French vocabulary

I won't try to deny it, but French vocabulary is probably more important than grammar. Fluency, on the other hand, is how someone carries the whole package together. Grammar is like the architecture—without it the whole building falls. Vocabulary is like the materials: the better materials you get, the better buildings you can build. Fluency, then, is how the whole thing is put together, and involves the intricacies—the nuances, of the language.

I wouldn't say that learning French vocabulary is easy. It's probably far easier than Japanese, or Korean, however. When learning a new language, I subconsciously try to find similarities between my strongest language (English) and the language I'm learning... and boy, I've got to say that similarities between Asian languages and English are few and far between.

Now, I'd like to ramble more and pretend to be the language master that I'm not, but I'm gonna try to talk about certain things I've noticed...

False cognates
libraire—bookshop
actuel—current
monnaie—small change (yes, it's money, but we use argent to refer to money en general)
chair—flesh (fauteuil, or chaise is used to refer to chair)
course—races (not really a false cognate, because it also refers to course; faire des courses: do grocery-shopping)
robe—dress
sang—blood

Similar words
toilette—toilet
épouse/époux—spouse
amour—love
morose—gloomy
lieu—place
soudain—sudden
lien—link, bond (doesn't alien mean somebody without bonds?)
ligne—line
sang—blood (sanguine anyone?)


Direct translations (sort of)
surtout—above all (sur: above; tout: all)
parfois—sometimes (par: by; fois: time, occasion)
malheureuse—unfortunately, unhappily (mal: bad; heureuse: happy)
en general—in general (en: in, preposition)
en ligne—online (en: on, preposition; ligne: line)
longtemps—long time (temps: time)

Words that have hardly any link
bibliotheque—library
pécheur—fisherman
magasin—store
pomme—apple
vert—green
apitoyer—pity

There are probably many other words, but these are stuff I can write off my head (and bien sur, with the help of Google Traduction). I'm definitely not a maître de langue, but there many things that interessent moi—the fact that langue means both "language" and "tongue". Now, when you talk about mother tongue... and speaking in many different tongues, it makes a lot more sense, doesn't it? ;)

All the best to any language you're learning. Wish me all the best, too. Would trade French fluency for my left nut.

Why "Je t'aime", and not "J'aime toi?"

I'm not really good at French or anything like that; I'm still learning, and trying my best. Right now my French standard's pretty low, I can perhaps make out the gist of a news article, but nothing other than the gist. This article from About.com would give a rough idea about your fluency of a language (any language, not just French!), and right now I'd think that I'm still a survivor... moving on to a conversationalist!

Alright, so aimer in French means to love. One of the first few phrases I learnt in French was j'aime jouer le foot, which basically means "I like/love to play soccer". And then, from a beginner's point of view, to make a sentence "I love you" in French, it would simply be j'aime toi.

• Je is shortened to J' because it is followed by a vowel.
• Aimer is conjugated to become aime.
• Toi means you.

However, apparently j'aime toi is wrong! I didn't understand this until I learnt about reflexive verbs: je me lève (I raise myself, i.e., I wake), je me lave (I wash myself)... in these case the word me refers to myself! From a beginner's point of view, I never knew such a sentence structure existed in French... I always thought it had to be "[subject] [verb] [object...?]". I never knew it could be "[subject] [object] [verb]"!

Indeed language is very surprising. Je t'aime would then consist of the following:

• Je, which means "I".
• Te (you) is shortened to t' because it is followed by a vowel.
• Aimer is conjugated to aime (taking je into consideration).

Another way of saying "I love you" in French would be je t'adore, but I've no idea which one expresses a deeper sense of affection. For that, you have to ask someone who's better in French, someone who knows the nuances and subtleties of the language. I'm just learning and trying to share my experience right here, and I doubt any of it makes much sense anyway!