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I lived in Nantes in college with my girlfriend's parents. One night as Madame went to bed I said " á tout á l'huere! " I meant to say "see you tomorrow" but everyone was shocked that I said "I'll see you in just a bit."

"Where the weed at prof?" "Excuse me?" "You heard me"

The "merci beau cul" made me laugh so hard hahaha! Thanks for sharing this with us.

Is just me, or do all these have some sort of sexual connotation in French? I guess it's not called the language of love for nothing.......

My sister was doing her residency as a physician at McGill Hospital in Montreal. McGill is an English university, so most of her patients were anglophones, but one day she was treating an older francophone fellow with heart trouble. My sister's French is fairly good, but she gave up trying to use it after that day. She wanted to ask him how far he could go before getting out of breath, but she said, "Combien de vierges pouvez-vous faire avant de perdre l'haleine?" He nearly (literally) died of laughter.

I love these faux amis between English and French. I was a jeune fille au pair in France in my teens. I had had a haircut that was too short and I hated it. Finally, though, my hair had grown enough to scrape it back into a ponytail. Delighted, I bounced into the kitchen, where the grandmother of the family was drinking coffee. She was very nice but very refined and 'comme il faut'. 'Voyez, Madame!' I said, excitedly. 'J'ai un cul de cheval!!!' She just pissed herself laughing. Finally, she managed to tell me that I actually had 'une queue de cheval' and not - as I had told her - a horse's ass!

Why am I watching this I'm french

My wife told me how when she first moved to France that they had a problem with the water, it was running cold even though the pipes seemed to be warm. When the landlord came over she explained using her best guess, ''l'eau est froide, mais mes pipes sont chaudes." Great consolation I guess!!

You guys should never be afraid To speak french, most of us LOVE hear you speaking french. Really !!!! It's sooooo charming !!!!!! And these kind of mistakes are really funny by the way and we are understanding... Unless you are dealing with bad people 🤷🏻‍♀️. Lot of love from Paris😘

At school, I wrote in an essay, "Mes parent m'allowent á faire ce que je veux". So... I made up the verb "allower" meaning "allow" and then I conjugated it hahaha

Merci 'beau cul', that's hilarious. Reminds me of a double meaning for the expression 'gosses'. In France it means young children. In Québec it means 'testicles', really not the same!

I was in France talking to some friends of my husband (they're all french) and I was telling a story and was trying to say, "j'etais seule" which means "I was alone" but instead I said, "J'etais saoul" which means "I was drunk!" LOL ... we had a good laugh at that one. One good thing about making mistakes like that, you probably never make the mistake again! :)

I'm argentinian and many spanish speakers like miself don't make any difference between the v and the b (we pronounce both like b), so it's very commun to pronounce vite like bite :)

I remember when I was a teenager during a home-stay program in Normandie, my home-stay sisters and I took a train out to Rouen. we sat in a booth area and they were talking really fast that I could hardly keep up with the conversation. Then they started talking about some guy and I caught the words, "C'est un connard!" and I asked, "He's a duck?" LOL

The Frenchman I was dating at the time, while living in Paris many years ago, invited me to have dinner at his parents' home. At the end of the meal, his mother asked if I wanted anymore to eat and I responded "Non, merci, je suis pleine." At first, they looked a little shocked, but then laughed realizing it was a language thing. What I should have said is "Merci, mais j'ai bien mange' Apparently, by telling them "je suis pleine" I was saying I was pregnant! I've also learned "pleine" is used more when talking about animals. Mistakes can be very funny! I really enjoyed this topic. So glad I discovered your channel!

Not a mistake I made and not an English-to-French mistake, but once at a party a young woman from Canada was relating how she had to take her cat to the veterinarian for a skin condition which required its fur to be shaved for treatment. The woman very innocently declared, "Ma chate est toute rasée!" Two guys from France just busted out laughing when they heard that.

