Habiter and vivre both mean "to live" in French, but they're used in slightly different contexts. Habiter is very similar in meaning to its English cognate, "to inhabit": it generally refers to where a person is living. While vivre can also have this meaning, it more often refers to a person's living conditions or general existence. Let's look at some examples to illustrate the difference between these two lively verbs.
It's very common to place a preposition such as à or dans after habiter to describe where you're living:
On habite à Still, on a eu une superbe opportunité.
We live in Still, we had a superb opportunity.
Caption 7, Alsace 20 - Grain de Sel: à l'Anatable à Dinsheim
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J'habite dans une maison bleue.
I live in a blue house.
But technically, habiter doesn't require a preposition at all. You could just as well say on habite Still (we live in Still) or j'habite une maison bleue (I live in a blue house). The choice is yours! Here's another example of habiter without a preposition:
De là à habiter ce bout du monde isolé...
From there to inhabiting this isolated end of the world...
Caption 3, Le Journal - L'île de Pâques
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Whereas habiter describes the specifics of a person's living situation, vivre is more about la vie en général (life in general). It describes how a person lives, or what their life is like:
Elle a permis à Michel, sinon de faire fortune,
It has allowed Michel, if not to become rich,
du moins de vivre bien, avec sa petite famille...
at least to live well with his small family...
Captions 17-19, Le Journal - L'île de Pâques
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...un petit village, qui vit son quotidien de manière tranquille.
...a small village, that lives its daily life in a quiet way.
Captions 5-6, Lionel et Chantal - à Frémestroff
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Vivre can also mean "to live through" or "to experience":
Moi je dirais que c'est magique et que ça se raconte pas,
I'd say that it's magical and that it can't be described,
qu'il faut le vivre.
that you have to experience it.
Caption 26, TV Vendée - "Nieul Village de Lumière"
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In our last lesson, we introduced the word dont, a relative pronoun with a wide variety of uses. Let's start with the two most straightforward meanings of dont: "whose" and "including":
...un riche marchand
...there was a rich merchant
dont la fille préférée s'appelait Belle.
whose favorite daughter was called Belle.
Caption 2, Bande-annonce - La Belle et la Bête
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Et grâce à lui,
And thanks to him,
j'ai rencontré beaucoup de gens très intéressants, dont Gilles Proulx.
I met lots of very interesting people, including Gilles Proulx.
Caption 29, Le Québec parle - aux Français
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It's usually pretty easy to distinguish these two uses of dont from context, but punctuation also provides a clue: dont is usually preceded by a comma when it means "including," but not when it means "whose."
Now let's get into the grammar behind dont. Like all relative pronouns, dont refers back to an element in the main clause (un riche marchand and gens très intéressants in the examples above). But in many cases, dont more specifically refers to the preposition de + a noun. To see how this plays out, let's look at how dont can be used to combine two sentences into one:
J'ai un chat. Le poil de mon chat est très doux.
I have a cat. My cat's fur is very soft.
J'ai un chat dont le poil est très doux.
I have a cat whose fur is very soft.
As you can see, dont stands in for de and refers back to chat. It also prevents the redundancy of saying chat twice.
Dont often replaces the de used in fixed expressions, such as être fier/fière de (to be proud of), parler de (to talk about), and avoir besoin de (to need):
Et puis il y a une chose dont Michel est particulièrement fier.
And then there is one thing that Michel is particularly proud of.
Caption 36, Le Journal - L'île de Pâques
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...dans la ville de Dongtan en Chine, dont nous avons déjà parlé.
...in the city of Dongtan in China, about which we've already spoken.
Caption 17, Il était une fois: Notre Terre - 25. Technologies
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Voici le livre dont j'ai besoin.
Here is the book that I need.
We could rewrite all of these examples using de:
Et puis Michel est particulièrement fier d'une chose.
And then Michel is particularly proud of one thing.
Nous avons déjà parlé de la ville de Dongtan en Chine.
We've already spoken about the city of Dongtan in China.
J'ai besoin de ce livre-ci.
I need this book.
That about covers it for dont! Though the scope of its applications can be a little daunting, it's a very useful and succinct word that will make your French sound very sophisticated. Don't neglect to use dont whenever you can!
Ailleurs is an adverb with a few different meanings. By itself, ailleurs means “elsewhere,” in both a literal and figurative sense:
On te souhaite, ben, beaucoup de réussite,
We wish you, well, a great deal of success,
si tu vas en Australie ou ailleurs.
whether you go to Australia, or elsewhere.
