Did you know that in French, "a person" is always feminine, regardless of their gender? That is, the word personne is always feminine, even when it refers to a male person. Our friend Farmer François refers to himself as une personne (not un personne) when talking to us about his vegetable stand:
Moi, je suis une personne qui est né dans la banlieue.
Me, I'm someone who was born in the suburbs.
Caption 48, Farmer François - Le stand de légumes
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And in another video, a woman describes a male friend of hers as la seule personne (not le seul personne):
C'était un Français, bien sûr. C'est la seule personne que je connais à West Berlin.
It was a Frenchman, of course. He's the only person I knew in West Berlin.
Captions 18-19, Le Journal - Le mur de Berlin s'écroule
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On the flip side, "an individual" is always masculine:
Ce n'est pas Bérangère qui la regarde mais un individu pour le moins étrange.
It's not Bérangère who is watching her but a rather strange individual.
Caption 10, Le Jour où tout a basculé - Espion dans l'immeuble - Part 2
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Elle est un individu sain.
She is a healthy individual.
There's an interesting combination of personne and individu in this article about the recent evacuation of Mont-Saint-Michel. The subject of the article is a man who made threats against police at the popular French tourist destination. He's designated as both il (referring to individu) and elle (referring to personne):
Selon Ouest-France, l'individu aurait affirmé vouloir «tuer des policiers». Descendu de la navette, il se serait ensuite volatilisé avant l'arrivée des gendarmes.... Plusieurs témoins ont signalé cette personne alors qu'elle rentrait sur le site touristique, a annoncé la gendarmerie.
According to Ouest-France, the individual expressed a desire to "kill police officers." After getting off the shuttle, he reportedly disappeared before the officers arrived.... Several witnesses identified this person when he returned to the tourist site, the police reported.
Don't forget that personne can also be used as a pronoun in combination with ne, meaning "no one":
Maintenant on dit: "Il n'y a pas un chat", pour parler d'un endroit où il n'y a personne.
Now one says, "There's not one cat" [not a soul] to talk about a place where there isn't anyone.
Caption 13, Manon et Clémentine - Mots et animaux
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Personne ne peut vivre là-dedans!
No one could live in there!
Caption 16, Il était une fois - les Explorateurs - 10. Amerigo Vespucci - Part 4
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Stay tuned for Patricia's upcoming video on ne... personne and similar expressions, part of her series on negation.
Thanks to Michael H. for bringing this topic to our attention!
In our previous lessons on the French conditional, we briefly mentioned si (if) clauses, which express the possibility or likelihood of an event. These are comparable to "if/then" constructions in English, as in "if you didn't want to go, then you should have said something" or "if I rest now, I'll have more energy later." French si clauses are made up of two parts: a condition (e.g. "if I rest now") and a result ("I'll have more energy later"). They come in three different forms, each expressing different likelihoods and employing different verb tenses and moods. Let's break them down one by one.
1. Si + present-tense verb
The first type of si clause describes a possible or likely event. It expresses what could or will probably happen if a present condition is met. When the "condition" part (si + verb) of the clause is in the present tense, the "result" part can be in the present, imperative, or future:
Si on surveille pas, elle les prend
If we don't watch, she takes them
et puis elle les fait tomber un par un.
and then makes them fall one by one.
Caption 23, Angers 7 - Un lama en plein appartement
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Donc si vous pouvez éviter de sortir, évitez.
So if you can avoid going out, avoid it.
Caption 7, Alsace 20 - Météo des Maquilleurs
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Même aujourd'hui, si on me fait chanter, je chanterai.
Even today, if you make me sing, I'll sing.
Caption 55, Actu Vingtième - Le Repas des anciens
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2. Si + imperfect verb
The second type describes something that's contrary to the present situation or unlikely to happen. Here the si is followed by an imperfect verb and the "result" part of the clause requires the conditional:
Si on avait pas tant de bénévoles... cela serait pas possible.
If we didn't have so many volunteers... it wouldn't be possible.
Captions 34-35, Farmer François - Le stand de légumes
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Je pourrais aller au cinéma avec toi si je n'étais pas malade.
I could go to the movies with you if I weren't sick.
As you can see from the above example, the "result" doesn't always have to follow the "condition"—it can just as easily be placed before it. So we could rewrite the "Farmer François" sentence as: Cela serait pas possible si on avait pas tant de bénévoles (it wouldn't be possible if we didn't have so many volunteers). As long as both parts of a si clause are in the right tense/mood, it doesn't matter which comes first.
3. Si + pluperfect verb
The final type of si clause is a lot like the second type, but a bit more complex. It describes something that's contrary to a past event—for instance, something you wish had happened or regret not having done. In other words, it expresses an impossibility. The pluperfect is paired with the past conditional here:
Si j'avais su, je serais venu avec deux chevaux.
If I had known, I would have come with two horses.
Caption 50, Il était une fois - Les découvreurs - 13. Stephenson
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Hier j'aurais levé le bras
Yesterday I would have raised my arm
pour appeler le taxi si j'avais d'abord soigné mon épaule.
to hail the taxi if I had treated my shoulder first.
Captions 39-41, Le saviez-vous? - Le mode du conditionnel
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To learn about some other meanings of si besides "if," check out this lesson. And if you have any suggestions for future lesson topics, feel free to tweet us @yabla or email us at newsletter@yabla.com.
Did you know that the French word for the back of a space is the same as the word for the bottom of a space? The word is le fond, and determining its meaning is a question of perspective:
Et l'on voit encore des vestiges, des traces de cette époque
And you can still see remains, traces from that time,
avec notamment dans le fond, une chapelle pour se recueillir...
with, in particular, in the back, a chapel for meditating...
