The most common way of expressing possession in both English and French is to use possessive adjectives (mine, yours, his, etc.). In French, there are two other ways of expressing possession/ownership:

• Using the verb ‘appartenir’ (the syntax is ‘appartenir à qn’ – to belong to someone)

Exemple 1: Le livre appartient à Mark – The book belongs to Marc (The book is Marc’s)

Exemple 2: À qui appartient ce portable? – Who does this phone belong to? (Whose phone is this?)

Because of the syntax ‘appartenir à qn’, the ‘à qn‘ part can be replaced with an indirect object pronoun. If we apply an IOP to the first example, we get ‘Le livre lui appartient’ (The book belongs to him).

• Using the verb ‘être’ + à

Exemple 1: Le livre est à Mark – The book belongs to Marc (The book is Marc’s)

Exemple 2: À qui appartient ce portable? | C’est à moi – Whose phone is this? | It’s mine

‘Appartenir’ is used more in formal contexts, while ‘être’ is used in more everyday contexts. However, the two expressions are more or less the same and can be used interchangeably.

Where in English possession is expressed using an apostrophe followed by the letter ‘s’, the French use the preposition ‘de’. Let’s look at some examples:

Exemple 1: My mother’s friends always drink when they come over – Les amis de ma mère boivent toujours quand elles la rendent visite (literally “the friends of my mother”)

Rather than use the -‘s form of a noun (this is called a clitic), the French use ‘de’ (of), as in ‘the friends of my mother’. The clitic does not exist in French; there is no such thing as “ma mère’s amis”.

Exemple 2: She likes to make snacks for her neighbours’ kids – Elle aime faire des collations* pour les enfants de ses voisins. (literally “the kids of her neighbours“)

*”collation“, a feminine noun, is the French equivalent of afternoon tea

Today we’re going to look at how to formulate the notion of expressing interest in something. As is usually the case, French syntax differs from English in ways that might be unexpected and potentially confusing. We will try and demystify this as much as possible and break it down so it’s easier to understand. Let’s go!

« Il jouait du piano debout » is a song by French singer France Gall (as an aside it’s a great song with a nice soothing melody, plus you can use it to learn some vocabulary). Looking at the title, it might be surprising to see ‘du’ where in English we would just have ‘the’. Il jouait du piano debout means ‘He played the piano standing/upright’ and reveals a difference in the way playing musical instruments is expressed in French. We use the syntax ‘jouer de + instrument’, e.g. jouer de + le piano = jouer du piano’ (for feminine nouns/instruments it will be de la). So, you can say ‘jouer de la guitare, de la batterie (drums), du violon’, etc.

Why is this the case? In French logic, an instrument is a whole, and you can only play some of it (similar to the usage of the partitive with quantities, e.g. Il mange du gateau implies he is eating some cake).

Sports display a similar difference; we say ‘jouer à un sport’ instead of simply ‘play a sport’. E.g. ‘Je joue au tennis le week-end’ – I play tennis on the weekend. If the sport is feminine then ‘à la’ would be employed in place of ‘au’ (this rarely happens as most sports are masculine).

Learn who your real French friends are

Today’s faux ami is the word déception, which on first impression looks to be the word for ‘deception’. This is a great example of the way etymology (word origins) works and how similar-looking words can have completely different origins and meanings. Déception is the nominal (noun) form of the verb décevoir (as evident from its ending, it is a feminine noun). Décevoir means ‘to disappoint’, while déception means ‘disappointment’. How to say deception? Use the word tromperie (also a feminine noun, from the verb tromper which means to deceive or cheat [on] someone).