Embarrassing mistakes and how to avoid (or at least rectify) them

As far as embarrassing mistakes go this one isn’t the worst of the bunch, but can still make for some awkwardness during conversation.

Imagine it’s summer, heatwave weather, and you’re labouring under the sweltering heat trying to do everything you can to keep cool. Fanning yourself vigorously with a newspaper, you say in an exasperated tone ‘C’est trop chaud!’ Your French friends are too preoccupied with their own battle with the weather to say anything, but if it had been another day, they would probably have had a reaction.

When talking about the weather, the verb faire is required. So ‘it’s too hot’ would be ‘il fait trop chaud’. ‘C’est trop chaud’ would refer to the temperature of an object (e.g. the soup is too hot – ‘la soupe est trop chaude’).

Don’t make the mistake of saying ‘Je suis chaud’ either. Like most expressions of natural state, this statement uses ‘avoir’ instead of ‘être’ (e.g. j’ai faim, j’ai soif, etc.) So, you would say ‘J’ai chaud’. ‘Je suis chaud’ has a sexual connotation (i.e. saying that you are attractive, or worse, that you are in the mood for intercourse). It is unfortunate that both expressions are rendered by the same form in English, but at least it acts as a source of humour (‘I am hot’ could either mean the weather is getting to me or I’m not hard to look at…the choice is in the eye of the beholder!)