daily-french-words - Tumblr blog

[daily-french-words]

Ah yes, daily French words, yup, super daily. Oops.

So, a bunch of very stupid and annoying things happened, and I didn't have the time to prepare the blog this week. It's coming back next week though, sorry for the delay. See you then!

[daily-french-words]

WEEK ONE DONE LET'S GO!!!!!!!!

[daily-french-words]

concomitant : adj. qui accompagne.

ex : Ils essaient de prévoir les effets concomitants des catastrophes naturelles.

3/10 (never heard this one either, but apparently can be used quite a lot in some professional fields.)

concomitant : additional, existing and occurring with something else.

I couldn't find a better different translation so here!

Made from the Latin verb concomitari, so the prefix con, "with", and the verb comitari, "to accompany, to go with"

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harangue : nf. discours sérieux prononcé devant une assemblée ou une personnalité importante.

ex : Le général prononce une harangue devant ses soldats pour les motiver.

2/10 (at least I think? I'd never heard it before, but it might depend on the region you're in).

oration : a formal public speech delivered on a special occasion.

As always, harangue also exists in English with the exact same writing, but I translated it with something else because translation is hell!

It can also be used in a more familiar context, and in that case would refer to a boring or overly formal lecture, generally used as a negative term.

This one was borrowed from Italian! From arringa, "public speech" and earlier than that from arringo, "arena". These forms date back from around the 1300s, and interestingly enough, seem to come from the Gothic words hriggs and hring (earlier form), "circle, ring" (which may also be at the origin of the current English word ring).

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lucratif : adj. qui procure un gain financier

ex : C'est un organisation non lucrative.

8/10

profitable : which makes a profit, a benefit or an advantage.

You know the drill, lucrative exists, but I changed it to profitable for clarity!

Borrowed from the Latin form lucrativus, "lucrative, profitable, advantageous".

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iconoclaste : adj. qui est contre toute tradition, qui cherche à faire disparaître le passé.

ex : Cet artiste fut considéré toute sa vie comme iconoclaste.

1/10 but may be a bit more present in historic contexts, especially in art and religion history.

iconoclastic : a person who attacks accepted beliefs and considers them to be based on error or superstition.

The word is too exact for me to translate it with a more general term like I did with critère and archaïque.

Made from the Greek εικονα, "icon" and a derived form of κλαω, "to break".

It has a really interesting historical background with religion, you should definitely check it out if you have the time- I may make a post about it later but I have to do actual university work for once agh

Can also be a noun (iconoclaste, nm.), and in that case, it refers more often to the historical context than the definition we have of it today. That being said, it can still be used with the general definition above!

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différend : nm. désaccord causé par un opposition d'opinions ou d'intérêts entre des personnes.

ex : Le différend politique entre sa mère et son père amplifie les tensions au sein de la famille.

5/10

disagreement : the act, state or fact of disagreement; a difference of opinion.

Don't confuse it with the adjective différent!

Historically, it's a variation of différent, which comes from the verb différer, which was itself borrowed from the Latin form differens.

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archaïque : adj. qui est très ancien.

ex : Cet auteur utilise des tournures archaïques pour donner un air plus vieux à son texte.

8/10 if discussing literature, 2/10 if not.

antiquated : old-fashioned or outdated.

Yes, just like critère, the translation archaic exists but for the sake of clarity, I translated it by something else!

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nébuleux : adj. obscurci par des nuages ou du brouillard.

- ex : Le ciel est nébuleux ce soir. - 3/10 - cloudy : covered with clouds - Can also be said of something that lacks clarity, especially in the literary world. - Borrowed from the Latin form nebulosus, lit. "where there is fog", "like a cloud" and "difficult to understand"

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pérenne : adj. qui dure longtemps, qui dure indéfiniment.

ex : "Le monde n’est qu’une branloire pérenne." (Réf: Montaigne, Essais, Livre III, chapitre II.)

1/10

lasting : enduring or able to endure a long period of time.

Even thought the form of the adjective looks feminine, its writing is constant regardless of the gender of the noun it refers to.

Comes from the latin perennis, lit. "that lasts all year", "permanent".

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critère : nm. ce qui sert de base à un jugement, caractéristique à laquelle on se réfère ou sur laquelle on se base pour choisir, classer ou sélectionner quelque chose.

ex : C'est par ces critères qu'il portera son jugement.

8/10

standard : something used as a mesure, norm or model in comparative evaluations.

