A small group of French verbs ending in -oir can also be used as masculine nouns, usually with le or l’. These nouns come from the infinitive forms of the verbs. This use of the infinitive became standard with a handful of verbs, giving us nouns such as le pouvoir, le savoir, l’avoir, le devoir…
Many French and English adjectives ending in -able are spelt the same way and have the same meaning. Probable means “probable”, capable means “capable”, and durable means “durable”. Both languages inherited this ending from Latin -abilis. In most cases, the English word came from French. The differences between French and English are usually quite small:…
Unlike most pairs of French and English words, adjectives ending in -ible often look identical, or nearly identical, in both languages. Possible is “possible”, terrible is “terrible”, and visible is “visible”. Both languages took this ending from the same source, the Latin ending -ibilis, added to a verb to describe something that can be done…
Many English adjectives and nouns ending in “-ary” have a close match in French, with the ending -aire instead. “Necessary” becomes nécessaire, “ordinary” becomes ordinaire, and “military” becomes militaire. As with other pairs of this kind, both endings come from the same source, the Latin ending -arius, -aria or -arium, rather than French borrowing directly…
A large number of French adjectives ending in -ique line up neatly with English adjectives ending in “-ical”. Électrique matches “electrical”, pratique matches “practical”, and politique matches “political”. The match is so regular that a learner can often guess the French word for an English “-ical” adjective simply by dropping the “-al” and adjusting the…
Faute de is a French prepositional phrase meaning “for lack of,” “for want of,” or “in the absence of.” It comes from the noun faute, meaning “fault” or “lack,” combined with the preposition de. The phrase points to something missing and shows how that absence leads to a result. Basic meaning Faute de introduces the…
À toi de décider means “it’s up to you to decide” or “your call.” It is a common way in French to hand a decision, a task, or a turn over to someone else. The structure is flexible: the pronoun changes depending on who is being addressed or referred to, and the verb changes depending…
France likes to present itself as a champion of linguistic diversity. On paper, secondary school students can choose from a dozen or more foreign languages, plus regional tongues like Breton, Corsican, and Occitan. In practice, though, the numbers tell a much simpler story: a handful of languages dominate, and everything else is a rounding error….
If you’ve ever tried to say something like “despite the fact that he was tired, he kept going” in French, you may have instinctively reached for malgré. It’s the word every textbook gives you for “despite,” so it feels like the obvious choice. But there’s a catch: malgré is a preposition, and prepositions in French…
French words ending in -ix are uncommon. Most nouns ending in -ix are masculine, but some important exceptions are feminine. The ending -ix does not reliably show the gender of a noun, so learners should usually learn each noun together with its article. The ending also appears in some place names, such as Aix-en-Provence and…
