Protips: The little things you learn to pro up your French

Savoir and connaître are one of the most confusing French pairs for students, because they both mean ‘to know’ but are used in different contexts.

Savoir is used to refer to the knowledge of a fact. Most of the time it is followed by ‘que’:

Saviez-vous qu’en 1776 les États-Unis ont gagné leur indépendance ? – Did you know that in 1776 the US gained their independence?

A fact can be anything that is implied in the context to be an accepted notion. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a historical or scientific truth. E.g. Est-ce que tu sais comment faire des tartes? – Do you know how to make tarts?

It can also be used with the direct object pronoun le: Je le sais – I know that (‘that’ being a previously mentioned fact).

Connaître is primarily used to refer to the knowledge of a person:

Ils ne connaissent pas Hannah aussi bien que vous – They don’t know Hannah as well as you do

It can also be used with a direct object pronoun:

Il la connaît depuis son enfance – He’s known her since childhood

While it might seem strange, connaître is also used for the knowledge of things which cannot be classified as ‘facts’ per se but are known by recognition. So, to say you know a song, movie, place or book, you use ‘connaître’.

Est-ce que tu connais les films de Clovis Cornillac ? – Do you know any of Clovis Cornillac’s films? (i.e. are any of them familiar to you?)

Je connais cette petite ville en Inde où ils servent les meilleurs samoussas du monde – I know this little town in India where they serve the best samosas in the world.

Maintenant, connaissez-vous la difference entre ‘savoir’ et ‘connaître’?