Don’t you love it when a song you hadn’t heard in a long time comes on and you can sing along like a pro? This recently happened to me with a song I listened to when I started learning French. I didn’t know the lyrics well – it was always a song I had on my Zune (remember those? anyone?), but I never studied the lyrics. Knowing only minimal French and trying to memorize the words can lead to some pretty funny results. Do you know the expression chanter en yaourt? It literally means to sing in yogurt, but it refers to the fact the words you’re singing in a foreign language are waaayyy off. That was me with this song.

Now that I understand what’s being sung, I can only laugh at my ridiculous attempt. For this two-part series, I decided to break down each line of the song and present a microlesson of its contents. The lessons aren’t long, but they will present a (potentially) new concept for you.

First, let’s start with the song: Le droit à l’erreur (The Right to be Mistaken) by Amel Bent.

The lessons below present each line and its translation. The 12 lessons cover the first minute and a half of the song, and the rest will be presented next week. Happy studies!

 

Line 1
Je ne marche plus droit – je fais n’importe quoi
I’m not acting right anymore [lit:I don’t walk straight anymore] – I’m doing whatever.

n’importe is an indefinite expression that can be translated as “no matter.” It’s followed by another word to designate an unspecified person or thing.

The most common ones are:

• n’importe quoi – anything / whatever
  Il chantera n’importe quoi. / He’ll sing anything
• n’importe qui – anyone
  Marle parle avec n’importe qui. / Marie talks to anyone.
• n’importe lequel – any (one)
  Quel parfum aimerais-tu goûter ? N’importe lequel. / Which flavor would you like to try? Any.
• n’importe où – anywhere
  Il irait n’importe où avec toi. / He’d go anywhere with you.
• n’importe quand – any time
  Tu peux passer nous voir n’importe quand ! / You can come visit us whenever!

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Line 2
J’ai devant moi un mur qui m’empêche d’avancer.
There’s a wall in front of me [lit: I have a wall in front of me] stopping me from going father.

Directional words are extremely important in all languages. Here are a few!

• à gauche – on the left
• à droite – on the right
• tout droit – straight ahead
• devant – in front of
• derrière – in back of / behind
• à côté de – next to

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Line 3
Le réveil est brutal, les nuits baignées de larmes.
Waking up is sudden, the nights are full of [lit: bathed in] tears.

Le réveil means waking up, but it’s also the same word for the actual thing that wakes you up – an alarm clock! You can also figure out its meaning from a verb you learned early on: se réveiller.

We also have a similar word in English! Do you know the name of the bugle piece played first thing in the morning in the army?

Baignées has an e and an s on the end because it’s an adjective describing the pluralized version of the feminine noun nuit.

*****

Line 4
Et je suis la coupable à condamner
And I’m the culprit who should be [lit: to be] condemned.

Coupable is both a noun (culprit / guilty party) and an adjective (guilty). Guilt in French is la culpabilité. Its opposite, innocent, follows the same pattern: l’innocent(e), innocent(e), and l’innocence.  As a noun, l’innocent can also be a naive person. Context is important!

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Line 5
J’ai perdu la direction et le sens
I have lost direction and the way.
Le sens has a lot of meanings in French. Here, it means “the way.” It can also be “sense” or “meaning.” Can you name the 5 senses in French? They are: la vue, l’ouïe, le goût, le toucher, and l’odorat (sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell).

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Line 6
Je ne sais pas tenir la distance.
I don’t know how to stay the course [lit: to hold the distance].

The most basic way to negate a sentence is to add ne before the verb and pas after. Translated into English, you’ll mostly see this as “don’t,” but do you know some other negation markers in French?

• ne…aucun(e) (de) – none/any
• ne…personne – no one
• ne…rien – nothing
• ne…que – only
• ne…jamais – never
• ne…pas encore – not yet
• ne…plus – no longer
• ne…pas du tout – not at all

*****

Line 7
Je croyais tout savoir de nous.
I thought [lit: believed] I knew everything about us.

Clearly, the couple’s relationship is already over, so why is croire in the imparfait and not in the passé composé? The imperfect tense is used to describe what is happening at a given time (the weather or what you were doing when something occurred, for example) or, as in this case, to describe an ongoing event or habit. Amel didn’t just believe she knew everything about them once – she constantly thought this for an unspecified amount of time, so the imperfect is appropriate. Learn more about the imperfect here!

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Line 8
Être arrivée jusqu’au bout
That I had reached the end.

Être arrivée is an example of l’infinitif passé (past infinitive). This tense is often, but not always, preceded by the word après. Par exemple: Après t’avoir vu, j’ai décidé de me mettre au régime (For example: After having seen you, I decided to go on a diet.). In English, we often form this construction a different way (After I saw you…), but the concept is the same: it describes an action before the main verb of the sentence takes place.

Its construction is rather simple: conjugate the appropriate auxiliary verb (avoir or être) and tack on the past participle.

*****

Line 9
Et tenir si bien le coup
And that I held on so well (to the end)

Si in this line is an intensifier to describe how well she held on. It’s similar to très. Want to learn more about its usage in this context? Read Elizabeth’s post here!

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Line 10
Je croyais tout savoir de moi.
I thought [lit: believed] I knew everything about myself.

Tout is a very versatile word in French. It is most commonly translated as “all,” like in this lyric, but it has other meanings and usages. You can read tout sur tout (everything about tout) here.

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Line 11
Mais il y a tellement de choses qu’on ne sait pas
But there are so many things nobody knows

Mais is a very useful coordinating conjunction. These words join together other similar words or groups of words. Other common coordinating conjunctions include:

• car – because; for
• donc – so
• ensuite – next
• et – and
• or – now, yet
• ou – or
• puis – then

Be sure to read this lesson on coordinating and subordinating clauses for even more information.

*****

Line 12
Comme toi
Like you

Toi and tu both mean “you,” so why is toi used here?

Tu is used exclusively as the subject of a sentence. It will always take a verb: Tu appelles ta grand-mère tous les lundis (You call your grandma every Monday).

Toi, on the other hand, is a stressed pronoun. It will never take a verb (unless unless it’s the second subject to one verb) and will always be an object (of a preposition, for example). Each subject pronoun has an object counterpart.

• je – moi
• tu – toi
• il/elle/on – lui/elle/soi
• nous – nous
• vous – vous
• ils/elles – eux/elles

À suivre… (to be continued)