Yet it works both ways...a French friend asked me "comment dit-on si en anglais?" Without thinking too much I said "if". A while later he was trying out his English and I asked, "aren't you coming with us?" His response was "If! If!" Of course he was thinking of the si meaning yes to a negative question. We all had a good laugh.

i made the error about "preservatifs", saying "je ne peux pas manger des preservatifs" in a speaking exam. my examiner looked like he wanted to die...

@davidm3493

4 жыл бұрын

MDR! mais je crois qu'on vend des preservatifs qu'on peut manger dans des magasins specialises! XD

@USERLOLAJOSEPHINE

4 жыл бұрын

😂🤣😂🤣😘

@da96103

4 жыл бұрын

It is correct isn't it? You don't eat preservatifs unless you bought the edible ones.

@nataliar9028

4 жыл бұрын

@@da96103 "preservatifs" means "condoms" in French, not "preservatives"

so we were learning about "bisous" in my french class one time and we had to learn how to properly use "Faire une bise". My teacher didn't tell us what "baiser" by itself meant (I suppose because she didn't want us to learn how to use it just yet lol). Anyways, after she gave us the lesson, we had to write a short love story in a few sentences in french that involved a kiss or une embrasse somewhere and then we had to present it to the class... Well.. me trying to be cute and mushy, I wrote about this guy who went on a date with a girl and I ended the story with "ils ont baiser". None of the other students thought anything of my ending, but my teacher shrieked and pulled me aside and cleared up that I have to use "faire" next time because (though the rest of the class hadn't noticed) my made up date ended with "they fucked".

@da96103

4 жыл бұрын

Doesn't the ending make the story more realistic. She should give you A+.

@charlyhoelte210

4 жыл бұрын

No joke. I made the exact same mistake. She just said: This means something different, but I‘m not going to translate it. 😂

@gill426

4 жыл бұрын

ATTHS 😂👍🏻 A+ content! I'm honestly so looking forward to teaching classes. I'll probably hear a lot of funny mistakes!

@orangemoon6009

3 жыл бұрын

Good to know this, I’m going to take french in my sophomore year so now I know not to accidentally say “they fucked”

@davidbolton9538

3 жыл бұрын

It’s certainly what could have happened. :-)

At a soirée (YEARS AGO, so I'm a little fuzzy on the details) I was telling a story (in French) about our family ranch back home. I was trying to communicate that there were wild turkeys that lived in the woods around my house. I said "Il y a des dindes faroche dans les forêts près de chez nous" to which the room erupted in laughter. Apparently I said some about sexually ferocious women inhabiting the nearby woods. All the men were asking where (exactly) I lived!

My best mistakes: trying to tell somebody where I live and confusing "j'habite" and "ma bite"(mydick). Trying to get direction to "la gare" but pronouncing it "guerre" (war)the man replyed " le guerre ?! Le guerre?!? Boom! Boom! Le guerre! , c'est la gare" that scared the crap out of me because i didnt know what i had said. Oh at then there was the time i asked to "pet" some ones dog.... She said no. Pet means fart in french...

@ThiHills

8 жыл бұрын

jazzyisme Once I said "Moi, m'habite" (ma bite) au Brésil, lol. My french friend laughed at me and said that it'll always be "J'HABITE", never M'habite, cuz "ma bite" means "my dick". Well, I think La gAre and La GuErre sound very different.

@jazzyisme

8 жыл бұрын

I had only seen la gare written down so was guessing the pronunciation

@nanalove3819

8 жыл бұрын

+jazzyisme in french the pronunciation of an "a" is always like in "la gare".

@poolidoor

8 жыл бұрын

+jazzyisme gare à la gare dare dare ;)

@megx0522

8 жыл бұрын

+jazzyisme hahahh this is hilarious, learn from you

A friend of mine used excité when he sent his first email to his host mother XD

Ughhhh no wonder when I was videochatting with a French person she smiled when I said je suis excitee...........

@Commeunefrancaise

10 жыл бұрын

Ahah Bea !

