{"id":9651,"date":"2017-01-03T11:15:01","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T09:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.frenchcourses-paris.com\/?p=9651"},"modified":"2017-02-14T19:05:54","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T17:05:54","slug":"pardon-my-french-the-french-false-cognates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.frenchcourses-paris.com\/fr\/french-courses-paris\/pardon-my-french-the-french-false-cognates\/","title":{"rendered":"Pardon my French! The French False cognates"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>The false friends of the French language<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3>There are numerous false cognates between French and English that often mislead students when learning French. For example, \u00ab\u00a0coin\u00a0\u00bb in French has nothing to do with money.<\/h3>\n<h3>The French false cognates can be harmless, inconvenient, or downright embarrassing.<\/h3>\n<h4>In this article we provide some of the most common French faux amis that students encounter when studying the language.<\/h4>\n<h4><strong><br \/>\n1. Excited vs. Excit\u00e9(e)<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>You want to tell your French friend you\u2019re very excited about something? \u00ab\u00a0Excit\u00e9\u00a0\u00bb sounds like the word you should use, right? Unfortunately not. You just told your friend you were \u00ab\u00a0aroused\u00a0\u00bb, probably not what you were going for. \u00ab\u00a0Enthousiaste\u00a0\u00bb is much better.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>2. Actuellement vs. Actually<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Most French words ending in \u201c-ement\u201d or \u00ab\u00a0-amment\u00a0\u00bb have their English equivalent ending in \u201cally\u201d. For instance:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Naturellement:\u00a0 naturally<\/li>\n<li>Accidentellement:\u00a0 accidentally<\/li>\n<li>Exceptionnellement:\u00a0 exceptionally<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But \u201cactuellement\u201d doesn\u2019t mean \u201cactually\u201d, it means \u201ccurrently\u201d<\/p>\n<h4><strong>3. Eventuellement vs. Eventually<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>In France \u201c\u00e9ventuellement\u201d means \u201cpossibly\u201d and not \u201ceventually\u201d.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>4. Plus or Plus?<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>What a deceptive little word. Depending on how you pronounce it, it can mean two opposite things &#8211; either \u00ab\u00a0more\u00a0\u00bb or \u00ab\u00a0none\u00a0\u00bb. Eg: Il y en a plus (pronouncing the &lsquo;s&rsquo;) means there is more. Il n&rsquo;y en a plus (&lsquo;s&rsquo; silent) means there isn&rsquo;t any left. See <a href=\"http:\/\/www.frenchcourses-paris.com\/plus-prononciation-du-s.html\">this article<\/a> to learn about the prononciation rules of \u00ab\u00a0plus\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>5. Person vs. Personne<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>This also has two opposite meanings: no one and someone.<br \/>\nIl y a une personne dans le caf\u00e9 means \u00ab\u00a0There is one person in the coffee shop\u00a0\u00bb.<br \/>\nIl n&rsquo;y a personne dans le caf\u00e9 means \u00ab\u00a0There is no one in the coffee shop\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>5. Library vs. Librarie<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Ask for the \u00ab\u00a0librairie\u00a0\u00bb in France and you\u2019ll be directed to a bookshop (where you have to pay) rather than a library (which is free). The word for library is biblioth\u00e8que.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>6. Sensitive vs. Sensible<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Identical, right? Not so. \u201cSensible\u201d means \u201csensitive\u201d in French and it\u2019s probably not the best word to use when describing yourself in a job interview. Try \u00ab\u00a0raisonnable\u00a0\u00bb instead.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>7. Money vs. Monnaie<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Monnaie doesn&rsquo;t mean money in French, it means loose change. So technically it&rsquo;s easy to pay for things in France when you have no monnaie (you could have notes, after all) &#8211; but if you have no money, well then you&rsquo;re going home empty handed.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>8. Introduce vs. s\u2019introduire<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>As if an introduction in France wasn\u2019t a fraught experience already, one of the most two-faced of <strong>false friends in French<\/strong> is the verb \u201cs\u2019introduire\u201d. Naturally, you would think it means \u2018to introduce\u2019. It actually means to insert or enter. So next time you meet a group of French people and you want to suggest you should all introduce each other\u201d, the verb you\u2019re looking for is \u201cse pr\u00e9senter\u201d.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>9. Rester vs. Rest<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>\u201cRester\u201d looks like the English verb \u201cto rest\u201d, but it actually means \u201cto stay\u201d. \u201cTo rest\u201d is \u201cse reposer\u201d.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>10. Attendre vs Attend<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Attendre \u00e0 means <i>to wait for<\/i>: Nous avons attendu pendant deux heures &#8211; We waited for two hours. To attend is translated by <i>assister<\/i> (see above): I attended the conference &#8211; J&rsquo;ai assist\u00e9 \u00e0 la conf\u00e9rence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The false friends of the French language There are numerous false cognates between French and English that often mislead students [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9661,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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false friends of the French language There are numerous false cognates between French and English that often mislead students [&hellip;]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frenchcourses-paris.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frenchcourses-paris.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frenchcourses-paris.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frenchcourses-paris.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frenchcourses-paris.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.frenchcourses-paris.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frenchcourses-paris.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.frenchcourses-paris.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frenchcourses-paris.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.frenchcourses-paris.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}