Yet it works both ways...a French friend asked me "comment dit-on si en anglais?" Without thinking too much I said "if". A while later he was trying out his English and I asked, "aren't you coming with us?" His response was "If! If!" Of course he was thinking of the si meaning yes to a negative question. We all had a good laugh.
so we were learning about "bisous" in my french class one time and we had to learn how to properly use "Faire une bise". My teacher didn't tell us what "baiser" by itself meant (I suppose because she didn't want us to learn how to use it just yet lol). Anyways, after she gave us the lesson, we had to write a short love story in a few sentences in french that involved a kiss or une embrasse somewhere and then we had to present it to the class... Well.. me trying to be cute and mushy, I wrote about this guy who went on a date with a girl and I ended the story with "ils ont baiser". None of the other students thought anything of my ending, but my teacher shrieked and pulled me aside and cleared up that I have to use "faire" next time because (though the rest of the class hadn't noticed) my made up date ended with "they fucked".
At a soirée (YEARS AGO, so I'm a little fuzzy on the details) I was telling a story (in French) about our family ranch back home. I was trying to communicate that there were wild turkeys that lived in the woods around my house. I said "Il y a des dindes faroche dans les forêts près de chez nous" to which the room erupted in laughter. Apparently I said some about sexually ferocious women inhabiting the nearby woods. All the men were asking where (exactly) I lived!
My best mistakes: trying to tell somebody where I live and confusing "j'habite" and "ma bite"(mydick). Trying to get direction to "la gare" but pronouncing it "guerre" (war)the man replyed " le guerre ?! Le guerre?!? Boom! Boom! Le guerre! , c'est la gare" that scared the crap out of me because i didnt know what i had said. Oh at then there was the time i asked to "pet" some ones dog.... She said no. Pet means fart in french...
jazzyisme Once I said "Moi, m'habite" (ma bite) au Brésil, lol. My french friend laughed at me and said that it'll always be "J'HABITE", never M'habite, cuz "ma bite" means "my dick". Well, I think La gAre and La GuErre sound very different.
I went into a cafe with my friends once and ordered 'du chocolat chaud avec la creme foutue...', when I was actually wanting to ask for whipped cream! My friends laughed so much, and even the waitress thought it was funny.
Vicky Watson Dear Vicky, I just burst into tears, laughing not because it was a ridiculous thing to say but because it is actually terribly funny. French people are rather spontaneous, they do not realize it can be considered as offensive, we do not intend to hurt someone's feelings. We are not being rude- at least- we simply are not aware we are. You probably felt embarrassed but believe me people who laughed never thought you were ridiculous. Hope I managed to explain the way we react. Anyway if you picked the wrong word it is probably because the word you needed was pretty similar (fouettée instead of foutue) and terribly difficult to pronounce. Love from a French woman who has very often made a fool of herself while speaking English.
The literal English translation of "Je suis pleine" is "I am full," but in French it means "I am pregnant." My friend made the mistake of saying it to her Parisian boyfriend's parents over dinner. Zut alors!
My son is almost bilingual, we live in the US. As a teenager he used to tie his hair in a pony tail. He is now corporate and therefore clean cut . We were visiting France and an ex summer girl friend looking disappointed asked him in front of every one “ mais qu’est ce qui est arrivé à ta queue de cheval”. He blushed like crazy as he thought she was complaining about the break up and talking about their past intimacy.
I asked a friend of mine what the word for "cellphone" was in French... He told me it was "godemiché." A few days later, I asked a stranger, "Puis-je utiliser votre godemiché, s'il vous plaît?" Talk about awkward...
My French teacher, who was the most wonderful woman, told us some of her funny memories with such mistakes. One was that she said "Le repas est très bien assassiné!" and everybody fell silent because she mixed up 'assassiné' and 'assaisonné', the latter meaning "seasoned" and the first one meaning "murdered". ;) And the other thing I remember was a student trying his absolute best to describe that his friend had "beautiful blue eyes" and ended up saying "il a des jolis œufs bleus" instead of "il a des jolis yeux bleus", "œufs" means "eggs" and in German (we're German), "eggs" means "nuts", so to speak, I think you catch my drift. ;D In going to be a teacher too and I'm honestly so looking forward to these things happening in class. 😂
Hahaha I'll never forget the first time I said "Je suis excitee!!" To my French teacher as a kid! (Not a native speaker but in French immersion since grade 1). So funny. She set me straight and saved me future embarrassment!!