@nicoflight3982

3 жыл бұрын

@Max Norbeau 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I'm learning SO MUCH from the comment section! 😂

I went into a cafe with my friends once and ordered 'du chocolat chaud avec la creme foutue...', when I was actually wanting to ask for whipped cream! My friends laughed so much, and even the waitress thought it was funny.

@sylvie77230

9 жыл бұрын

Vicky Watson Dear Vicky, I just burst into tears, laughing not because it was a ridiculous thing to say but because it is actually terribly funny. French people are rather spontaneous, they do not realize it can be considered as offensive, we do not intend to hurt someone's feelings. We are not being rude- at least- we simply are not aware we are. You probably felt embarrassed but believe me people who laughed never thought you were ridiculous. Hope I managed to explain the way we react. Anyway if you picked the wrong word it is probably because the word you needed was pretty similar (fouettée instead of foutue) and terribly difficult to pronounce. Love from a French woman who has very often made a fool of herself while speaking English.

@felix25ize

9 жыл бұрын

Vicky Watson Just picture yourself the obeying waiter saying "Yes ,madam" and f...ing the cream in front of you before serving it ! loooool!

@matteo.belmonte

4 жыл бұрын

felix25ize | Lmao, I never laughed so hard due to a comment. That’s comedy gold! 🤣🤣🤣

The literal English translation of "Je suis pleine" is "I am full," but in French it means "I am pregnant." My friend made the mistake of saying it to her Parisian boyfriend's parents over dinner. Zut alors!

I asked a friend of mine what the word for "cellphone" was in French... He told me it was "godemiché." A few days later, I asked a stranger, "Puis-je utiliser votre godemiché, s'il vous plaît?" Talk about awkward...

@dgphi

9 жыл бұрын

You need better friends.

@FanNy-ku6wt

9 жыл бұрын

Excellent. I soo could have done such a thing. It's wrong, but funny.

@KettiexD

9 жыл бұрын

***** googled godemiché... I'm so sorry

@lifeoftheunicornsandmakeup8289

8 жыл бұрын

😂 omg I can't stop laughing

@DavidSolomons

8 жыл бұрын

+Ceaser Madrazo Maybe your friend uses cellphones like that. Advice: don't borrow his cellphone LOL

Speaking in French is difficult because at least half the words have some kind of sexual connotation

@larchange1657

3 жыл бұрын

^^

@cockeyedoptimista

3 жыл бұрын

Very funny.

Once an American colleague of mine told me "j'ai fait le cul pendant une heure". I took me a while to stop laughing and then to understand that she meant "J'ai fait la queue pendant une heure"

My son is almost bilingual, we live in the US. As a teenager he used to tie his hair in a pony tail. He is now corporate and therefore clean cut . We were visiting France and an ex summer girl friend looking disappointed asked him in front of every one “ mais qu’est ce qui est arrivé à ta queue de cheval”. He blushed like crazy as he thought she was complaining about the break up and talking about their past intimacy.

wow. I am SHOCKED at this video. I’ve made some of these assumptions and mistakes, thankfully not in public. Thanks so much for this!

DAMMIT ... i've been using that sense of 'introduire" for a long time .. no one ever corrected me. Good video.

@Difdauf

7 жыл бұрын

If you like to "introduire" your friends, it's your right. Who are we to judge you.

Hahaha I'll never forget the first time I said "Je suis excitee!!" To my French teacher as a kid! (Not a native speaker but in French immersion since grade 1). So funny. She set me straight and saved me future embarrassment!!

@prabhuking9264

7 жыл бұрын

melissastorn lol ;)

My French teacher, who was the most wonderful woman, told us some of her funny memories with such mistakes. One was that she said "Le repas est très bien assassiné!" and everybody fell silent because she mixed up 'assassiné' and 'assaisonné', the latter meaning "seasoned" and the first one meaning "murdered". ;) And the other thing I remember was a student trying his absolute best to describe that his friend had "beautiful blue eyes" and ended up saying "il a des jolis œufs bleus" instead of "il a des jolis yeux bleus", "œufs" means "eggs" and in German (we're German), "eggs" means "nuts", so to speak, I think you catch my drift. ;D In going to be a teacher too and I'm honestly so looking forward to these things happening in class. 😂

I spent my junior year of high school in France. When asked what topic I was planning to present for science class I said: "les preservatives!"

haha the Vaseline thing was so strange to me. when my friend asked what brand my Chapstick was and I said Vaseline his face was like 😳🙊🙊🙊. but why would you use that...?! hahaha.

