French Words You Already Know In English

French menus need not be a mystery. You already know many French words.

French flag

B

ballet

banquette

bête noire 

bon - good, used in bonjour, good day, bonsoir, good evening, and bon-bon the sweet

boulevard

bouquet

brasserie - eatery

brassiere - bra, item of women's clothing also called soutien gorge which means lift neck which is a euphemism or polite word

C

cafe

cafetiere

centre - centre

chauffeur

coiffeur

corps - body, corps de ballet

croissant

E

entrepreneur - person who starts businesses and enterprises, entre-enter - prener to take

et - and , as in son et lumiere

fumer - to smoke, as in pas de fumer, no smoking, no fumes. De means of. ne - pas is no.

L

lait - milk, cafe au lait is coffee with milk, au is at 

lumiere, as in son et lumiere, light

M

madame - madam

matinee - afternoon performance, matin is morning

menu - le menu is the menu

mortgage - literally dead hand

moulin - mill or windmill as in Moulin Rouge, red windmill, a London landmark

N

naive

ne - no, don't 

noir - black, as in film noir which is a gloomy or sad film

Nom de plume - pen name, literally name of pen

P

President

R

r.s.v.p respondeez s'il vous plait - reply /respond please, literally if (it) you please

regrette - regret, as in the Edith Piaf song, je ne regrette rien, I don't regret nothing (anything) 

renaissance - rebirth, art era, newspaper name

republique - republic (newspaper name and street name)

Restaurant

Reunion - meeting

rouge - red, as in the cosmetic, also as in moulin rouge, red windmill, adjective second after the noun

S

servis - service, as in servis compris means service included

son et lumiere - sound and light

suave

T

train - train (written the same way, pronounced tran, just the same without the letter i)

V

Ville - town, centre ville means centre of the town

W

W le weekend - the weekend - le is the, weekend is an English word which pops up in conversational French

Useful Websites For Spelling & Meaning & Inserting Accents

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/bete-noire

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French words in English - Brasserie, brassiere - how many do you know?

 

My family has been keeping a list of French words which pop up in English. We have found more than 300, not counting  food and words used in cookery.

Wikipedia has many more. But a lot of them are obscure.

Flanders and Swan wrote and performed an amusing song in which all the rhymes were Fench words.

The ones which immediately spring to my mind are these>

ballet

belle

bouquet

brassiere

brasserie

chauffeur

coiffure

portmanteau

nom de plume

banquette

That's ten. Let's see if I can find another ten quickly.

bourgoise

bureau

cuisine

gourmand

gourmet

chef

hors d'oeuvre

matinee

rendez-vous

rsvp

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_French_expressions_in_English

About the Author

Angela Lansbury, is a semi-retired travel writer still researching bucket list countries and seeking out the special, unusual, people, places,  landmarks, hotels, museums and trails, fabulous foods, recipes, clothes and online souvenir shopping.

Angela Lansbury is a member of Toastmasters International.

About the Author Angela Lansbury

The Author - Quick Quotations

Angela Lansbury B A Hons  is the author of ten books by regular publishers plus another ten self-published books. 

About Angela The Speaker & Trainer

Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages to Toastmasters clubs and businesses.

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Vice President  Public Relations, Immediate Past President. VPPR

Former Area Director S3. Club Coach for Nee Soon South Toastmasters Club.

Also Member of: TCA Toastmasters Club; Singapore Online Dynamic; Harrovians UK

BHA

Past meetings have included Garen Tee on using story telling in business, on 

bha.learncool.sg/meet/bha . 

Recent meetings of BHA included an educational session on using Powerpoint for posters.

Next BHA meetings, always first Wednesday evening, 7 pm Singapore time. Next meeting is  the third Saturday afternoon, June 19th 2pm Singapore time.  Inauguration of the new committee was by the incoming Director of S, plus a lively speech on teamwork.

Next meetings will be on these dates (unless a national holiday in Singapore or worldwide)

Themes and word of the day are tentative

2021

JULY - JUBILANT JULY

Theme/WOD Jubilant

WORKSHOPS & EDUCATIONAL SESSIONS (based on level one of Pathways)

1 Your first speech or role EASY ENGLISH LANGUAGE (Articles A and The, Plurals, Tenses, Pronunciation, Singlish)

2 CHOOSE YOUR PATH

Wed July 7th What Your Committee Can Do For You

Saturday 17th

July 4th American Independence Day.

