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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

The 21 most annoying ‘false friends’ in French

Avoid ghastly gaffs in French-speaking Switzerland by reading our handy guide.

Published: 19 September 2017 10:40 CEST
The 21 most annoying ‘false friends’ in French
Photo: feelphotoartz/Depositphotos
French is littered with pesky ‘faux amis’ – words that look or sound the same or similar as English words but mean something entirely different. 
 
They can be harmless, inconvenient, or downright embarrassing. Here are some of the irritating false friends to watch out for if you are living or travelling in French-speaking Switzerland. 
 
1. Excité
 
You want to tell your Swiss French friend you’re very excited about something? ‘Excité’ sounds like the word you should use, right? Unfortunately not. You just told your friend you were ‘aroused’, probably not what you were going for. ‘Enthusiaste’ is better.
 
2. Apologie
 
So you’ve accidentally let out a loud burp at a dinner party. Cringing of embarrassment, you quickly issue an ‘apologie’. The only trouble is that in French, you’ve just told them that you ‘condone’ or ‘justify’ such table manners. ‘Pardon’ and ‘excusez-moi’ are both polite alternatives.
 
3. Blesser
 
While a well-meaning English-speaker might feel the temptation to throw out a ‘blessez-vous’ when someone sneezes, try not to. In French, the verb ‘blesser’ doesn’t mean ‘to bless’ but ‘to injure’. The expression to use here is ‘à vos souhaits’. Incidentally, ‘injurier’ means ‘abuse’.
 
Don't say 'blessez-vous'. Photo: Knut_Wiarder/Depositphotos
 
4. Chair
 
Looking for a chair at a party? Use the word ‘chaise’. ‘Chair’ in French means flesh and you might get some weird looks if you tell the party hosts you’re looking for some.
 
5. Slip
 
This one could easily get your knickers in a knot. Especially since ‘slip’ in French translates into ‘men’s briefs’. If you’ve slipped on the snowy Swiss streets and you want to tell your friends about it, better to use the verb ‘glisser’.
 
6. Bras
 
While we're on the subject of underwear, it’s best not to go into a shop’s lingerie section and ask for un ‘bras’ (silent s) – you’ve already got two of those; they’re your arms. The word for a bra is ‘soutien-gorge’.
 
 
7. Piles
 
You have a brutal headache and you head to the local pharmacy in search of pills to cure you. But don’t say ‘piles’, since that actually means batteries.
 
8. Batterie
 
Speaking of which, don’t ask for a ‘batterie’ if your camera/watch/gadget has run out of power, because that means both ‘drum kit’ and an artillery grouping. 
 
9. Librarie
 
Ask for the ‘librairie’ and you’ll be directed to a bookshop (where you have to pay) rather than a library (which is free). The word for library is ‘bibliothèque’.
 
Looking for the library? Don't ask for the 'librarie'. Photo: Kevin Wong/Flickr
 
10. Sensible
 
An easy one to get wrong, you might think ‘sensible’ means the same in both English and French, but that’s not so. In French it means ‘sensitive’ – probably not the best word to use when describing yourself in a job interview. Try ‘raisonnable’ instead.
 
11. S’introduire
 
One of the most two-faced of false friends is the verb ‘s’introduire’. Naturally, you would think it means ‘to introduce’. It actually means ‘to penetrate, insert or enter’. So next time you meet a group of Swiss French people and you want to suggest you should all introduce each other, the verb you’re looking for is ‘se présenter’.
 
12. Luxurieux
 
Yes, ‘de luxe’ means luxury, but if you want to say ‘luxurious’ don’t try to say it with a French accent, because it will probably come out as ‘luxurieux’ which means ‘lustful’ or ‘lascivious’ – and that luxurious hotel you spent the weekend in starts to sound more like a swingers club. 
 
 
13. Préservatif
 
Everyone knows this one. ‘Préservatif’ doesn't mean ‘preservative’ at all – it’s actually the word for ‘condom’. Not one to muddle up.
 
14. Ignorer
 
You can use ‘ignorer’ to mean ‘ignore’, but that’s not the most common usage. Most of the time if someone says ‘j’ignore…’, it means they don’t know something (ie, they are ignorant of…). If you want to express the English meaning of ‘ignore’, you should try the more long-winded ‘je ne tiens aucun compte de…’
 
15. Deception
 
If your friend is telling you about a big ‘deception’, don’t assume that someone’s tried to pull the wool over their eyes. The word doesn’t have the same sense in French – it actually means ‘disappointment’. Likewise the verb ‘decevoir’ means to ‘disappoint’, not ‘deceive’. Deception/to deceive in French would be ‘tromperie’/’tromper’.
 
16. Monnaie
 
Monnaie doesn't mean money, it means loose change. So technically it's easy to pay for things in French-speaking Switzerland when you have no 'monnaie' – you could have notes, after all – but if you have no money, well then you're going home empty handed. 
 
No change? That's monnaie, not coins. Photo: Marcel Grieder/Flickr
 
17. Coin
 
On the subject of money, ‘coin’ in French has nothing to do with cash – it means ‘corner’ or ‘neighbourhood’.
 
18. Ancien
 
No, your friend’s ‘ancien’ husband isn’t really really old, he’s just her ex – ‘ancien’ usually means ‘former’, rather than ‘ancient’. 
 
19. Attendre
 
You’re telling a mate about this great event you’re off to – but don’t use ‘attendre’ to mean ‘attend’ or they’ll look at you a bit funny because it means ‘to wait’. Instead, use another false friend – ‘assister à’ – which doesn’t mean ‘assist’ but ‘attend’. Got that?
 
20. Sale
 
If you’re out shopping and want to know if something’s on sale, don’t use ‘sale’ in French – that actually means dirty. Sales in the shops are called ‘soldes’. 
 
21. Action
 
Speaking of which, the word ‘action’ in French-speaking Switzerland has nothing to do with physical actions. It’s another word for ‘sale’ or ‘special offer’ – a good word to look out for in the usually pricey Swiss shops.
 
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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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