Learn who your real French friends are

You’ve probably heard the word ‘actuellement’ used to mean ‘actually’. As you may have guessed from the title of this post (and the tagline), ‘actuellement’ is a faux ami (or false friend) of ‘actually’.

Actuellement actually means ‘currently’ (whence actualités which means ‘current events’): Il est actuellement en train de terminer ses études à Nice – He is currently in the process of completing his studies in Nice. The correct way of rendering ‘actually’ in French is ‘en fait’ (with ‘fait’ pronounced like ‘fête’), which can also mean ‘in fact’:

I actually came over to thank you for fetching me home the other day – En fait, je suis venu te remercier pour m’avoir ramené l’autre jour

When ‘actually’ is used as an intensifier (i.e. to emphasize something), it can be translated by a variety of words and expressions, including vraiment (really), en réalité (in reality, in actual fact) and en fait itself. It all depends on the nuance that is being sought:

That’s not actually what happened – Ce n’est pas vraiment ce qui s’est passé

He was actually lying the whole time – En fait, il mentait tout le temps; En réalité, il mentait tout le temps

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