Faux Amis

 As I continue my ‘enseignement francais’, one of the things that has piqued my interest (and immense frustration) is the ‘faux amis’.

‘Faux amis’ literally means "fake friends", but here we are talking of ‘mot français’ or French words and there’s nothing to watch your back out for. Just like the real things, they pounce on you when you least suspect it. 

Let me explain. Since French and English are closely related languages within the Indo-European language family, both having derived from Latin, there are many words in French which more less have the same meaning in English. For example, words like Constellation, Danser, Accompagner, Quart, Ancien, Long, Large, Voyager, Musicien, Docteur, Ingénieur, Entrer and Chercher mean more or less what they mean in English. So, one tends to think that when faced with a word which seems to have an equivalent in English, the meaning will be the same. That’s where the ‘faux amis’ warning has relevance.

What do you think of the French word ‘Librairie’? A library, right? but no. A ‘Librairie’ is a bookshop. If you want directions to a real library while in France, you need to ask for a ‘bibliothèque’. There are a number of such ‘faux amis’ lurking in the French shadows and one needs to watch out for them all the them. Here are a few more that have piquéd me no end.

‘Chance’ means luck and ‘bon chance’ is good luck.

‘Crier’ means to shout or to scream

‘Gentil’ is not gentle, but someone or something that’s nice and sweet

A ‘Roman’ is not a person from Rome, but a novel (as in, a work of long fiction).

‘Pain’ means bread and there’s no pain in it. It’s pronounced paan, with a ‘n’ at the end being almost silent, and the ‘pao’ we consume in Mumbai is from the same root word (via Portugal I presume)

‘Miserable’ means poor and does not convey any feeling of misery. Remember Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables?

‘Sale’ means dirty

Then there are words, which make you feel betrayed, but then on reflection, you feel that it their meaning isn’t too very different from the meaning in English.

For example, a ‘reunion’ is a formal meeting and if you think about it, that not too far off the mark. ‘Content’ means happy. Every teacher is called a professeur, not just those teaching in colleges and other places of higher learning. Nouveaux (m) /nouvelle (f) is not a novel, as in a work of long fiction, but something new, but hey a novel idea is something we’ve all heard of, havent we?  I think for now I’ll call these words ‘amis du beau temps’ or fair-weather friends. What do you think?

A hat tip to my French teacher (Ms. Vinita Mokashi) for sending me a list of faux amis.