Archive for March, 2009
French Language – Faux Amis Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 30, 2009
When you’re learning French and especially, when you’re trying to speak French, you can get easily confused or confuse others with these deceitful false friends or false cognates. Faux amis, as they are called in French, are pairs of words that seem to be similar in two different languages, but in fact, are not. I’ll…
French Language – Negation Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 28, 2009
In the French language, there are different ways to be negative…to express negativity. Perhaps the most common is when you want the sentence to be negative. In that case, you place ne before the main verb and pas after it. Or, if you want to say that you never do something, you place ne before…
French Language – Semi Auxiliaries Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 27, 2009
In the French language, semi-auxiliaries are the same as in the English language. They are multi-word verbs that occur before main verbs. In English, these semi-auxiliaries include: have to, get to, be about to, used to, mean to, be going to, etc. In French, many of the semi-auxiliaries are the same as the English ones…
French Culture – Musée du Louvre Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 23, 2009
One of my favorite places to immerse myself in French culture when I visit Paris is the Louvre. Every time I walk up to the former royal fortress, I am filled with awe, despite the long lines of tourists around me. At the same time, I feel proud that an American’s work of art is…
French Language – Voilà or Il y a Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 17, 2009
Voilà is one of my favorite expressions in French. It just seems so French and much more appealing than its English equivalents: ‘there is’ and ‘there are’. However, you must be careful because Il y a has the same English translation so to speak, but the meaning or useage is different. Voilà is used as if you are pointing…
The French Love Facebook Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 12, 2009
Yes, the Internet social network Facebook has become a craze all over the world. But, the French absolutely LOVE it. Back in October 2008, there were over 4.1 million active users. It is so surprisingly popular that the company is planning to establish offices in Paris and the site was translated by users in just…
How to Make French Nouns Plural Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 11, 2009
Making nouns plural in the French language can be a bit more complicated than English, but perhaps not. Just like in English, you normally add an -s to the written form of the singular. I say written form, because usually the pronunciation doesn’t change one bit when using a plural noun, except for the links…