The term hors d’oeuvres refers to small dishes of food served before a meal. They are meant to be eaten in one or two bites. They are often passed around on trays at parties or set out on a table for guests to take for themselves. The idea is to take the edge off hunger…
French present participles do not agree in gender and number. The French present participle is invariable. It does not change to show masculine or feminine, singular or plural. But there is one point of confusion. The present participle can look the same as a verbal adjective. The verbal adjective does agree. Present participle versus verbal…
People learning French often notice something strange. Some sentences look wrong, because two complete thoughts sit on either side of a comma. There is no connecting word, no semicolon, no em dash — just a comma separating them. In English, this is called a run on sentence, or a comma splice. It’s regarded as an…
English has many words that end in “em,” like problem, system, and poem, and most of them come from French. The French versions end in “ème” instead, so problem becomes le problème, system becomes le système, and poem becomes le poème. The pattern is simple: you just change the “em” at the end to “ème.”…
French adverb placement follows rules. It is not the same as English. Adverbs can go before or after the verb. They can also start or end a sentence. Their place often depends on the type of adverb and the tense. Short adverbs with simple tenses Most short adverbs go right after the verb in simple…
English has many words that end in “ty,” like liberty, beauty, and certainty, and they almost all come from French. The French versions end in “té” instead, so liberty becomes la liberté, beauty becomes la beauté, and certainty becomes la certitude. The pattern is simple for most of them: you just drop the “y” from…
French nouns ending in “-ard” are not common, but they are useful. The suffix usually turns a verb into a noun for a person. Often, this person is defined by a habit, and the word carries a negative tone. It can describe someone who does something too much or in an annoying way. The ending…
The french words “deux” (meaning “two”) and “de” (meaning “of”) sound different to a French ear. They are easy to confuse for a learner because they are short and share the letter “d.” But the way you say them is not the same. The difference is in the vowel sound. “Deux” has a sound like…
Revenir à is a common French verb phrase with several core meanings. It can mean to come back to a place, to return to a topic, to go back to a previous state, or to amount to a sum. The exact meaning depends on context. The basic idea is movement back toward something, real or…
French uses two distinct nouns with identical spelling but different grammatical gender and meaning: le vague (masculine) and la vague (feminine). They are not interchangeable. Confusing them results in a change of meaning, not a minor grammatical error. La vague La vague is a feminine noun. It refers primarily to a physical wave. By extension,…