--- title: French compared with English — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «French compared with English», a lesson of the language course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: French is English's closest neighbour in words: after 1066 French-speaking rulers poured thousands of words into English, so when you learn --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/35-french-compared-with-english/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/) / French compared with English # French compared with English Lesson 35 of the language course of Mova's primary school: 12 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/language/35-french-compared-with-english/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/35-french-compared-with-english/0/) — French is English's closest neighbour in words: after 1066 French-speaking rulers poured thousands of words into English, so when you learn French you already know a lot of it. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/35-french-compared-with-english/1/) — But French does some things its own way: Zoe learns "la table" is feminine and "le livre" is masculine, and wonders if tables wear dresses; they don't, it's just a grammar label. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/35-french-compared-with-english/3/) — Watch out for false friends, words that look English but mean something else: ask a French baker for "pain" and you get bread, not hurt. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/35-french-compared-with-english/4/) — French also has many varieties around the world, from Paris to Quebec to West Africa, and none of them is "the only correct French". - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/35-french-compared-with-english/6/) — 70 in French is "soixante-dix" (sixty-ten), 80 is "quatre-vingts" (four twenties) and 90 is "quatre-vingt-dix" (four twenties ten); in Belgium and Switzerland people say "septante" for 70 and "nonante" for 90. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/35-french-compared-with-english/7/) — False friends look like English words but mean something different: "pain" means bread, "coin" means corner, "librairie" means bookshop and "raisin" means grape. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/35-french-compared-with-english/8/) — Most French adjectives come after the noun: "une voiture rouge" is "a red car", word for word "a car red"; a few common ones like "petit" (small) and "grand" (big) come before. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/35-french-compared-with-english/9/) — French "tu" is the informal you, for friends and family, and "vous" is the polite or plural you, just like Ukrainian "ти" and "ви". - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/35-french-compared-with-english/10/) — Many French endings are written but not said: "ils parlent" (they speak) sounds like "eel parl". - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/35-french-compared-with-english/11/) — English uses whole French phrases: "rendezvous" (a meeting), "déjà vu" (already seen, the odd feeling of having lived a moment before) and "bon appétit" (enjoy your meal). - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/35-french-compared-with-english/12/) — In Quebec, in Canada, "C'est l'fun!" means "It's fun!"; Quebec French has its own words, accents and expressions, like the different kinds of English. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/35-french-compared-with-english/14/) — After 1066 many English words for law, the army and cooking came from French, like "jury", "lieutenant" and "chef". - ← previous: [Mandarin compared with English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/34-mandarin-compared-with-english/) - next →: [Grammar puzzles, part two](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/36-grammar-puzzles-part-two/) - ↑ back to [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/)