Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so: The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La RochelleĪnd some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions: In French ‘ à la‘ or ‘ de la‘ is allowed, while ‘ à le‘ becomes au and ‘ de le’ becomes du. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example. Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet
Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.īecause Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris).įor place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this: Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)Ī good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor.
#I believe in learning on the job meme how to
Read this to make sure you actually know how to use the most important word in French.Īnd don't say it twice to the same person in the same day. Foreigners too often get it wrong by not saying it at all (which some argue is the root cause of why French people are said to be so rude). But in French saying “ Je suis chaud” could land you in trouble, as it actually translates to “I'm horny”.īonjour seems like the simplest of French words - a no-brainer, right? Au contraire. In English it would sound ridiculous to say “I have hot” as opposed to “I'm hot” on a sweltering day. If you just say you're going to visiter someone, it can have a sexual connotation.Įnglish-speakers might whip out this phrase to express astonishment thinking it makes them sound oh-so-French, but in reality it's extremely out-dated and almost never used by French people these days, except perhaps in jest. “ Visiter” is for a place, such as a monument or a city, while “ rendre visite” is used when talking about people.
English-speakers need to be careful not to mix these two up.
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