12 Tricky French False Cognates: Part 1
Some confusing French-English word pairs that you should look out for. Here are 12 of them.
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1. Adepte and Adept2. Ancien and Ancient3. Apologie and Apology4. Blanquette and Blanket5. Blessé and Blessed6. Bouton and Button7. Bras (French) and Bra (English)8. Brasserie and Brassiere9. Chair (French) and Chair (English)10. Chat (French) and Chat (English)11. Déception and Deception12. Décevoir and DeceiveFaux amis. False friends. The name itself conjures bad images. Like false friends, faux amis or false cognates are not to be trusted—they will trip you up when you’re not careful.
But what are tricky French false cognates? To the uninitiated, these are French words that look exactly the same–or quite similar–to English words. But they stab you in the back and turn out to be very different from what you thought they meant.
Best case scenario, the people you’re talking to would just laugh it off. Worst case, you’ll get so embarrassed that you will want to move out of town.
On the flip side, there are vrais amis or true friends, too. These are words that look the same–and mean the same thing–as their English twins. But that is a lesson for another day. For this article, let’s talk about some of the trickiest false cognates in French that you should watch out for.
1. Adepte and Adept
The French noun adepte means a follower or an enthusiast. For example, when someone is “un adepte de la natation”, the person is a fan of swimming. He probably swims regularly and reads up about that sport. Or he may not even swim himself, he’s just really knowledgeable about it.
But in English, adept is an adjective that means competent or expert. So when you say he is “adept at swimming”, the person is a good swimmer and probably won accolades from swimming competitions.
2. Ancien and Ancient
The French adjective ancien can also mean ancient, but more often than not, it is used as “former”. For example:
l’ancien président de France = former president of France
Just like how the word “old” is used in modern English (e.g. “my old girlfriend” = my ex-girlfriend), it is important to consider the context.
3. Apologie and Apology
These two words have different usual meanings. Apologie means a justification or defence of a person or idea. The everyday English apology expresses remorse or regret, translated as excuse or excuses. In formal English, however, apology can also mean a defence, so the meanings are not completely separate.
As to the English meaning of apology, “pardon” and “excusez-moi” are both polite apologies to use when speaking French.
4. Blanquette and Blanket
It’s easy to think that blanquette is just a fancy Frenchified term for blanket, right? Uhh, no. It has nothing to do with keeping you warm while you sleep. Blanquette de veau is a delicious veal stew and the word you’re probably looking for is une couverture (blanket in French).
This is a Blanquette de veau. Image source.
5. Blessé and Blessed
If you hashtag your Instagram selfie with #blessed, people would think you’re showing off and making everyone jealous with your awesome life… but hey, good for you! If you do decide to make it fancier and use #blessé—well, don’t, unless you’re recently injured.
You see, blessé may look like the French sister of blessed, but it comes from the verb ‘blesser’ which means ‘to wound’ either physically or emotionally. And blessé is the recipient of that injury.
Un enfant blessé. And nope, his wound is not a blessing
6. Bouton and Button
Regular French words can already be tricky, especially when they have more than one meaning. Take bouton for example. It looks like button and most of the time it does mean the same thing. But when you hear a French girl complaining about her boutons, don’t take it to mean that a wardrobe malfunction is about to happen. She’s just worrying about a pimple.
7. Bras (French) and Bra (English)
So you overhear two muscular French guys talking about their bras. Could they be…secretly drag queens? Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course. But take it easy. They’re probably just talking about their arms.
Votre bras means your arm. That particular limb between your wrist and shoulder? Yup that one. It has nothing to do with a bra which, by the way, is un soutien-gorge in French.
This kind of bras.
8. Brasserie and Brassiere
Still on the topic of female undergarments, take note that despite the seemingly similar spelling between these two, they are two very different things.
This is une brasserie which is a bar that also serves meals aside from the regular alcoholic beverages and bar food. Or vice versa: it could also be a restaurant that offers alcohol.
The thing is, brasserie and brassiere, though very different in meaning are quite easy to confuse in writing. Spellcheck normally doesn’t bother telling you what’s wrong with what you wrote because both words are acceptable in dictionaries. So you have to be doubly careful. You wouldn’t want to text everyone that you’re inviting them to try your new favorite brassiere, right?
9. Chair (French) and Chair (English)
Two words spelled the exact same way. But the meanings couldn’t be farther apart. Chair in French is not something you sit on. It’s….flesh. Yup, the meat inside human and animal bodies. It could also be used figuratively such as les plaisirs de la chair or pleasures of the flesh (not pleasures derived from a comfortable new chair).
So don’t be weird and perverted. The correct term you’re probably looking for is chaise which is French for chair.
10. Chat (French) and Chat (English)
The French word chat is pronounced with a ‘sh’ sound instead of ‘ch’. It also naps all day, constantly judges you, and has whiskers.
This one.
The English word chat is a light conversation between people. Its closest French counterpart is the verb bavarder (to chat).
A quick word of advice! When pronouncing chat, keep the final t silent. Pronouncing it gives chatte, the ordinary word for a female cat, which also has a vulgar sexual meaning depending on context. Be careful!
11. Déception and Deception
Déception and deception. It’s basically the same word, right? Nope. Don’t be deceived!
Déception is a French term that means disappointment or frustration. But there is no deception (in the English sense) involved here. The French counterpart to the English term deception or deceit would have to be la tromperie.
On a related note, check out the next one on the list.
12. Décevoir and Deceive
Décevoir is a French verb that means ‘to disappoint or to let a person down’. Just like déception, it’s got nothing to do with deceit, too (unless it’s the reason for the disappointment itself). But the French verb for deceiving or misleading someone is tromper.
Décevoir (to disappoint) is still a negative action but it’s decidedly less sinister than tromper (to deceive or trick).
But don’t forget to check back for the other parts of this series. There are so many more tricky faux amis that we should look out for.