I just subscribed today and love your videos. Packed with valuable lessons. I’m so grateful I found your channel. Merci encore! 🇫🇷

I mixed up vous and vu. The sentence i was trying to say was..."I would like a room with a view" The roaring laughter made me realise something was wrong. For me quite often it is my pronunciation that gets me in trouble... "chiot and Chiottes"

@cockeyedoptimista

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the two new words.

My mother, who used to be s french teacher, told me of this funny mistake. The student wrote a paper about a man visiting a tribe in Africa. The tribe was clearly happy and content with their simple life. The student therefore wrote "Les Africains vivant heureusement en Afrique". It became a bit racist ;)

Very interesting......merci beaucoup...

I have said many many times (at school, in my French class) "Je suis chaud" I'm so embarrassed now haha xD I'll never do it again xD

@Elisuki

9 жыл бұрын

Hahahaha x)

When I was enrolled in a Parisian school of architecture, we often pinned up our work for group critique. As the prof went around the room, he accidentally skipped over my work and went to the next student. Afterwards, I complained to another student that "le professeur m'a sautée." The look I received made me realize what I must have actually said.

@delphzouzou4520

4 жыл бұрын

So funny.

@theShaunus

3 жыл бұрын

Yup - I guess the right thing to say would be "le professeur m'a sechee"

so helpful please make more of these

I recently started to watch your videos, currently taking french on school, and find your videos very useful ! keep up the work, they are really entertaining !

Merci pour l'explication 😃

Super utiles ces vidéos, merci

Oh my goodness. I visit France every year and talk to many non English speaking friends of my mother's. They are wonderfully patient and correct me, but I guess they have sat tittering under their breath with some of my gaffs. I have made some of these mistakes you've mentioned, every time I've been. It's amazing I haven't been barred from the country! Thanks for the tips. :)

Merci beaucoup...this is fantastique!

merci Geraldine!

Very good explanation.

great channel, learning and loving it

I just came back from France two weeks ago and had two embarrassing experiences. I've been speaking French more or less proficiently for 40 years, but most of my practice has been in the states. In Montpellier, I bought some books at the FNAC in the Centre Polygone. At the caisse, the attendant asked me about their frequent-buyer program. That's one of those things in which you receive a card with a bar code and gain points for each purchase. I had absolutely no vocabulary for that. I figured out what she was talking about but had no idea how to respond. I must have looked mystified, because the woman said, in very accented, very slow English, "Do...you...speak...French?" I explained, in French, that I spoke French, but had no idea what she was talking about. She dismissed me with "Vous êtes de l'étranger, alors." I hope I received some points for at least speaking French. My other situation was in Bordeaux. One of my high school students left her brick back in Montpellier. That's the word she used for the cube that plugs into the outlet and you plug the USB charger cord for your cell phone into it. I had no idea what the French word was for that thing. We went into an Orange or some place like that. I should have known what I was getting into when I first spoke to a man who listened to me, then asked me to wait for a "spécialiste." First, I used the French word, "cube" to no effect. Then I explained, in French, what the device did. The "spécialiste" looked at me with hooded eyes and said, "un réchargeur?" I was totally embarrassed. Of course, I knew the word for charger. I just wanted the cube. Apparently either thing is the same word in French. I've made five trips to France in the last five years. I know I make mistakes all the time in my speech. But I know I speak better French than 99% of Americans who visit France. And the vast majority of French people I meet are just happy I can communicate in their language. Many offer corrections to my spoken French, in a very kind way. But every once in a while you come across people who are bored with their job and unhappy, or they are pretentious pricks. All in all, I'd have to say there a much higher percentage of those kind of people here in the states than in France (mostly the bored and unhappy sort). Give me a pretentious French prick over an American asshole any day.