Captions 106-107, 4 Mains pour 1 Piano - Médaillon de Homard
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Désolé, je n’ai pas entendu la question. J’avais la tête ailleurs.
Sorry, I didn’t hear the question. My mind was elsewhere.
You can also find ailleurs in the more absolute phrases nulle part ailleurs (nowhere else) and partout ailleurs (everywhere else):
...et des poissons qu'on ne trouve nulle part ailleurs.
...and fish that one cannot find anywhere else.
Caption 15, Le Journal - L'île de Pâques
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La situation s’améliore partout ailleurs.
The situation is improving everywhere else.
Ailleurs can also be found in two common phrases that are used to add extra information to a topic. The first of these is par ailleurs (otherwise, additionally):
La préfecture du Rhône a par ailleurs mis en place un centre d'appel.
Additionally, the Rhône Prefecture has set up a call center.
Caption 33, Le Journal - La grippe aviaire
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The second phrase, d’ailleurs, has a wide range of meanings:
C'est un très bon vin et
It's a very good wine and
d'ailleurs je vous conseille de le boire.
I recommend that you drink it, for that matter.
Caption 4, Actu Vingtième - Vendanges parisiennes
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C'est d'ailleurs lui qui préface le livre.
He's the one who prefaces the book, by the way.
Caption 10, Alsace 20 - 100 recettes pour 100 vins
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Un très beau lieu d'ailleurs.
A very beautiful place, incidentally.
Caption 66, LCM - Concert: La Folia à l'abbaye Saint-Victor
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Both d’ailleurs and par ailleurs can be placed pretty much anywhere in a sentence. For instance, we could easily move the phrases from the middle of the sentence to the beginning in the examples above:
Par ailleurs, la préfecture du Rhône a mis en place un centre d’appel
D’ailleurs, c’est lui qui préface le livre.
An easy way to learn the difference between these very similar phrases is to learn synonyms for them. Par ailleurs is generally synonymous with d’autre part and d’un autre côté (otherwise, on the other hand), while d’ailleurs is synonymous with du reste (furthermore), en outre (besides), and de plus (moreover). In other words, while d’ailleurs tends to be used to confirm what was previously said, par ailleurs is more often used to contradict it or provide an alternative.
That pretty much covers all the uses of this word, but if you’re interested in looking ailleurs for some more translations and example sentences, this Larousse entry is a handy summary of everything we mentioned above.
Do you remember from our last lesson Michel Garcia and his mysterious catch from Easter Island? Today we will reveal his secret: what made him famous worldwide was his discovery of a beautiful shell, extremely rare and previously unknown. And the name of this shellfish? The Garciai! Michel's pride in his namesake is second only to that for his son, Tokiroa.
Tokiroa est tout de même plus important que la belle garciai.
Tokiroa is all the same more important than the beautiful garciai.
Caption 43, Le Journal - L'île de Pâques
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By now, you're probably used to adjectives in French following the nouns that they modify (as in le ciel bleu, "the blue sky"). But, as you can see above, the adjective belle precedes the noun Garciai. That's because Garciai is a proper noun, a nom propre, and in French, adjectives precede proper nouns.
In fact, there are a few other occasions when you'll see an adjective placed before the noun it modifies. It can also occur when an adjective is used very often in day-to-day language and is easily associated with the noun that it qualifies (generally these adjectives are short words). For example, notice that the common and monosyllabic adjective long (long), comes before frisson (shiver) in the lovely music video "Les mots d'amour" (The Words of Love) by Debout Sur Le Zinc.
Et ce long frisson qui n'en finit pas
And this long shiver that does not end
Caption 6, Debout Sur Le Zinc - Les mots d'amour
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And, similarly, Ina-Ich places the short and common adjective beau (beautiful/handsome) before gosse (kid), giving us beau gosse, a common French expression that means "handsome" or "good-lookin'," as in, "Hey handsome!"
À quoi penses-tu beau gosse?
What are you thinking about, handsome?
Caption 3, Ina-Ich - Âme armée
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The most common adjectives that you will find placed before a noun are: beau (beautiful), bon (good), grand (tall), gros (big), jeune (young), joli (pretty), mauvais (bad/mean), nouveau (new), petit (small), vieux (old) and their feminine forms. Some examples: un bon livre (a good book), une jolie fleur (a pretty flower), un gentil chien (a nice dog).
