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.

Do you know these English loan words from French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish,

Problem
Which loan words used in English come from which languages. What do they mean - and do they mean the same in other languages or are they 'false friends'.

French Words
ballet
banquette (padded bench with back agains wall, often found in restaurants)
bouquet (bunch of flowers, prettily arranged by florist)
bureau (office or desk)
chauffeur (driver)
chic (smart and elegant)
croissant (curved, crescent shape flaky pastry breakfast roll, high calorie! worldwide)
croquet (played outdoors with ball and mallets, by Alice in Wonderland, and in summer)
debonair - dress and manner or air of fashion and superiority
etiquette - originally a ticket giving dress code, now politeness following rules
(Ten French words.)

in lieu (in place of)
naive - innocent and over trusting through ignorance of the world, youth, unsophistication
niche (cut out from wall to display vase or statue, or specilaisation of business) Uk pronounciation like the French, 'neesh' but Ameicans say nitch, which makes me wince)
nom de plume (pen name)
rapprochement (coming together for business or peace, re- again + approach)
silhouette (Black outline of object / face in profile, or portrait of entire head black against white background)
suave (confident, possibly cunning)
(Another seven French words)

Italian
diva (main solo opera singer, but now often used to mean VIP or histrionic, self-important lady)
forte (forte means strong or loud; play loudly in the music book; your strength or greatest skill)
opera (literally work, but in music grand opera, a dramatic musical play, comic or tragic, with songs displaying skills and trills and thrills, with sopranos and tenors)
pianoforte (in English we talk about a piano or grand piano)
soprano
(Five Italian words.)

Portuguese Words
Port (wine)

Russian Words
sputnik (man made item in space)
troika (three part government)

Spanish words
mañana (the sign above the n turns it into nyer sound).
sombrero (large-brim hat)

LANGUAGES

http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/port-and-portuguese-wine-labels-and.

http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/how-to-ask-for-food-and-drink-in.

http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/learn-your-first-ten-words-in.

http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/how-do-you-say-please-in-portuguese-is.

duolingo.com

earwormslearning.com

http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/polyglot-poem-by-angela-lansbury.html

Italy has a language school in Perugia, Umbria, Italy. You can take courses for a day, a weekend, a week, a year or two, for individual students and mature students, groups, and businesses.

TRAVEL
UK
https://www.ram.ac.uk/museum/exhibition/piano-gallery London, England, UK

visit.britain.org

FRANCE

uk.france.fr

PORTUGAL + BRAZIL + MADEIRA

visitportugal.com

visitbrasil.com

http://www.visitmadeira.pt/en-gb/homepage

GERMANY

germany.travel

ITALY

umbriatourism.it

RUSSIA

SPAIN

spain.info/en

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Learning The English Language: The Queen's English loan words and false friend words from the USA, New Zealand

Problem
Many people heard the Queen's Speech on Christmas day in the English speaking world. But foreigners often have trouble understanding English. Even the British can be confused and embarrassed in France, the USA or New Zealand.

French Au Pair Girl's Problem
When my son was small I had au pair girls from France living with me to help babysit when I was out teaching English as a home tutor. One of my au pair girls complained that she could not understand people in restaurants, cafes and bars. She asked me, 'Why do they say 'yeah' when the school books teach you to say 'yes'? She said, 'When I listen to the Queen's Speech I can understand every word.'

The problem is that in everyday conversation, poeple often use slang, short forms, and new words. The younger generation are quick to take up new words. This is not a new problem.

Arabic and Hebrew
I read in books that Arabic comes in two forms, street Arabic and classical Arabic.
Modern Hebrew also has two forms. One is modern Hebrew. The other is the language of the Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament because Christians also follow the New Testament about Jesus.

Londoners today don't use the same vocabulary as Shakespeare. Modern English is a polyglot or a language including speaking many languages, words we call loan words.

French
My family keeps a list of French words used in English. We have a list of about 300 words. Not counting foods such as croissant, and cooking utensils such as the bain-marie, we have many common words, such as bouquet, ballet, garage, and other récherché words, such as naive, panache, and whole phrases such as pièce de résistance.

Other European languages also have influenced English vocabulary. From the German language we get the everyday words kindergarden, child garden, and delicatessen. Dutch is similar to German. From the Dutch, across the water, we get the word yacht, a kind of boat.

We also know many words from Italian, Spanish, and Latin, such as villa, a grand detached house, and sombrero, a large hat and mañana, meaning tomorrow.

Bungalows
Some words cause confusion. In India a bungalow is a detached house. In England it is a one-storey dwelling, which in the USA would be a called a ranch house.

Embarrassing Moments in France
When I have travelled and lived abroad I have had moments of confusion, even embarrassment.  In France we could not understand why the grand hotel closed at 5 pm just when we drove up hoping to check in. The sign outside clearly said, Hotel de ville, which we assumed was city hotel. No, hotel de ville means Town Hall, the chief municipal office.

I went to France on a press trip. The local Prince was showing the English journalists his castle. He said, "Now you have seen the front side, I will show you my backside. "I had hysterics. In English, backside is slang for a part of your anatomy, below the waist, for what we also call euphemistically, posterior.

The French man then continued to send me further into hysterics by repeating, "Angela has asked to see my backside. She thought it would be interesting, unlike any backside you have seen in England. What is so funny?"

Embarrassment in New Zealand
In New Zealand, we drove around looking for our hotel. A friendly local told us the hotel was next to the station. We drove on looking for a railway station and could not see it. We asked again. We discovered that in New Zealand the sheep outnumber the poeple, and the buses, and New Zealanders use the word station for something to do with sheep, called a sheep station.

We drove to a beach bar and restaurant and saw a sign, no thongs. In England thongs are a modern name for what used to be called G-strings, ladies underwear revealing all at the back. I was not wearing thongs, neigher as underwear, not a bikini. The bar tender pointed at my shoes. Thongs, in New Zealand, are what the English call flip flops.

Embarrassment in the USA
In America, my greatest fear was realised; I said something rude. I wanted to buy stationery: a ruler, a pencil and a rubber.

I asked an assistant, "Do you sell rubbers?"
She answered, "No. You need to go a drug store." I walked around, found my ruler, a pencil, and a rubber!

I asked an assistant, "If this is not a rubber, what do you call it?"

"An eraser."

"You don't use the word rubber?"

"We do. But it means something else."

"What does it mean?"

"You buy it in a drug store. It used to be made of rubber. Now latex."

"Ah what we, in England call a condom, after the French city of that name."

So now you know what to say - and not say!

Chinese Pronunciation
Finally, a few local words. Please pronounce the letter rs R and L. I used to hear a joke that a pilot on a flight to China wished everybody 'a present fright'.

It's not just a joke. When you get on a flight to China, the pilot does say, "We wish you a peasant fright."

A peasant is a poor man. Pleasant is pleasing.

A flight is when a plane flies.  A fright is what you get when it descends too fast.

The study of English, and other languages, is always a joy.

Singlish - my next speech. Pick you at the airport. Borrow instead of lend. Off the light instead of turn it off. That's another story.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

French words in English - loanwords

Wikipedia explains loan words and gives examples from several languages.

Angela Lansbury
Travel Writer and photographer