@rosinecarail2420

7 жыл бұрын

Michael Heitz franchement j'aurais galéré à expliquer aussi pour le chargeur, faudrait dire "donnez moi un chargeur mais pas la partie qui va dans le téléphone, genre juste la partie qui va dans la prise" et encore c'est pas sûr qu'ils comprennent à Orange

Merci beaucoup ! C'est utile

merci bcp!!!

Great video ! I loved it and I had a good time. Thanks Geraldine :)

Merci !

I really enjoy your videos!

I have Vaseline for lips care in France in my bathroom. It's normal for me and my french boyfriend understands. But each time, we invites our french friends to our place, he has to hide it well. He mentioned this, but I've just got it clearly from this video. Merci !!

I thought this would be one of those useless videos that you find on blogs, but this was so helpful and funny!!!! Thanks!!

j'adore, merci

One day when I was speaking with the House Keeper for the family I au pair for I wanted to say "Je suis en colère" but on accident I said "Je suis enculer" Thankfully french is not her first language either, so she laughed at me and taught me the correct pronunciation

Très utile. Merci :)

Salut! Madam Your very good teacher. I just want to say thank you very much.

Thank you again

The first sentence I said in French (to french people) was: J'aime ma chatte.... Yep, basically I just love my vag xD

@johndepaula

5 жыл бұрын

OMG, I hadn't heard that one before. Hilarious!

@pussinboots9983

4 жыл бұрын

Cat is chat!

I loved your video... I was laughing almost all the time. Congratulations ! I'm already subscribed

Well I find it funny when French people pronounce the word "focus." I was watching a French person give an American some tennis lessons and he kept saying what sounded like "f*** us, f*** us." It wasn't the WRONG word, just an interesting pronunciation!

Hahaha my dad told me when he went to france he made half of the mistakes that were talked about in this vid!! xD

@Commeunefrancaise

9 жыл бұрын

BriannasPlanet :D That happens A LOT.

@krasimirdimitrov7252

9 жыл бұрын

Comme une Française c'est parce qu'on n'est pas habitué avec les coutumes françaises :) lol

@woihjsd

8 жыл бұрын

+Comme une Française So it is common enough that people will understand what you mean? Or some may be in shock still?

merci beaucoup

❤❤love this video!

Whoops! I have made a couple of these errors! So glad you cleared these up, merci!

I'm fluent in Spanish and some years ago was just beginning to learn French. I was at a family party and was dancing with my best friend's mother, who was about 65 at that time. I accidently stepped on her foot and I said, "Pardon, je ne volais pas te pisser le pied. LOL. I had translated from "pisar" in Spanish, to step on. You can imagine the look I got. En fin...

@luzmartinez8264

4 жыл бұрын

How si you say “step on” in French?

Merci

My worst gaff was when I told my French guests that I had visited the house of the young girl Bernadette at Lourdes, & that she had seen the "VERGE" when I should have said "VIERGE" very little difference in pronunciation!

merci pour des lecons agreable et tres utile! Subscribed!

@Commeunefrancaise

9 жыл бұрын

Josephine Yu Super !

@Palm20dd

8 жыл бұрын

ah non! chuis Coreenne! mais mon nom 刘 a l'origine chinoise :)

this is cool! didn't know many of them, but LOOOL..

Super funny and super professional, Géraldine !! xo

Comment as tu réussie à garder ton sérieux ?? 😂😂😭 merci aux anglophones pour nous faire autant rire. On vous aimes 😊

merci

Hello professor Bonjour professeur Thank you so much for your interesting courses l follow you attentivelly in order to improve my English and my French. I love your way of teaching and excellent explanation. I wish you peace and happiness under the sky of prosperity. Your Student from Algeria.

This is great! Subscribed ^^

you are a unique person. thanks for the headsup :)

XD! tres amusant! rather I know before I travel to France.... J'adore la façon comme vous expliquez.

So helpful, funny. It’s all about culture.

My apologies for such a nit-picky comment, but I feel that I should point out that the 'h' in 'honest' is not pronounced. Most times, the letter h is, but not in this case. Thank you for your fine work, Madame.

