The, at, in and La/le/les: How are we supposed to get them right ever?

For non-French speakers, especially Anglophones, French is difficult not only because it is confusing to pronounce (and get a good accent going) but also because of a real headache associated with the gender of things/nouns…In French (like in German, by the way) nouns are masculine or feminine (in German, you may want to add neutral with respect to gender!). Forget about finding some kind of logic or pattern to guess when things are likely to be feminine or masculine. I tried that and there is no logic that I could detect. You just have to memorize the gender of each word. This might have explained why I admired French kids who seem to have no problem whatsoever associating a gender article to words (Actually, after my French got better, I noticed that they do make mistakes though much less frequently than me…And often now I notice their mother correcting the gender of things when they get it wrong).

Foreign speakers tend to develop different strategies to overcome this little problem that the French seem to notice (often, they would indirectly correct you by repeating the noun and emphasizing the right gender of the noun, like “Oh yes, of course, LA table over there is free….”): I have a friend who seems to always mention things in plural (which works for the article itself, but when you have to add adjective….they also have to agree with the gender!); I have also tried to avoid altogether mentioning the gender article if I could (by pretending that I was taking a breath for instance just before saying the noun, or whispering it quickly); or, of course, a last option you mention both genders…like: “Le….(pause) La…table over there is free ?”.
Add to that the use of “of” (de in French), “to” (à in French) that follow certain words. In French, when you want to say “I am thinking OF you” you actually say “Je pense à toi” (I am thinking TO you). And “continue to….” is often expressed as “continuer de…” (literally: continue of). The French also has an additional word to our two “YES” (Oui) and “NO” (Non), namely Si. “Si” is used when you answer affirmatively to a question framed in the negative (Don’t you like what I cooked? SI, bien sur! Or Yes, of course! That is, the YES here is SI and not OUI!).

Of course, if you had a mean streak like me, you would also make fun (privately) of how the French speak English. They certainly have problems with THE….not just in pronouncing it (Often they say Zeh) but in using it too. I saw a graffiti (in English) scrawled on a mail box that read: We want the mail on the time….no guessing the writer was French. They tend to eliminate ‘the’ altogether or use it too much in unlikely places too. FUN is another word that is often used wrong. Fun is an adjective but in their zeal for rules, the French often add ‘y’ to make it really an adjective. So, your friends might say “Oh the party last night was really funny” (meaning, the party was fun!) or “Mr. X is such a funny person” (they might not mean that Mr. X tells a lot of joke or is unusual/weird, but that Mr. X likes to party and have fun). They also use English words bizarrely (and don’t even try to correct them because they would still think that they are right and you have no idea what you’re talking about…please see another post of mine for weird use of English words in French)..for instance, if someone tells you there’s a ‘self’ around the corner he or she probably meant that there is a self-service shop there (and is not being philosophical about finding one’s self). When I go to a bakery and ask for a doughnut they always repeat it to correct me by saying Un (one) doughnutS..yes, the s is pronounced and compulsory even if you’re asking for just one doughnut. But don’t ask for Trois (three) cakes (another English word bizarrely adopted by the French) they will pronounce it like cake in singular (as are most words in French where the plural forms are only noticeable in writing but not in pronunciation except when the words actually change in their plural forms such as mal (ache) that becomes maux (aches)).

Last but not least are what the French call les faux amis (literally, fake friends) referring to words that are similar but have totally different meaning in French and in English. How many times have I heard “Oh but he is such as sensible person”…what the speaker meant was that he is such as sensitive guy…Extra for English speakers means something more (than expected or than usual) but in French it means better than most or the best!

So, next time you find yourself in a funny party, just try to be extra so that you could meet lots of sensible new friends!