However, we should point out that when an adjective of this type is accentuated or highlighted, the tendency is to place it after the noun. You would normally say, C'est une gentille fille (She's a nice girl), but you'd say C’est une fille gentille! (She's a really nice girl!) if you wanted to emphasize gentille.
We expect hot sunny days in the summer, but in Un automne bien chaud, a bright, warm November day throws some people off.
Quinze centimètres sous les pas,
Fifteen centimeters under your feet,
un soleil gros comme ça, et pourtant pas un chat!
a big sun like this, and yet nothing stirring!
Caption 1, Le Journal - Un automne bien chaud
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Notice that the short and common adjective gros (big) this time follows the noun soleil (sun) to emphasize how exceptionally large the sun seems to be on an unusually warm autumn day.
The sun, the sea, and the words of love: three magical elements right there at your fingertips, waiting to teach you more about the placement of French adjectives. What are you waiting for? Check out the videos!
Laurence Boccolini, the beloved rich and famous French host of TV Channel 2, should be a happy woman. Quite the contrary, malheureusement. In Le Journal's video on age and fertility, she describes her sorrow at being unable to conceive.
Mais c'est une femme profondément meurtrie,
But she's a deeply wounded woman,
parce qu'elle n'a pas réussi à donner la vie.
because she hasn't been able to create a life.
Captions 2-3, Le Journal - L'âge et la fertilité
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Notice that the adverb profondément (deeply) is modifying the adjective meurtrie (wounded), and that both words together describe this femme (woman). It's important to note that, like in English, the adverb precedes the adjective, so it's profondément meurtrie, not meurtrie profondément, but unlike the English translation, this phrase meaning "deeply wounded" follows the noun it modifies, femme. Indeed, that is the typical pattern; in most cases, when an adverb modifies an adjective that is qualifying a noun, the adverb-adjective pair will appear after the noun.
Let's take another look, this time at an, ahem, somewhat happier example. Someone who was not concerned with fertility problems was the famous poet Victor Hugo. He fathered five children. For those interested in learning about more than just the literary side of Victor Hugo, the singer Bertrand Pierre clues us in to some of the poet's other "talents" in this Yabla exclusive interview:
Il avait une activité sentimentale et sexuelle assez débordante, voilà.
He had a rather overactive romantic and sex life, you know.
Caption 30, Bertrand Pierre - Victor Hugo
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Here we see a noun, activité (activity), which we translated as "life" to fit this context (you wouldn't really say "a romantic activity" in English), being modified by two adjectives: sentimentale (romantic) and sexuelle (sexual). Then that whole chunk, his "romantic and sex life," is being modified by the adjective-adverb combo assez débordante (rather overactive).
Take a look at the order of the words. It might help to think of the words like building blocks. First you have activité. Now, what kind of activité do you mean? Since you are talking about his romantic and sexual life, you add the building blocks sentimentale and sexuelle. In English, these blocks go before the noun; in French, they go after. Now, what kind of romantic, sexual life did he have? Well, a rather overactive one! So you add the building blocks assez débordante to what you've already built to finish up the block tower. And again, in English we see that "rather overactive" appears before the phrase it modifies, while in French, assez débordante follows it.
So is it always the case that an adverb+adjective modifier will follow the noun? If only it were so simple. In fact, the Bertrand Pierre example above is an interesting case. Bertrand could actually also have said: il avait une assez débordante activité sexuelle (he had a rather overactive sex life) and placed the adjective débordante (overactive) before the noun activité (activity). Why? Because the adverb assez (rather) modifying the adjective débordante (overactive) is a short adverb.
Most adverbs in French are formed by adding the suffix -ment (as in profondément above), and the general rule is to place the adjective qualified by an adverb after a noun (as in une femme profondément meurtrie). However, if the adverb is short (generally, these are adverbs not ending in -ment), like très (very), plus (more), assez (rather), etc., then the adjective can be placed in either location: before or after the noun that it describes.
You can see an example of this "before" placement in the beautiful Le Journal video about Easter Island—a video that may be as beautiful as the native French Riviera that Michel Garcia left twenty-eight years ago:
On se rend compte que la France,
You realize that France
c'est un très beau pays et qu'on y vit très bien.
is a very beautiful country and that life is very good there.
