The French verb aimer can mean both “to like” and “to love.” Its meaning depends on the person or thing that follows it, the article used with it, and the wider context. French also has several other ways to express fondness, strong interest, preference, attraction, and love. Aimer with people When aimer is used with…
The usual French translation of “What is it?” is Qu’est-ce que c’est ? In everyday speech, French speakers often say C’est quoi ? instead. The best choice depends on the setting, the tone, and what “it” means in context. The standard expression Qu’est-ce que c’est ? “What is it?” This is the safest and most…
English attaches “else” to pronouns and adverbs to point to an additional or different one: something else, anyone else, nowhere else, nothing else, somewhere else. French has no single word that does this job. Instead, it builds the same meaning from a small set of parts, chiefly autre (“other”), d’autre (“else”), ailleurs (“elsewhere”) and autre…
Contre is a small French word with a wide reach. Its core meaning is “against,” but depending on the sentence it can also translate as “for,” “to,” or “however.” It works mainly as a preposition, though it also appears as an adverb and as a noun. Part of speech Contre can function in three ways:…
Many French expressions ending in que are followed by the subjunctive. These include expressions of condition, purpose, doubt, necessity, emotion, concession and events that have not yet happened. Other expressions ending in que take the indicative instead. The word que itself does not determine the mood. Expressions that take the subjunctive Here is an alphabetised…
Both enfin and finalement can mean “finally” or “at last” in English. French speakers use them daily, often without thinking. But they do not always mean the same thing, and swapping one for the other can change the feel of a sentence. This article breaks down how each word works, where they overlap, and where…
“However” does two different jobs in English. It can introduce a contrast, meaning roughly “but” or “nevertheless.” It can also show degree, meaning “no matter how.” French uses separate words for each job, so picking the right one depends on which sense of “however” is meant. However meaning “nevertheless” This is the more common use,…
French has one clean, closed vowel sound that English speakers usually associate with “ay,” as in the English word “day.” What makes it tricky is that French writes this single sound in several different ways, and in most of these spellings, a final consonant is written but not pronounced. Recognising the pattern makes reading French…
In French, the letters c and g change sound depending on the vowel that follows them. Both letters have a “hard” sound and a “soft” sound, and the choice between the two is decided by whether the next letter is a, o, u, or e, i, y. French spelling also has three tools, a silent…
Many French words end in the letters “-er,” yet this ending is not pronounced the same way every time. In most cases it sounds like “ay,” as in parler – “to speak.” In a smaller group of words, the final r is actually pronounced, giving a sound closer to “air,” as in hier – “yesterday.”…