@Commeunefrancaise

10 жыл бұрын

Merci Jeffrey. I try to work on my pronunciation but some words remain very difficult. :)

@jeffreysommer3292

10 жыл бұрын

I don't blame you a bit, Madame; English is a highly irregular language, particularly in pronunciation. However, I expect your English is better than my French.

@cockeyedoptimista

3 жыл бұрын

A little French accent is more charming than being perfect. I did notice that "h" in honest, too. Didn't occur to me to comment; it just made me think how she was probably trying to pronounce all the h's even tho they don't in French, and ironically, that h is silent! English is a hard language.

Je suis un français qui apprend l'anglais, et j'approuve totalement ce message !!

I’ve only just found this website - it’s excellent, well done Geraldine. I have two stories of things like these ! Even today my French isn’t brilliant but many years ago I wanted to ask how much something was. I said something like “Qu’est que c’est la coute” which, with my awful pronunciation, did not sound good. Another time was when my wife was feeling very unwell whilst on holiday in France. She thought she might be pregnant and I had to go to a pharmacie and try to buy a pregnancy test kit - not very easy with poor French !!

Salut! Une fois j'étais avec mon copain et ses parents sur la plage à Fréjus. J'ai voulu dire mais pour quelque raison ma bouche m'a trahi. J'ai dit

well done

Thank you 😂 funny and very clear. I’m Russian, living in France the 4th year.

You look like Anne Hathaway. 🙈

@pmearsh

6 жыл бұрын

yes, she does!!!

I have made several of these mistakes. My students LOVE those stories, and they will remember the "funny" phrases all year.

Geraldine, common usage in ANY language is a minefield! English (as used in England, and possibly;y in Australia) is FULL of this sort of thing. Being an old (80) student of colloquial as well as correct English I'd be happy to help you try to get around them, if you find a problem BTW (apart from any interpretation of "tu es chaud") I enjoy your posts. :-D I fell foul of this sort of thing when I first went to study Architecture in England. I wanted to rub out (another one!) a pencil line and asked my fellow students if they had a rubber. Turns out the Poms call it an "eraser". A "rubber" is a condom.

Haha, the video was very fun to watch! As for me, I did a silly mistake where I tried to describe my French teacher only in French, and I said that she had "les yeux blancs (white eyes)." Because the word "blanc" sounds like "black," I mixed them up. Her reaction was priceless as she repeated, "Blanc? Les yeux blancs?"I then laughed and said "les yeux noirs."

@rosinecarail2420

7 жыл бұрын

Narata "je comprends pas, vous me dites que votre prof à les yeux blancs ?" "Hé les gars ! On cherche une prof de français aveugle !"

Merci Géraldine, oui, j'ai commis certaines de ces erreurs !! :-((

Most these things are the exact same as in Portuguese, love how our languages are more similar than I imagined.

I was in Paris and I would often say "Je suis excité..." until my friends starting laughing at me and correcting me. Once I understood the meaning I was cracking up at myself too! LOL.

no until now , because I do not have some one to practice french with (I do it with my self ) but I belive I will make thousands of mistakes through my journey into learning

Excellent. You might be amused by an anecdote from many years ago but which we never let my sister forget: After a meal at our French friends' house they asked her if she wanted some more to eat. "Non merci" she said "je suis pleine" mdr ;-)

@Commeunefrancaise

10 жыл бұрын

:)

@richieinca

9 жыл бұрын

The same actually works in English on the other side of the pond. You don't say "I am full" in the UK, it means "I am pregnant" .... lol ;-)

@DavidSolomons

9 жыл бұрын

Richard Holaday Not that I am aware of, not in the UK, .... it just means I've eaten enough.

@DavidSolomons

8 жыл бұрын

+Margaret Menlove "J'ai assez mangé" is more common

@racheldurrant5336

8 жыл бұрын

+Richard Holaday It's Ok in England to say "I'm full" ... it just means you've had enough to eat.

When trying to remove a splinter from my hand I once told somebody "je dois chercher une tenaille, j'ai une pine dans la main". I now know it is an "epine", with an accent aigu on the first e, not a "pine", which is a male sexual organ.

