How do you pronounce the letters “im” or “in” when they occur at the start of a word in French? Are they nasal or not? As you can see in the two tables below, the rules are simple. “im” or “in” plus a consonant are nasal. But “imm,” “inn,” “im + vowel,” or “in +…
“Battre la campagne” is a French saying that literally means “to beat the countryside.” What it really means is “to talk nonsense,” “to rant,” or “to travel over large areas in search of something or someone.” It comes from a practice used by hunters of getting servants or friends to use sticks to beat bushes…
If you want to use the Passé Composé verb tense in French, you will need to know four things: The table below contains a list of French verbs with irregular past participles, along with similar verbs whose past participles are constructed in a similar way. Eg, just as the past participle of venir is venu,…
In the French verb tense “Passé Composé,” most verbs are conjugated with “avoir.” So for example, “I have given” is “j’ai donné,” which literally translates to “I have given.” But some intransitive verbs are conjugated with “être,” the verb “to be.” What is an intransitive verb? An intransitive verb is a verb without an object….
The “passé composé” means the “compound past.” It is called the compound past because it is made up of two verbs put together into a compound form. Eg “I do” is the present tense and it is called a simple tense, because it only has one verb. But “I have done” is a compound tense…
The Conditional tense expresses the idea that you WOULD do something, if a specific condition is met. So in English, it involves either the word “would” or its abbreviation “‘d” (apostrophe d). If we take the English verb “to give,” its conditional would be “I would give” or “I’d give.” The conditional of the English…
The Imperfect verb tense (l’imparfait) in French is used to express continuous action in the past. If we use the English verb “to give” as an example, the meanings of the French Imperfect version of this verb would be “I was giving,” “I used to give,” “I kept on giving,” or even “I gave.” There…
“Sur les chapeaux de roues” is a French saying that literally translates as “on the hats of the wheels.” A better translation would be “on the hubcaps.” It is a way of saying “at high speed.” If a vehicle travels at high speed and goes around a curve or a corner, it will tend to…
“Coeur d’artichaut” is a French saying that translates literally as “heart of artichoke” or “artichoke heart.” What it really means is someone who falls in love easily, or it can also mean someone who is fickle in love. An artichoke is a vegetable with tough leaves on the outside and a much softer centre. Comparing…
“Faire son miel de” is a French saying whose literal translation is “to make one’s honey from.” It means to make a profit from, or to take advantage of a situation to earn a lot of money. It comes from the activity of bees, who are known not only for their industriousness and hard work, but…