When I was enrolled in a Parisian school of architecture, we often pinned up our work for group critique. As the prof went around the room, he accidentally skipped over my work and went to the next student. Afterwards, I complained to another student that "le professeur m'a sautée." The look I received made me realize what I must have actually said.
I mixed up vous and vu. The sentence i was trying to say was..."I would like a room with a view" The roaring laughter made me realise something was wrong. For me quite often it is my pronunciation that gets me in trouble... "chiot and Chiottes"
My mother, who used to be s french teacher, told me of this funny mistake. The student wrote a paper about a man visiting a tribe in Africa. The tribe was clearly happy and content with their simple life. The student therefore wrote "Les Africains vivant heureusement en Afrique". It became a bit racist ;)
haha the Vaseline thing was so strange to me. when my friend asked what brand my Chapstick was and I said Vaseline his face was like 😳🙊🙊🙊. but why would you use that...?! hahaha.
I have Vaseline for lips care in France in my bathroom. It's normal for me and my french boyfriend understands. But each time, we invites our french friends to our place, he has to hide it well. He mentioned this, but I've just got it clearly from this video. Merci !!
I just came back from France two weeks ago and had two embarrassing experiences. I've been speaking French more or less proficiently for 40 years, but most of my practice has been in the states. In Montpellier, I bought some books at the FNAC in the Centre Polygone. At the caisse, the attendant asked me about their frequent-buyer program. That's one of those things in which you receive a card with a bar code and gain points for each purchase. I had absolutely no vocabulary for that. I figured out what she was talking about but had no idea how to respond. I must have looked mystified, because the woman said, in very accented, very slow English, "Do...you...speak...French?" I explained, in French, that I spoke French, but had no idea what she was talking about. She dismissed me with "Vous êtes de l'étranger, alors." I hope I received some points for at least speaking French. My other situation was in Bordeaux. One of my high school students left her brick back in Montpellier. That's the word she used for the cube that plugs into the outlet and you plug the USB charger cord for your cell phone into it. I had no idea what the French word was for that thing. We went into an Orange or some place like that. I should have known what I was getting into when I first spoke to a man who listened to me, then asked me to wait for a "spécialiste." First, I used the French word, "cube" to no effect. Then I explained, in French, what the device did. The "spécialiste" looked at me with hooded eyes and said, "un réchargeur?" I was totally embarrassed. Of course, I knew the word for charger. I just wanted the cube. Apparently either thing is the same word in French. I've made five trips to France in the last five years. I know I make mistakes all the time in my speech. But I know I speak better French than 99% of Americans who visit France. And the vast majority of French people I meet are just happy I can communicate in their language. Many offer corrections to my spoken French, in a very kind way. But every once in a while you come across people who are bored with their job and unhappy, or they are pretentious pricks. All in all, I'd have to say there a much higher percentage of those kind of people here in the states than in France (mostly the bored and unhappy sort). Give me a pretentious French prick over an American asshole any day.
Michael Heitz franchement j'aurais galéré à expliquer aussi pour le chargeur, faudrait dire "donnez moi un chargeur mais pas la partie qui va dans le téléphone, genre juste la partie qui va dans la prise" et encore c'est pas sûr qu'ils comprennent à Orange
I'm fluent in Spanish and some years ago was just beginning to learn French. I was at a family party and was dancing with my best friend's mother, who was about 65 at that time. I accidently stepped on her foot and I said, "Pardon, je ne volais pas te pisser le pied. LOL. I had translated from "pisar" in Spanish, to step on. You can imagine the look I got. En fin...
Once an American colleague of mine told me "j'ai fait le cul pendant une heure". I took me a while to stop laughing and then to understand that she meant "J'ai fait la queue pendant une heure"
My apologies for such a nit-picky comment, but I feel that I should point out that the 'h' in 'honest' is not pronounced. Most times, the letter h is, but not in this case. Thank you for your fine work, Madame.
