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Rugby vocabulary to know if watching the Six Nations in France
From un tampon to une cathédrale, understand the meaning of key French rugby terms
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Duck Cold! Four French phrases to use when it is freezing outside
We remind you of French expressions to use to describe the drop in temperature
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When and why do we say le moral dans les chaussettes?
We explore this useful expression that describes low spirits
Connexion tip: Know your "Faux-amis"
One pitfall when learning French is the deceptive faux amis – words that appear the same in French and English when, ‘actuellement’, they have different meanings.
Actuellement is one of them. It does not mean actually, en fait, but currently.
So, where do these language traps come from?
English, despite belonging to the Germanic family of language, has many words that are influenced by the French, ever since 1066, and changed little in spelling or meaning: such as “intelligence”, “situation” or “accident”. After the English defeat at the hands of the French in the Hundred Years War, English started to undergo a revival and the two languages increasingly went their separate ways.
Sandrine Durand, a French language tutor at Lalangue Paris, says: “Often that’s how faux-amis arise: the word evolves in meaning in one language but not the other but still sounds the same.”
Others include library (the French librairie means bookshop), assister (to attend), blesser (to injure) and above all take note that préservatifs refers to condoms, not preservatives which are conservateurs.
You can find tips like this and much more in our Moving to France guide, on sale now.
