Tag Archives: confusing pairs
L’on vs. On – What’s the Difference? Posted by Josh Dougherty on Oct 20, 2016
Bon or bien? An or année? C’est or il est? Tu or vous? As a student of French, you often encounter tricky pairs that don’t have an exact equivalent in your language. They require additional studying with plenty of examples for them to finally click, but eventually they become second nature. We’ve discussed many of…
Never Ever be Confused by This French Word Again! Posted by Josh Dougherty on Sep 15, 2016
Bonjour, tout le monde ! As a French student, you already know that the language is beautiful, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a little tricky. When you learn a second language, you start to notice a few things about your native tongue that you may have never considered before. Why is our grammar…
Pucker Up! Bises vs. Bisous Posted by Josh Dougherty on Jun 30, 2016
The other day, I was asked to explain the difference between two words, so I decided it would make a nice little post and clear up any confusion our readers may also be having with some same confusing pair. Now that you’ve mastered c’est vs. il est, dans vs. en, and encore vs. toujours, let’s explore…
Part 2: Line by Line Lesson: “Le droit à l’erreur” by Amel Bent Posted by Josh Dougherty on Mar 17, 2016
La semaine dernière (last week), I posted microlessons from the first 12 lines of Amel Bent’s Le droit à l’erreur (The Right to be Mistaken). The previous lessons focused on indefinite expressions, multiple word meanings, the 5 senses, negations, le passé composé vs. l’imparfait, the past infinitive, intensifiers, the uses of the word tout, coordinating…
So Many Confusing Pairs! Encore vs. Toujours Posted by Josh Dougherty on Oct 1, 2015
Continuing this week with another post in the confusing pairs series, today we’re going to look at 2 little words that can have 10 English meanings. Their usage overlaps in some cases, so it’s very easy to mix the two up. Si vous n’avez pas encore deviné les 2 mots (If you haven’t already guessed the 2…
Il est facile? C’est facile? Confusing Pairs: C’est vs. Il Est Posted by Josh Dougherty on Sep 18, 2015
French has many confusing pairs for new learners. This mostly stems from the fact that these pairs only have 1 English equivalent that just doesn’t work in French. For example: Quelle est la différence entre an et année (What’s the difference between an and année)? In English, they both mean year, but the two words…
Can You BRING Me to My French Class? No, but I Can TAKE You… Posted by Josh Dougherty on Aug 27, 2015
Unless you are already on the moon, I’m not going to say this to you! It doesn’t matter how much I want to go there. Logically speaking, ‘bring’ and ‘take’ shouldn’t cause too much confusion, but I hear native speakers make this mistake time and time again (talking about English, by the way). “I’m going to…