When I was in a one-on-one French oral exam in my university, I didn't understand what the prof asked. So to make her repeat the question, I said "quoi?" but she didn't repeat the question and just stared at me weirdly. After the exam, I told my French friends about it and they said I should've said "comment?" instead because "quoi?" might not be too respectful in the setting. I learned me lesson after LOL

Really funny ! Let's be kind with people learning our language. As a French, when I'm abroad I'm always happy to speak in English with other people but I'm even happier to speak with them in my mother-tongue and to hear how they bring life to it. What a pleasure to exchange with someone from Lebanon or from Africa in French. But I find that a lot of French are too impatient with foreign French-learning/speaking people and they correct them instead of listening to what they're saying, which is most of the time perfectly comprehensible.

Fun observation: split “beaucoup” and you get “beau” and “coup.” That means “handsome strike.”

Maybe the French girl has heard of the word "tardiness", like when you are tardy for class?

A true story: it is common in the USA to see coffees mugsbor shirts and things saying, "Kiss me, I'm Irish" or some other nationality. This gets extended then to other things. So a group of 8-year-olds in Wisconsin who were studying French were going to visit France with their school. The father of one of the kids owned a printing shop that also put words on t-shirts and he made t-shirts for all the kids in the group that were supposed to say, "Kiss me, I speak French," but instead he put "Baisez-moi, je parle français." So naturally the teachers had to decline the gift.

1. Love your videos, and you guys are adorable. 2. Once, in France, a waiter asked if I were finished with my meal. I responded, "Oui, je suis fini." He laughed.

Your lessons have helped me SO much! Please keep going, they are amazing! Love hearing your thoughts on politics and life in France also, thank you so much from Australia! :)

My teacher is sending us to you for semester. I'm already loving this as French is my fourth language under my belt... I find it so hard to speak but can read and listen with understanding decently. I took a semester of French previously and hated it. I learned Spanish before French and almost every class period I was yelled at for speaking Spanish by mistake. The worst was 'to sleep' and if I recall correctly any number but especially the 60 numbers.... I hope this year is not as embarrassing for me. I honestly do not look forward to speaking in front of everyone still but I do feel a little better after this video.

D'abord. j'adore vos vidéos! Elles sont géniales! Du coup, quelles expressions on utilise pour dire "How exciting?" et "I'm so excited "? Merci!

Years ago, a friend of mine went into a pharmacy for something because her cat had fleas. She said "je cherche quelque chose pour dépuceler ma chatte"

I once heard of an English cake shop that put up a sign to sell their "gateux"

Excellent, j'enseigne le français aux étrangers et je recommande souvent vos vidéos. Continuez !

My first time in Paris, I was dining at a restaurant and was speaking with a very friendly and accommodating server who was happy to practice with me. At the end of the meal, I accidentally said “Je suis fini” instead of “J’ai fini” or “J’ai terminé” (I’m dead/done for instead of I’m finished) and we had a very good laugh over it when he explained my mistake.

Je suis brésilien et j'aprends le français. Vraiment, j'aime cette langue. ❤🇫🇷 C'était très drôle! 😁 Merci! Vous êtes very cute!

Bonjour!.Je m'appelle Sara.I love watching your videos.They are really very helpful.Keep up the good work Mam and Sir.😊

I'm French, it was very funny seeing these mistakes about our language. I laughed a lot. great channel !

When I was living in Paris, we took a holiday to Provence. I was having dinner with some friends and I was talking about how fresh the food was. So I was saying something along the lines of the food was fresh and didn’t have preservatives. Well I learned that the word was conservateur not preservatif. I was saying the food had no condoms 😂

I was telling a story about when my then girlfriend and I got together (became a couple), but I didn’t know the verb, so I took a guess and said « quand on s’est accouplé ». I learned quickly this means « when we mated » or something that only animals do.

Hey there...please post other such videos on french mistakes... Believe me... THIS was the video I was looking for !

Y'all are so sweet but seriously where was the weed?🤣

My friend wanted to say that she had worked as a waitress, so she said, “J’étais serviette.” 😁

I love your channel! I am learning French now.

I had no comb for my hair while travelling by train: at the busy kiosk (Montréal) I asked in French for a beigne noir. I insisted after he said in French, we don't sell 'doughnuts' . I pointed to the black comb behind him and he rolled his eyes: "Ten cents". (And go away !).

merci beaucoup, this video really helps a lot.