@PhilGreatParis

5 жыл бұрын

so funny, really !!! lol

@atomicdancer

3 жыл бұрын

My favorite Hollywood actor at the moment is Chris Male-Sexual-Organ. He played Captain Kirk, in the newer 'Star Trek' movies! 🖖

merci! ✌ 💙 🔥

J'ai trop rigolé ! =D

Je découvre tout juste ta chaine je suis tombée ici par hasard. Je suis Française mais j'aime bien tes explications ^^

@Commeunefrancaise

10 жыл бұрын

Merci Alysone S. Watermelon :)

Oh my god I made mistake number 2 in one of my French lessons last year. My teacher pointed it out and we were both pissing ourselves- we couldn't stop laughing and its something I'll remember forever 😂

Run through the comment section and learnt a lot. I feel equally embrassed even by reading those embrassing moments you had. Thanks for sharing though. This is a very good comment section, thank you all.

Hahaha...the first time I stayed at my boyfriend's (now my husband) holiday home I made a mistake with "preservitif".We were talking about une baguette...and I said the reason they go stale so quickly is because they don't have preservatives! I didn't know the right word then....so it was a source of many laughs...and still is now...fortunately my French is a bit better now...although, by no means good....but I am taking lessons with you Geraldine!....😂

ah je suis très heureuse de trouver votre youtube! je vais aller à France à la fin du mois et vos videos sont très intéressants et utiles (et je suis désolée si mon français ici n'est pas très bien, je suis en train de l'apprendre!)

@manuelluis5456

9 жыл бұрын

Viens à Saint-Laurent du Maronis ( L'île du Diable) ou St. Joseph.) en Guyane française.

@Tyboth35

9 жыл бұрын

hkcuto Tu écris plutôt bien. Par contre on ne dit pas votre youtube mais plutôt votre chaîne youtube, on dirait "en France" parce que c'est un espace, et plutôt "à l'école" "à la maison" pour des points précis. "Vidéos" est féminin donc les vidéos sont intéressantEs. Tu écris mieux que beaucoup de français déjà (pas difficile en même temps). Je te souhaite un bon séjour.

do you have a video for how to dress while visiting France/Paris?

Imagine that a French guy walks into a UK pharmacy and sees some Vaseline

@gabrielasper1645

7 жыл бұрын

When I was in Liverpool, I saw a shop called "SIDA". In French, this word means "AIDS".

@rosinecarail2420

7 жыл бұрын

Léa ! En fait Penneys c'est Primark

Your vlogs really help and motivates me a lot to learn the language further. I like them all. New subscriber here. Plus you look pleasant. 💖 you look like Anne Hathaway of hollywood and Sue Ramirez an actress here in the Philippines. Ciao.

My French is not great bc I haven’t really tried, but my knowledge from high school helped me learn Romanian. Early on, while staying with a host during a mission trip, I was trying to as for an Iron for my shirt (Pot avea un fier de CALCAT (iron of ironing) pentru cămașa mea?) but used the term CACAT instead. The mom of the family was embarrassed and mad. I was mortified. Merci beaucoup pour vos videos, elles sont tres utiles.

Les Québécois, on fait souvent l'erreur de dire "Je suis excité(e)" pour dire qu'on a très hâte à propos de quelque chose. Même à la télévision, c'est une expression que les gens disent beaucoup...J'essaie vraiment de sortir ça de mon vocabulaire :D

I was with my French boyfriend and he said "Allons-si!" So just because I was excited [the french language really needs a word for being excited in the English way] I shouted "Allons Si Si" & he looked at me in shock and said not to say that, it had a sexual meaning, though he never explained what it was!

Une fois, quand j'allais à l'université, une fille de ma classe m'a prêté ses notes pour une matière, et je lui ai dit : merci beaucoup, t'es très bonne ! Elle a rit et m'a dit qu'elle comprenait ce que je voulais dire mais que j'aurais du dire plutôt « gentille »...

Thanks for the warning. My mom was right next to me.

I thought the word "con" in French had to be an Americanism for a convict. My assumption proved wrong.