Caption 35, Le Journal - L'île de Pâques
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Notice the very short adverb très (very) that modifies the adjective beau (beautiful) placed here before the noun that it qualifies: pays (country). This diver who appreciates the beauty of both countries could have easily said, and would have been equally correct to say: La France, c’est un pays très beau, placing the adjective after the noun. Remember, this is because très (very) is a short adverb that qualifies the adjective beau (beautiful).
Whichever way Michel says it, we have to agree with his statement!
You may have noticed the difference a little accent mark can make. Take the words côté, cote, and côte, for example. It’s the same four letters, but depending on the accents, both the meaning and the pronunciation can change.
Côté is a two-syllable word, while côte and cote are one-syllable words, each with its own unique pronunciation (though in some regions of France there may be little distinction in pronunciation).
In its most straightforward definition, côté means “side.”
Que je suis assis en face, et pas à tes côtés
Over the fact that I'm sitting across from you and not by your side
Caption 23, Babylon Circus - J'aurais bien voulu
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It may seem a bit odd that "by your side" is à tes côtés (plural) and not à ton côté (singular), but this is just how it's done in French.
When getting directions, you will often hear du côté droit (on the right hand side) or du côté gauche (on the left hand side). “Next to” (which, if you think about it, could be said “on the side of”) is expressed as à côté:
C'est juste à côté de la voiture.
It's right next to the car.
Côté can also be used to describe an aspect, a quality, or a “side” of something:
Je dirais les ingrédients qu'on a dans cette farce
I would say the ingredients in this stuffing
va [sic] donner ce côté savoureux et moelleux à la volaille.
will give the bird a savory and tender quality.
Captions 33-34, Le Journal - Gourmet en Bretagne
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But the word côté is not only used literally. It also appears in expressions like:
D’un côté... D’un autre côté...
On one hand... On the other hand...
Côté can also be used to show someone’s opinion, their “side” on an issue, or their perspective.
De son côté, Nicolas Sarkozy annonce sa volonté
For his part, Nicolas Sarkozy announces his desire
de rupture avec la politique africaine de la France.
to break away from France's African policies.
Caption 17, Le Journal - Sarkozy en Afrique du Sud - Part 1
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And we see the same sort of côté in the video on the marché in Rennes:
Bon, du côté de Cocotte, secret défense.
OK, as for Cocotte, it's top secret.
Caption 14, Le Journal - Gourmet en Bretagne
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But côté is not only used to express the perspective of a person. It can also be translated as “about” or “on the subject of” or “as for.” In the following example, it’s used to distinguish between the main and secondary railway lines:
Côté grandes lignes, la SNCF
As for the main lines, the SNCF
a depuis longtemps pensé aux voyageurs handicapés.
has kept handicapped travelers in mind for a long time.
Caption 12, Le Journal - Manifestation de paralysés
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Just in case that’s not enough to satisfy your curiosity, keep in mind the word côté’s similarly spelled (and hence easy to confuse) counterparts...
For starters, there's côte, one of the primary meanings of which is very similar-sounding to its English equivalent: “coast” (as in "the Pacific coast"). Actually, en français, the French Riviera is called the “Côte d'Azur.”
Venu de sa Côte d'Azur natale,
Having come from his native French Riviera,
il est tombé amoureux de l'île et de ses fonds marins.
he fell in love with the island and its sea depths.
Caption 7, Le Journal - L'île de Pâques
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Côte can also mean “rib,” as in côte d’Adam or côte d’agneau (what we call a “lamb chop”).
And last but not least, the second video in the series on Sarkozy’s trip to South Africa gives us an example of an entirely different kind of cote, which means “stock.” This can be in the literal sense (stock market) or refer to the general worth/esteem of something or someone, as below.
Alors que sa cote continue de chuter,
As his stock continues to tumble,
Nicolas Sarkozy tente un quitte ou double vis-à-vis de l'opinion.
Nicolas Sarkozy tries to double down on opinion.
Captions 17-18, Le Journal - Sarkozy en Afrique du Sud - Part 2
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There’s also a related verb, coter, which means to rate, quote, or list the price of something.
Cette voiture est cotée à 24.000$ dans le journal.
This car is listed at $24,000 in the newspaper.
Whether you’re talking economics, opinions, proximity, food, or geography, you’ll be better equipped knowing the nuances and differences of these similarly spelled words!
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