2021 AUGUST - AWESOME AUGUST

1 Pathway Level 1 Introductory Speeches

2 Evaluations

Wed 4th

Sat 21

2021 SEPT - SUPER SEPTEMBER

Wed 1st

Sat 18th SPEECH CONTESTS

Humorous Speech Contest

Table Topics Contest

2021 OCT - ODD OCTOBER

Wed 6th

Sat 16th

2021 NOV - NOVELTY NOVEMBER

Wed 3rd

Sat 20th Wed

Diwali Hindu Festival of lights Nov 4th.

Nov 25th American Thanksgiving.

Hanukah starts 28 Dec 8 days until Dec 6. Jewish Festival of lights, celebrated by Jesus.

2021 DEC - DARLING DECEMBER

Wed  1st (Hanukah if not previous month. Festival foods.)

Sat 18th

Speech on 

JAN 2022 - JOYFUL JANUARY

Wed Jan 5th New beginning - forget the past

Sat 15 Long-term plans = for the future/Chinese New Year (CNY for short)

2022 FEB FUN FEBRUARY

Theme Love and romance - Chinese New Year

Feb 1st and 2nd are holidays - do we move this Feb 2nd meeting date?)

Wed 2nd (Valentine's Day Mon Feb 14)

Sat 19th

2022 MAR - MARVELLOUS MARCH

Theme

Wed 2nd

Sat 19

March 1st is Christian Pancake day. 

2022 APR - APRIL'S AIMS

Wed 6th

Sat 16th

Muslim Ramadan 1-30 April.

Jewish Passover (Seder meal=Last supper) April

 16

2022 MAY - MODERNISING MAY

Wed 4th

Sat 21

2022 JUN - JUBILANT JUNE

Wed 1st

Sat 18th

Jul 6, Jul 16, Aug 3, Aug 20, Sept 7, Sept 17, Oct 5, Oct 15, Nov 2, Nov 19, Dec 7, Dec 17.

Angela The Blogger 

Angela has several blogs speeches, comedy and song writing and organizing, writing intermittently, but writes almost daily on these three:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

See many varied posts such as the post on sculptor Tom Harvey.

Please share links to your favourite posts. 

French words you use every day - and a guessing game or quiz

French - useful in France, Belgium, Canada, French islands, Vietnam, Saint Martin in the Caribbean and around the world in French restaurants and daily conversation.

Problem
If you don't speak French, or very little, it would be good to have a few words to throw into a conversation or even sign language. Without knowing any French, you might be able to go into a bakery and raise your eyebrows, smile and ask croissants? How many French words do you think you know and use? One, ten, a hundred, a thousand?

Answers
We have list of more than three hundred words, not counting any for food. I speak fluent French. Other members of my family speak basic school French.

Wikipedia has lists of hundreds of words, but many are words you would never use.

French everyday Words
1 bouquet (bunch of flowers, usually in a circle, arranged by florist with matching or cotnrasting colours)
2 chauffeur - driver of a car, employed full time by hotels and VIPs
3 cuisine - style of food, eg French
4 encore - again! (shouted at the end of operas in the hope of getting an extra song, or the last one repeated)
5 matinée - afternoon (performance of a play)
6 naive - innocent and trusting, a pushover
7 ballet
8 banquette - long seat in restaurant or other place, often against the wall without arm rest dividers, like a bank or padded plank
9 bureau - desk or office or small shop as in bureau de change

French Erudite Words
The British Sunday newspapers such as The Sunday Times have articles by critics which frequently use longer French phrases.

1 brassiere - shortened to bra
2 etiquette (More than good manners or politeness - dress code, the rules at court, special occasions, polite society)
3 fait accompli (fact - already accomplished or done)
4 fin de siècle - end of the century or turn of the century
5 haute cuisine - high quality cooking
6 nom de plume (pen name)
7 suave (smart and knowing)
8 recherché - unusual - you have to research them or seek them out
9 coiffure - hairdo
10 corsage - buttonhole flower or pinned flower on lapel

French Food Words
1 baguette (long bread)
2 bain-marie (double boiler, lower half contains boiling water, top half has the ingredients such as chocolate)
3 brasserie
4 casserole (stew or heavy two-handled saucepan for a savoury stew)
5 croissant (curved puff pasty)
6 pot de chocolat (pot of chocolate)
7 hors d'oeuvre - starters (literally outside the work)
8 r.s.v.p. - respondez s'il vous plait - literally reply if you please

You could compile a list for your own amusement and education. If you are on a long trip, you could run a competition to see who could compile the longest list of words, or guess the words from your clues or definitions.