I don't blame you a bit, Madame; English is a highly irregular language, particularly in pronunciation. However, I expect your English is better than my French.
A little French accent is more charming than being perfect. I did notice that "h" in honest, too. Didn't occur to me to comment; it just made me think how she was probably trying to pronounce all the h's even tho they don't in French, and ironically, that h is silent! English is a hard language.
My worst gaff was when I told my French guests that I had visited the house of the young girl Bernadette at Lourdes, & that she had seen the "VERGE" when I should have said "VIERGE" very little difference in pronunciation!
Oh my goodness. I visit France every year and talk to many non English speaking friends of my mother's. They are wonderfully patient and correct me, but I guess they have sat tittering under their breath with some of my gaffs. I have made some of these mistakes you've mentioned, every time I've been. It's amazing I haven't been barred from the country! Thanks for the tips. :)
One day when I was speaking with the House Keeper for the family I au pair for I wanted to say "Je suis en colère" but on accident I said "Je suis enculer" Thankfully french is not her first language either, so she laughed at me and taught me the correct pronunciation
When trying to remove a splinter from my hand I once told somebody "je dois chercher une tenaille, j'ai une pine dans la main". I now know it is an "epine", with an accent aigu on the first e, not a "pine", which is a male sexual organ.
Excellent. You might be amused by an anecdote from many years ago but which we never let my sister forget: After a meal at our French friends' house they asked her if she wanted some more to eat. "Non merci" she said "je suis pleine" mdr ;-)
Well I find it funny when French people pronounce the word "focus." I was watching a French person give an American some tennis lessons and he kept saying what sounded like "f*** us, f*** us." It wasn't the WRONG word, just an interesting pronunciation!
Geraldine, common usage in ANY language is a minefield! English (as used in England, and possibly;y in Australia) is FULL of this sort of thing. Being an old (80) student of colloquial as well as correct English I'd be happy to help you try to get around them, if you find a problem BTW (apart from any interpretation of "tu es chaud") I enjoy your posts. :-D I fell foul of this sort of thing when I first went to study Architecture in England. I wanted to rub out (another one!) a pencil line and asked my fellow students if they had a rubber. Turns out the Poms call it an "eraser". A "rubber" is a condom.
I was with my French boyfriend and he said "Allons-si!" So just because I was excited [the french language really needs a word for being excited in the English way] I shouted "Allons Si Si" & he looked at me in shock and said not to say that, it had a sexual meaning, though he never explained what it was!
Haha, the video was very fun to watch! As for me, I did a silly mistake where I tried to describe my French teacher only in French, and I said that she had "les yeux blancs (white eyes)." Because the word "blanc" sounds like "black," I mixed them up. Her reaction was priceless as she repeated, "Blanc? Les yeux blancs?"I then laughed and said "les yeux noirs."
The one that got me for long time is not obscene: in English, we say Entrée to mean the main course, which would be 'plat' in French. Entrée in French would be 'appetizer' in English.
That's why I see a lot of French teachers in their introductory video say in English: I am going to present myself, instead of the more natural I am going to introduce myself.
When I was seventeen I participated in a work/study program in Paris for a summer. When my work was finished I did a little traveling and stayed with a wonderful Belgian family in Mons-Bergen. At dinner the first evening I was asked if I wanted more of something. I replied, "Non, je suis plein." They all burst out in laughter and then explained to me why. I was embarrassed but couldn't help laughing at myself, too.
I recently started to watch your videos, currently taking french on school, and find your videos very useful ! keep up the work, they are really entertaining !
Oh my god I made mistake number 2 in one of my French lessons last year. My teacher pointed it out and we were both pissing ourselves- we couldn't stop laughing and its something I'll remember forever 😂
I once made the mistake of saying to a native „j'ai trompé" instead of "je me suis trompé", and he was like, "noooon, j'ai trompé es trop gênant!". He was cool, though. And I will never forget that french class when I was twelve and we talked about the middle ages. I understood later why was the teacher so horrified when she heard me saying "verge de fer" instead of "vierge~.
