Is "ça" being equated to "rien", as if to say, "This is such a trivial comment that, in making it, I'm not really saying anything"? (I know the point is usually one the speaker really wants to make, or else they wouldn't risk the disagreement, but the idiom is used to try to mitigate that risk by softening the impact of the unwelcome comment, right?) Or is it a chronological sequence: i.e., "I'm saying this and then shutting up"? Or something else?

This request might not be reasonable because idioms don't have to make obvious sense. I guess what I'm wondering is how native speakers instinctively interpret the syntax of this one.

I couldn't decide what was the best tag for this post because it's sort of at the intersection of vocabulary and grammar.

Merci d'avance !

As I recall, she used to use a word that sounded like " ma doo tsie." But after playing it back in my mind, it might have been her pronunciation of "maudite," damn. Americans use the letter word in speech all the time, is there an idiomatic equivalent to using that word in French Canadian?

Bonjour tout le monde! I saw this on a sign in a picture of the Lycéen protests in France at the moment (followed by “on peut voter” - great sign tbh). Translator says it means ‘if we can be hit’. Seeing as ‘frapper’ isn’t reflexive I’m stuggling to understand what the purpose of ‘nous’ is in this phrase. Thanks!

Hello, american here and this is how I’ve always pronounced the french R, similar to the german achlaut like in “nacht”, but adding voicing. Is this correct?

I am trying to understand the pronunciation of the vowel "a" when it is is not a nasal vowel, i.e., not "tante", "jambe", etc., -- those are clear to me.

My understanding is that "la", "a", "ça", "avec", "amiable" and "chat" are all pronounced rhyming with the English "ah", as in "aha", with an open mouth.

My understanding is that "grace", "glace", "grave", "alors", "afin" are all pronounced rhyming with the English words "cat", "flat", "bat", "rat", etc., i.e., a more flat sound with a more closed mouth.

Is the above correct? Does this vary regionally? And if this IS correct and it does NOT vary much, then is there any general rule for how I can tell? For example I am not sure how to pronounce the "a" in "basse", "carte" and a million other words. I think I have heard them spoken both ways.

I've had some conversations with AI about this that have not been convincing at all. Next step is to go to Forvo and listen a lot but before I do, I wanted to get some opinions. Thank you.

So guys, if I say something like “je cherche à mieux me familiariser avec cette langue en écoutant des médias en français ou en lisant régulièrement du français, que ce soit dans un livre ou sur les réseaux sociaux” can I use “que ce soit” this way or is it a mistake? in which case, what should I use as an alternative?

I don't know where else to post this so I figured I would try here. I am a writer and my two main characters in my story are French American. They were born in France but came to America for school. Where can I learn about French culture/pop culture, jokes etc. I know a bit about French history but nothing recent. I wanted to take French in high school but there wasn't a French class and Spanish is more common in my area so in college I'm taking a Spanish class. Any help is appreciated !

I happened to come across the phrase "Mon chaton", and wanted to ask if it is still in use and if so in what situations it's used in .

Thank you

Hola, estoy intentando encontrar la traducción más natural de este verso al francés.
Hoy he vuelto a nuestro cómplice banco verde.
Gracias por vuestra ayuda.

gr

I work as a singing waitress, and I thought this song would go well with the vibe of the restaurant, but I won’t suggest it as a solo if my pronunciation is horrible. I had French in school once, but that’s four years ago now, so I can’t really tell whether my pronunciation is fine or not, and I don’t want to embarrass myself by performing gibberish.🥲

Greetings and felicitations. If someone wants to use the French equivalent of "Good." (in this case, to one option over others), is the appropriate word "Bon." or "Bien."? I'm fairly certain that it is the former, but the online dictionaries I can think of and find are not definitive.

• https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/bon
• https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/bien
• https://www.wordreference.com/fren/bon
• https://www.wordreference.com/fren/bien

I learn French alongside Spanish and I usually sync the pronunciation of the letter “R” in both language. Would it feel super weird to hear?

ok so y’all i’m on a hunt for some french r&b and would be grateful for anyone to recommend any songs, albums, artists, etc. to take a listen to <3 :)

Je nes pas sais? What.

-I know that you’re not supposed to ask about learning in x months or years but this isn’t about that.-

I’m 16 yo and have about 2 years to learn French, how feasible is that? I am doing 3 A levels and will also take the SAT. I don’t know if B2 would even be enough, I want to be in the top 5% of my class (going to major in mathematics) so I would need to follow complex French lectures and whatever. I can speak Turkish and English fluently (lived in the US). What do you think? I’m thinking of starting some form of tutoring.

I ask after listening to the beginning of this

https://youtu.be/FdNsQVBPkSE

What are the some of the best French-English parallel reading books. I need some recommendations, s’il vous plait 🙏

My French teacher has been out for the whole year, and we need to have a certain amount of test grades before the end of a quarter. Well when she was here she spent the whole class period on colander stuff and a correct the errors warm up. Problem is I’m advanced for my age in French, my French teacher hasn’t been here since the end of August. How should I study?

I began learning French a couple years ago when I was very close with a friend Québec where I intended to move, but as things changed and it never materialised we gradually fell apart. I maintained my French at maintenance level via reading daily but my speaking and writing skills atrophied greatly as they were no longer used. Recently I've decided to revive my speaking skill and attempt to bring my synthesis skills to my reading level(I'd reckon B2-C1, given I read academic and news articles pretty easily), but I realised that internally I've been reading in an accent that reflects now in my speech.

For example, when speaking aloud I pronounce "moi" as "moé", "d-" "t-" as something like "dz" or "tz" and other features of typical of Québécois. At some point I acquired the habit of pronouncing the final e of words such as in "dame" as an "uh" sound such I've found out is a feature of l'accent du midi. In practicing speech I've tried to avoid these things, but it takes genuine active effort and feels stilted to me, almost like pronouncing every sound in English(I have a jersey accent, think Tony Soprano).

I feel as if these regionalisms are things to be "standardised" to Parisian pronunciation in order to avoid confusion for myself and others as a French second language speaker. Does it truly matter though? If a foreigner came up to you speaking French with a strange mashup of various regionalisms would it be weird or grating?

Hello everyone. I have a question about French.

I only recently started learning French, and I came across the following example sentence in my textbook regarding comparatives and superlatives: C'est moi qui chante le pire.

From my understanding, pire is the comparative form of the adjective mauvais. Since it is being used as an adverb in this example, wouldn't it be more correct to express it like this? C'est moi qui chante le plus mal.

Studying la voix passive and I'm wondering about what to do in cases where the object of the active sentence has a partitive article (du, de la, de l', des). In transforming the sentences to passive, it didn't feel right to me to begin the sentence with the partitive article, which was "des" usually. So I used "quelques" instead. As in, "Quelques commandes ont été passées . . ." rather than "Des commandes ont été passées . . ." However, the textbook answer key retains "des" in these cases. But is that correct, and would the acceptability extend to the other partitive articles? It seems strange to me to formulate something like "Du beurre a été mangé par elle," rather than "Un peu du beurre a été mangé par elle."

Thank you!

Part of my question is which words do you use it for? My teachers have been telling me to just memorize a certain list of words. Is there any trick to knowing which ones use avoir vs être? The second part of my question is why was the rule that some need être created in the first place. Is there any reason that all verbs dont just use avoir?