Today is the Queen’s birthday (l’anniversaire officiel de la reine) in Australia and other Commonwealth nations, which means public servants and some workers get a long weekend. Suppose if tomorrow when work resumes as normal you are telling your co-workers what you did over the weekend. ‘Sur le week-end, je suis allé à Geraldton avec ma famille.’ It’s very common to hear this mistake because of the literal translation of ‘over’ to sur. To avoid embarrassment, say pendant le week-end instead (that is how weekend is written in French): Pendant le week-end, je suis allé à Geraldton avec ma famille.

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If you are in France (or another francophone country) and you want to say something makes you laugh, you would be quite right to use the verb ‘faire’: Ça me fait rire. If on the other hand you want to ascribe a descriptive quality to something using ‘make’, you will need a different verb: rendre. Rendre is used when talking about adjectives instead of verbs: Le film m’a rendu triste – The film made me sad. So, you wouldn’t say Le film m’a fait triste or you may attract a few giggles from your audience. Another use of rendre is to mean ‘return’ in the sense of giving something back to someone or handing in your homework/assignment.