I was in Paris and I would often say "Je suis excité..." until my friends starting laughing at me and correcting me. Once I understood the meaning I was cracking up at myself too! LOL.
Hello professor Bonjour professeur Thank you so much for your interesting courses l follow you attentivelly in order to improve my English and my French. I love your way of teaching and excellent explanation. I wish you peace and happiness under the sky of prosperity. Your Student from Algeria.
no until now , because I do not have some one to practice french with (I do it with my self ) but I belive I will make thousands of mistakes through my journey into learning
Years ago I was taking a tour of the château de Versailles which was conducted in French. While touring the hall of mirrors, the tour guide turns and asks me directly in French, what do you think? First thing I could think of to say was the colors were beautiful....les couleurs sont jolies. Unfortunately, in my rush to spit something out, my words slurred and couleurs sounded more like culé as in enculés. Everyone in the group gasped at first and then chuckled. Evidently, instead of saying the colors were pretty, I boldly proclaimed that the ass fuckers were pretty. After that time I made my French friend teach me each and every French curse word perfectly so that way I would know how they sounded/were pronounced and I would never make an innocent mistake like that again. To this date it has helped and saved me further embarrassment.
Hahaha...the first time I stayed at my boyfriend's (now my husband) holiday home I made a mistake with "preservitif".We were talking about une baguette...and I said the reason they go stale so quickly is because they don't have preservatives! I didn't know the right word then....so it was a source of many laughs...and still is now...fortunately my French is a bit better now...although, by no means good....but I am taking lessons with you Geraldine!....😂
Les Québécois, on fait souvent l'erreur de dire "Je suis excité(e)" pour dire qu'on a très hâte à propos de quelque chose. Même à la télévision, c'est une expression que les gens disent beaucoup...J'essaie vraiment de sortir ça de mon vocabulaire :D
In any country, it's very iffy when asking how to say something. Most pull pranks on you. People can be downright untrustworthy. Thank you for these very helpful tips. Many years ago I was living in London, working in a restaurant. A girl worked there who was French. I've always wanted to learn the language. Back then you didn't have much help. I asked her to tell me how to tell our French clients how to go downstairs. What she told me was the directions to the bathroom for a bath. Needless to say I was highly embarrassed when I found out. It was cruel. I was a kid. I've never forgotten it.
I’ve only just found this website - it’s excellent, well done Geraldine. I have two stories of things like these ! Even today my French isn’t brilliant but many years ago I wanted to ask how much something was. I said something like “Qu’est que c’est la coute” which, with my awful pronunciation, did not sound good. Another time was when my wife was feeling very unwell whilst on holiday in France. She thought she might be pregnant and I had to go to a pharmacie and try to buy a pregnancy test kit - not very easy with poor French !!
Run through the comment section and learnt a lot. I feel equally embrassed even by reading those embrassing moments you had. Thanks for sharing though. This is a very good comment section, thank you all.
I'm a Francophone Belgian and we say in French Belgian : "Donner une baise" means : "Kiss somebody" in French of France! In Belgium, the word " une baise" is very commonly used without any wrong back thought! But it's true, be carefully when you use this term in Belgium because sometimes that makes the situation awkward!
Whenever I visit France, I always enjoy drinking Pernod. On my first visit, as a student, my mate I was with (who didn’t speak French) discovered what he christened “the hand grenade”. I had a bit of French, and called it a “Pernod grenadine”. A few years later, on holiday with my then boyfriend, we were in a bar and I asked for a Pernod grenadine, and the barmaid had difficulty understanding what I wanted. After a bit of pointing and speaking slowly etc, she understood and made me my drink. But as she put it in front of me, she said, “Voila, un Pernod avec de la grenadine.” I’ve never forgotten, and I’ve never thought the French are rude for correcting people. I’m a retired teacher, and it’s in my blood to correct people. It isn’t to make them look like an idiot or to reprimand, it’s so that if someone was in a similar situation again, they’d know what to do. As in the case of this barmaid, who was being kind by correcting me, so I’d know how to ask again. I’ve never forgotten. I even go out of my way to find out the word I need. I went into a shop to buy a toothbrush and toothpaste, and after asking for, “Une brosse à dents,” I asked, “Qu’est-ce qu’on appelle l’étoffe qu’on met sur la brosse, j’ai oublié le mot.” The assistant replied, “dentifrice”. I then asked le or la, to which she replied, “le dentifrice”. The French have a bit of a reputation in the UK for being a bit offhand and moody, but they really are not. They are simply very proud of their language, and however badly a foreigner speaks it, they love it when people make the effort, and will bend over backwards to help.
