasture) and to retire is prendre sa retraite. If you go into early retirement, it’s prendre une retraite anticipée.

But we’re not finished with retraite yet. It also means a retreat as in a retreating army : une armée en retraite. To beat a retreat is battre en retraite.

It can also be a wolf’s lair or a thieves’ hideout and a chemin de retraite is a path of escape. I like that one. I feel like I need one sometimes.

A retreat in the religious sense is also une retraite, in which case we say faire or suivre une retraite.

And just to go back to retrait, there are a couple of other meanings such as ebb and retreat as in retreating waters.

Not to mention the shrinkage of cement and fabric.

Do you have any other examples of retraite, retrait or pension?

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