Captions 36-37, Lionel - Verdun
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L'eau de l'étang était si profonde que
The pond water was so deep that
la princesse ne pouvait pas en voir le fond.
the princess could not see the bottom of it.
Caption 7, Contes de fées - Le roi grenouille
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We can tell what le fond means in each of these examples based on the type of space they're describing. The subject of the first example is the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Verdun. A chapel wouldn't be located on the bottom of a cathedral, but in the back. And in the second example, the princess is looking down into the pond, which means she's trying to see the bottom of it, not the back.
Whether it means "the back" or "the bottom," le fond refers to the depth of a space. But it can also refer to depth in a non-physical, metaphorical sense—even a spiritual one:
"Om", ça signifie le fond cosmique qui est...
"Om" signifies the cosmic depth that is...
le symbole de l'unité dans la diversité.
the symbol of unity in diversity.
Caption 37, Paix et partage - Journée Internationale du yoga
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Fond is used in quite a few expressions, such as dans le fond and au fond, both meaning "basically":
Dans le fond, c'est des grosses feuilles de betterave.
Basically, they're big beet leaves.
Caption 13, Farmer François - Le stand de légumes
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Parce que au fond, le fait de payer un stand,
Because basically, the act of paying for a booth,
ça sert aussi, euh, d'abord à se rencontrer...
that also helps, uh, first of all to meet each other...
Captions 65-66, Actu Vingtième - Le vide-grenier
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Don't confuse au fond with à fond, which means "totally":
Ah, que griller des feux. -Griller des verts, donc. -À fond.
Oh, just running lights. -Running green lights, then. -Totally.
Caption 49, Cap 24 - Les cyclistes parisiens sont-ils indisciplinés ?
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There's also de fond, an adjective phrase meaning "fundamental":
Mais pour une baisse en rayon,
But for a reduction on store shelves,
la prochaine étape devrait être une réforme de fond.
the next step should be a fundamental reform.
Caption 23, Le Journal - Contrôle des prix alimentaires
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If you'd like to explore the many expressions using this word de fond en comble (from top to bottom), we recommend this WordReference entry.
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please write to us at newsletter@yabla.com or tweet us @yabla.
You may have heard that most of the time, an adjective in French is placed after the noun. But not always. How are we supposed to know? We find plenty of clues and start to gain an intuitive understanding when we watch authentic French videos. Let's have a look at a few instances when the adjective almost always follows the noun it modifies: color or shape, and origin/nationality, ethnicity, or religion.
Let's have a look at shapes and colors first. In English we say "square meter," but in French, the adjective carré (square) follows the noun mètre (meter). This is evident in our video about "green tides" in Brittany:
Mètre carré par mètre carré.
Square meter by square meter.
Caption 3, Le Journal - Marée verte en Bretagne
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Colors follow the same pattern. Listen to master chef Daniel Boulud describing what goes into his extremely high-end hamburgers:
Un pavé de bœuf braisé au vin rouge, avec du foie gras dedans...
A slab of beef braised in red wine, with some foie gras inside...
Caption 10, Le Journal - Un hamburger très cher!
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Like most Frenchmen, M. Boulud loves his vin rouge (red wine). Note that he puts the color "red," rouge, after the noun "wine," vin, not the other way around.
Similarly, Ina-Ich, the lovely chanteuse parisienne (Parisian singer) d'origine vietnamienne (of Vietnamese origin) places the color kaki (khaki) after the noun habits (dress/clothes), in her song "Âme armée" (Armed Soul).
En habits kakis, plus rien n'a de prix
In khaki dress, nothing more has any value
Caption 15, Ina-Ich - Âme armée
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Notice that when we describe Ina-Ich, we say that she is a chanteuse parisienne and not a parisienne chanteuse; we say that she is d'origine vietnamienne and not de vietnamienne origine; and French web sites proclaim that she sings rock français (French rock) and not français rock. Why? Because another instance when adjectives pretty much always come after the noun in French is when the adjective is indicating origin, nationality, or ethnicity. That is why we find parisienne (Parisian) following chanteuse (singer), vietnamienne (Vietnamese) following origine (origin), and français (French) following rock.
We hear this in our "Farm Stand" video from Montreal, Quebec, when François, the proud farmer, describes for us his finest organic vegetables:
Ici, c'est le choux chinois.
Here, this is Chinese cabbage.
Caption 15, Farmer François - Le stand de légumes
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Here again we find an adjective that describes origin/nationality, chinois (Chinese) coming after, not before, the noun it modifies, choux (cabbage).
In Le Journal's segment about last year's hotly contested Parisian Book Fair, the Salon du Livre, we hear an adjective describing ethnicity (arabe/Arab) and one describing religion (musulman/Muslim):
L'Egypte, pays arabe et musulman,
Egypt, an Arab and Muslim country,
pourrait bien être à son tour l'invitée d'honneur du Salon du Livre.
could well be the next guest of honor of the Book Fair.
Captions 19-20, Le Journal - Salon du livre
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(In a similar vein, you'll see the same placement, after the noun, for an adjective describing an official function: for example, une rencontre ministérielle, "a cabinet meeting.")
So there we have it: color, shape, origin, nationality, ethnicity, religion, and official function—a few of the types of adjectives that almost always come after the noun in French. Keep your ears open while watching Daniel Boulud making his infamous burger, farmer François talking up his organic vegetables, Ina-Ich singing Âme armée, and all the other videos on Yabla French and you'll notice the rule is nearly universal!
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