I'm given to understand that "savoir" means "to know how to do something" and "connaitre" means to know a person and if you use "savoir" with a person, it means you know them in the Biblical sense (which could give you a black eye)!
R52177 nope, it's the opposite ! The use of "connaître" with a person means you know them in the Biblical sense ;) In fact you can't use "savoir" with a person at all. We always use "connaître" when talking about somebody but it's hard to tell when it has the regular or the Biblical sense :)
I do agree with u that making mistakes is a necessary step in developing one's language, but there are also some problems. the first one is that u should know how to pass this stage because if u believe that making mistakes is totally natural, then it'll be fixed and fossilized and it'll be hard to change the habit. The second main problem i can find is that these mistakes leave a bad impression of people about u and might lower down ur social confidence. How would u propose to solve these problems?!
+pourya yahyaee There is no bad impression, i mean if you talk with a strong accent and said to a french "Je peux te baiser?" it's different than a french man said that to a french girl, with foreigner the girl will probably laugh (because she understand the mistake) with a french guy it's not the same thing.
I speak French...And When I chat with English people, sometimes they try to talk to me in French...I've seen MANY funny mistakes xD But it's okay c: Even me, in English, I make mistakes c:
Raphaëlle Dion yep, that's right... I am learning french in French institution... best way to learn a new language is to speak with someone who speaks well in that language or native speaker... I am searching for one to learn french ... ;) hope I will get one ..
I made a small mistake when writing about my cat in French class. I became unsure if it was feminine or not so I thought I'd spell it as it it was feminine because it's a female cat. So when I got the test back my teacher told me how this one mistake could create a completely different meaning. And I've laughed at it ever since.
Not as embarrassing but I used A vos souhaits to mean as you wish and ca vous fait mal to mean does it bother you . But it is totally ok to make mistakes I am now more comfortable with them and as a result I’ve improved quite a bit.
Une fois, quand j'allais à l'université, une fille de ma classe m'a prêté ses notes pour une matière, et je lui ai dit : merci beaucoup, t'es très bonne ! Elle a rit et m'a dit qu'elle comprenait ce que je voulais dire mais que j'aurais du dire plutôt « gentille »...
Years ago, in France, my boyfriend and I had just finished a meal and since there was no dessert at home, I proposed to go out for a walk and get a "gâterie". His facial expression alone told me there had been a miscommunication of some sort. I am French speaking from Québec and up to that time, I had never heard the word used for anything other than to mean 'sweets' of some sort (from the verb gâter which means to treat yourself). He pulled out the Robert-Collins translation dictionary and we both had a good laugh. It runs out that "gâterie" in France is mostly used to mean a bj.
True story: a group of 8-year-olds studying French at school were set to your France for a couple weeks with their French teachers. The father of one of the kids, who owned a shirt store, inspired by the "Kiss me I'm..." trend in the USA, had printed up a bunch of tee-shirts for all the kids that were supposed to mean, "Kiss me, I speak French" but he of course put "Baisez-moi, je parle français." Not a good thing for little kids to be wearing while touring France.
Un moment, ma sœur petite à l’époque a dit directement et tout haut " ohla je suis toute en chaleur !" juste pour dire qu'elle avait chaud ! moment embarrassant pour les parents ! ^^
I can't cope with this accent. However, I have a really embarrassing mistake in French. Some years ago I was about to buy a derelict 3 storey property in SW France. It had been a grocer's. At the meeting with the notaire, it was admitted that it had been difficult to contact the 33 inheritants, some of whom lived now in Australia. I made my pitch exhorting the pecksniff lawyer to make more effort to contact "les hérissons." I thought I was saying "the inheriters" when of course I was saying, "the hedgehogs." So, polite, they never pulled me up on it.
