At the end of the song "Tango," new on Yabla this week, Mélanie Laurent sings: 

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Parce qu'au fond tu l'aimes bien, elle te manquerait je crois

Because deep down you really love her, you would miss her, I think

Caption 52, Mélanie Laurent - "Circus" & "Tango"

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When you're talking about missing someone in French, manquer is the verb to use. However, in this context, manquer actually means "to be missing" rather than "to miss." Though elle te manquerait might appear to mean "she would miss you" upon first glance, its literal translation is actually "she would be missing from you," which is just another (perhaps more romantic) way of saying "you would miss her." So when talking to someone close to you whom you haven't seen in a while, make sure to say tu me manques ("I miss you," literally "you're missing from me") rather than je te manque ("you miss me," literally "I'm missing from you").

On the other hand, manquer does mean "to miss" when you're talking about missing something in the sense of not being there for it. In this context it's synonymous with the verb rater: 

J'ai manqué [or raté] le bus. 
I missed the bus. 

The expression "manquer de + infinitive" (or just "manquer + infinitive") means "to nearly do something." "Faillir + infinitive" has the same meaning:

Il a manqué d'être tué [or: Il a failli être tué]. 
He was nearly killed. 

But in the negative, this expression more often means "to not forget to do something": 

Ne manquez pas de vous arrêter au numéro treize de l'avenue Junot.

Don't forget to stop at number thirteen Avenue Junot.

Caption 12, Voyage dans Paris - Butte Montmartre

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Another common meaning of manquer is "to lack," usually in the expression "manquer de + noun":

L'hôpital manque de moyens,

The hospital lacks resources,

comme toutes nos formations sanitaires, hein?

like all our medical facilities, huh?

Caption 22, Le Journal - Hôpital ultra-moderne à Burkina Faso

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In fact, the noun form of manquer, un manque, specifically means "a lack": 

J'ai compris qu'il y avait un manque énorme au niveau, euh, alimentaire.

I saw that there was an enormous lack at the, uh, alimentary level.

Caption 7, Alsace 20 - Mangez bien, mangez alsacien!

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Finally, manquer is also used in the impersonal expression "il manque + noun" ("x is missing"):

Il ne manque plus que l'argent nécessaire.

All that's missing is the necessary money.

Caption 6, Il était une fois - Les découvreurs - 13. Stephenson

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Don't forget (ne manquez pas) to check out our new videos this week and feel free to tweet us @yabla or send your topic suggestions to newsletter@yabla.com!

Take a look at the following captions and see if you notice anything unusual:

Et si vous regardez bien au deuxième étage,

And if you look closely at the second ["third" in the US] floor,

il y a une magnifique frise.

there is a splendid frieze.

Caption 14, Voyage dans Paris - Butte Montmartre

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Donc vous voyez la petite lumière rouge en...

So do you see the little red light in...

au premier étage?

on the first ["second" in the US] floor?

Caption 32, Mon Lieu Préféré - Rue des Rosiers

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Although it might seem like we’ve made some errors in our translations, the number discrepancy you see is actually completely accurate. This is because the floors of French buildings are not numbered in the same way that American floors are.

As you can see, a given French floor is always one number lower than a given American floor: le deuxième étage corresponds to the third floor, not the second, and le dix-huitième étage corresponds to the nineteenth floor, not the eighteenth.

The explanation for this is simple: the French (and most other Europeans) don’t count the ground floor of a building when numbering its stories, whereas Americans do. The French word for "ground floor" is rez-de-chaussée, and the floor above le rez-de-chaussée is le premier étage (the second floor). In American English, "ground floor" and "first floor" are generally synonymous and thus can both be used for rez-de-chaussée. So when you’re in a French elevator, instead of seeing a button marked "G" for "ground floor," you’ll see one marked "RC" for rez-de-chaussée.

Note, however, that French-Canadian speakers have adopted the US system, so you won't have to worry about subtracting floor numbers when you're in Quebec (you can learn some more about Canadian French in this lesson). You'll notice this when listening to Annie Chartrand, a French-Canadian musician, describe her childhood home:

J'habitais au deuxième étage avec mes parents

I lived on the second floor with my parents

et au premier étage, c'était un bar taverne...

and on the first floor, there was a bar-tavern with...

Captions 24-25, Annie Chartrand - Sa musique

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Here is a little table to review:

Therefore, a three-story house in the US (first floor + second floor + third floor) is the same as une maison à deux étages in France (rez-de-chaussée + premier étage + deuxième étage) and une maison à trois étages in Quebec (rez-de-chaussée/premier étage + deuxième étage + troisième étage).

To make this a bit easier, you could take the word étage to mean specifically an upstairs floor in France. Indeed, one way of saying "upstairs" in French is à l’étage (the other way is en haut, while "downstairs" is en bas). In that case, le premier étage could be translated more precisely as "the first upstairs floor," i.e., the second floor.

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A side note: To remember the word rez-de-chaussée, a bit of etymology might be useful. Une chaussée is another word for "road," and rez is Old French for ras, meaning "flat" or "level" (think of the word "razor"). The ground floor is called le rez-de-chaussée in French because it is level with the road.

And for an in-depth discussion of floor numbering around the world, see this Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storey#Numbering