The word criteria also exists in English, but for the sake of clarity, I preferred to translate it by standard, even if criteria is closer in sense.

Critère can be used in a philosophical context as well, and is then something that helps distinguishing the true from the false. I definitely advise you to look it up if you don't already know about it and are interested by philosophy, it's pretty cool! :]

Its older form, critérium (taken from the latin criterium, which itself is taken from the Greek κριτήριον, lit. "capacity to judge") is still used in French texts until the 19th century. Nowadays, that older form is almost never used, but still exists!

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accalmie : nf. moment de calme temporaire après de l'agitation.

ex : Nous profitons de l'accalmie entre les deux batailles.

2/10

lull : a temporary interval of quiet or lack of activity.

Is often used in a sailing context, and would then refer to the calm between two big gusts of wind!

[daily-french-words]

Daily French words!

Intro:

Hi! I'm a French college student, and I study English literature and civilisation. I'm starting this page because I have a shit ton of extra French vocabulary to learn for exams, and it's a lot more fun to learn them through a tumblr page rather than just reading a piece of paper for hours!!!! All credits for the ideas for the first 160 main posts of this page goes to both of my French teachers this year, they're the ones who gathered up the lists- I obviously can't name them because I'd rather not dox myself (or them), but thanks!

Form :

(French word) : (French definition)

(example of the word's use in a French sentence)

(how common the word is out of ten, 1 being so uncommon people will look at you weird if you use it and 10 being common knowledge people will go "duh" at. please note this section will be the most subjective of the bunch and is purely based off my impression- the factors, such as social circle, time and place make it too difficult to have a more objective knowledge of how common said word is.)

(a possible translation in English) : (a definition in English because I like definitions)

(extra notes and precisions for context use, potential irregularities if it's a verb, other possible definitions, similarities, faux amis (see frequently used terms lower) or etymology because I'm a nerd)

Schedule :

Each week, ten words will come out : one each Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and two each Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday!

Posts will be uploaded around midday CEST, so between 11am and 2pm, depending how I schedule them/at what time I eat.

Extra requested words can be uploaded anytime from 6am CEST to 2am CEST (the next day).

Every main daily post will be gathered under the "main" tag, extras will be gathered under the "extras" tag, and other random posts I may feel free to upload about the most random college life shit ever (even if probably really rare) will be gathered under the "baguette" tag.

Things to note :

These words are not common! This is vocab improvement. If you're looking for basic knowledge of French vocab or common phrases, you may have to look elsewhere.

I sadly only speak two languages, English and French, so this blog is only accessible to people speaking one or both of these. If you'd like to translate it to other languages (especially since the additional notes are all in English, and a lot of notes and translations vary), feel free to do so but please DM me about it before starting the blog, and of course credit me!

If you'd like to request a word, do so through the page's asks! That's mostly useful if you'd like extra context on the word, its etymology or its history, or if you feel like it could be a cool word to be featured on this page. Of course, these extra words may take time to appear and will be scattered quite a lot through time since they require extra time and research, and I may refuse some of them if I don't think they'd be a good fit on here. Requests made through DMs will not be taken into account. Please only make requests through the ask feature, and wait until the asks open again if they're closed while I sort through them.

At the moment, I have 160 words, so enough content for four months (see schedule above to see how I count them). I cannot guarantee this page will update with the same schedule or update at all once I run out, depending on whether I still like doing it by then or prefer to stop. If it does stop updating though, I will leave all the posts up because knowledge is knowledge, and I may pick it up once in a while if I ever get bored and want to have fun with it again or if the asks supply me enough to sustain the page.

Frequently used terms (that you probably know already but I want to make sure everything is clear):

n. : nom/noun

nf. : nom féminin/feminine noun

nm. : nom masculin/masculine noun

nn. : nom neutre/neutral noun (we probably won't encounter any, but just in case, I'm putting this here!)

v. : verbe/verb

adj. : adjectif/adjective

sy. : synonyme/synonym

ant. : antonyme/antonym

litt./lit. : littéralement/literally

faux ami : expression that refers to a word that resembles another one in the same or a different language but that differs largely in sense.

About sources:

For most definitions and translations, I use the online Larousse dictionary (https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/), the Wikitionnaire (https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/) and WordReference (https://www.wordreference.com/).

For etymology and word history, I use a mix between the Wikitionnaire and the Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicale (CNRTL)'s website (https://www.cnrtl.fr), along with paper versions of etymology dictionaries.