QUIZ
1 bouquet
2 chauffeur
3 cuisine
4 matinée
5 naive
6 brassiere
7 etiquette
8 fait accompli
9 fin de siècle
10 haute cuisine

1 nom de plume
2 suave
3 baguette
4 bain-marie
5 brasserie
6 casserole
7 croissant
8 pot de chocolat

9 encore .....................

10 Find another French word /food ....................

Your Score

1- 4 Oo-la-la!

5-9 Bient fait. Encore!

10-15 Excellent!

16-20 Formidable!

Useful Websites
Your magic search words for the internet hunt include 'loan words'
google translate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_French_origin

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, polyglot, teacher of English, French and other languages. Speeches and workshops on accents, languages, learning languages and pronunciation.
If you are interested in learning languages, or learning about languages, I have many more posts about French, German, Spanish, Esperanto and other languages and language courses.

French words: say ballet but don't forget etiquette

Say ballet but don't forget etiquette. Words used in English, derived from the French, which still used the French pronunciation, often puzzle those who have not learned French, but seem obvious to anybody who has learned French.

ET
Ballet and other words ending with et are pronounced 'ay'.

ballet
bouquet
cachet
tourniquet

ETTE
Words ending with e t t e are pronounced like bet, forget, met and yet

banquette - bench seat with padding and a back usually against a wall
briquette - small brick, food or loaf with brick shape
etiquette - polite behaviour conforming, originally a ticket to an event at court specifying the rules such as the dress code, for example, black tie

tête-á-tête - literally head to head, cosy chat .(I just inserted the circumflexes and the accent on 'a' but the spellchecker removed them. I've added the hyphens and hope that makes the difference.)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, teacher and tutor of English and French.

French words of the day - ricochet, maquette, statuette

French words of the day - maquette, after a maquette of Ted Hughes, and ricochet. The word ricochet came up in a wonderful quotation from Ted Hughes' wife, American poet, the late Sylvia Plath, wife of the late Ted Hughes. His mini statue has just been placed in his honour in a pub in Yorkshire, north England. (See my previous post.)

Words ending in et from from the French are pronounced ay.
The feminine ending e t t e is pronounced et rhyming with yet.
Here are some words ending with et or  e t t e . I have to insert spaces because the spell checker automatically converts the word into tête . Ironically I cannot find the word tete but up it pops automatically when I type e t t e ! Just press on the e key on the keyboard of your computer or laptop and hold it down and you get the choice of accents.

Glossary French-English
ballet - Dance of men and women, traditional wearing tights, ladies in a tutu
ballet shoes - Flat soft shoes with rounded toes, often with a bow on the tow on the edge which meets the exposed foot. Flexible underneath so dangers can bend the foot to stand on tiptoe when pirouetting.
bouquet - bunch of flowers
maquette - scale model
matinée - Early afternoon starting performance on stage, theatre, musical, ballet, from the word morning which is matin.
pirouette - lady dancer spinning around on one toe with the other leg raised and bent with the toe against the knee, usually wearing a tutu
ricochet - rebound
soiree - evening get together, from s o i r for night (spaces inserted because spell check thinks the word should be sour)
statuette - small statue (usually of a person, sometimes an animal)
tutu - a very short circular skirt which is or becomes horizontal like a disc around the female dancer's waist, most often white stiffened net or fabric, with or without supporting petticoats


I deserve a bouquet for my explanation of words such as ricochet, or maybe a trip to the ballet, a matinée.
See my previous posts on French words. Please follow my posts here on blogger.com and on Facebook. Link to me on linkedIn. Read about my books, b r o w s e (not brownie which spell check prefers) and buy on Amazon and Lulu.com
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, English and French written and spoken language tutor, author and speaker.

French words: bouquet, courier, premier, sihouette

Any word ending in euro is likely to be French in origin. Also look out for word endings such as et ... ballet, bouquet, croquet, duvet, all pronounced 'ay', or ette - baguette, banquette, serviette, silhouette, all rhyming with bet, get, met, set. I'm thinking about banquet, which seems to break the rule.

A courier - a carrier, a person who carries goods or documents from place to place
premiere - (I saw this in yesterday's paper as premier in English) important first, first night or showing of a play or performance, first in the list of a group of people, or their president or representative  eg he is the premiere of ... (think premium brand).