I don't speak French but working with a number of French employees I kinda understand at most times though I couldn't reproduce any of those sounds. During one weekend we had a cook-off. The only non French attended was a Vietnamese who was study French. She claimed she her dish could last a a few days without refrigeration and proudly announced that there's no 'preservative' in it. It was like a magic word. Half burst out laughing, the other half cringed. We found later the word meant contraceptives in French.

guys you are great congratulations. je toujours prends grand plaisir a vous ecouter felicitations

In Spanish (I'm from Peru) we have the 'advantage' of having 2 verbs instead of one: SER-ESTAR (être). We can say: "Tu madre ES buena" (nice, gentille) and "Tu madre ESTÁ buena" (similar vulgar meaning as in French). 😊

Living in the McGill ghetto in Montreal where there are a lot of international students, I saw a posting which says "CHATTE PERDUE" and picture of a. Cat.

Very helpful!!

Wow! in Spanish is the same ! Mistake the translate from English 'I am excited' in Spanish but the french is the same ! Very interesting! Thanks

a funny mistake I make before was baiser vs baisser when asking to "lower the temperature" but I said "baiser la température" instead haha

Amusing. Reminds me that when someone asks me for a favour, I like to reply: Avec le plus grand des plaisirs (making sure I pronounce: déplaisir)

Recently in one my French class, I was trying to say “I forgot” but I said “je me suis oubliée”, because I was trying to translate from Italian ( my mothertongue) to French which apparently resulted in “I forgot about myself”

One more example on OI/UI. Many watch collectors regularly confuse between DUBOIS and DUBUIS. Both names exist in the watch industry (e. g. Roger Dubuis and Dubois-Dépraz), and both are very often mixed...

I found myself doing this even when I visited the UK. Such a difference within the same language, let alone between different ones!

Merci de telles explications! En étudiant le français, j'avais remarqué des quantificateurs utilisés pour exprimer une grande quantité d'objets, d'animaux, de groupes ethniques, etc. Par exemple, "beaucoup, plusieurs, de nombreux, bien de, énormément de, etc". Est-ce qu'ils sont les mêmes ou est-ce qu'ils sont différents?

Oh my god I finally figured out why a French woman I know always purposely says merci beaucoup with the "u" sound instead of the "ou" sound and always has a little smirk as she says it. It confused me because she's french so obviously she should know the difference between the sounds, but she's always saying it to us Americans who likely wouldn't always be able to tell the difference. I knew something was up but I didn't understand it until now. 😂

In Julia Child’s autobiography she talks about her sister coming to visit her in Paris and making lots of amusing errors. Her sister went to get hair haircut and wanted to know if they were going to shampoo her hair first. Instead, she said “voulez vous couper les chevaux avant ou après le champignon? “ Cut her horses before or after the mushroom? My favorite was when someone crashed into the back of her car. She must have figured that the French verb for crash was the same as English. She also chose the wrong noun for the back of her car. She told the police that the man “ a craché dans ma derrière “ (spit in her butt) My worst error was after a trip to Paris when I asked my French teacher if it was an insult to call someone a duck. She wanted to know why I was asking. I told her that I saw someone on roller skates run into a pedestrian who called him a “canard.” She explained that it was likely she used a more vulgar term that had an o instead of an a.

My student teacher, at dinner with his host family, explained the difference between a French tart and an American pie by telling the guests at table that an American pie was covered with a "crotte" , dog poop, instead of "croùte", crust. His fellow diners quickly recovered from the shock as they realized his mistake!

Merci c'est utile pour nous! Vos vidéos sont superbes.. Salut de l'Indonésie

I studied a paltry four years of French, and have found myself in maybe a half dozen situations where I had to use it, and now I'm afraid I may have spewed all kinds of suggestive filth at my inerlocutors.

Before I moved to France to become an English assistant at a school, my supervisor at the school suggested I send an email to the principal to introduce myself. I meant to say « j’ai hâte de vous rencontrer » but I accidentally said « j’ai honte de vous rencontrer » ! 🤣 I found out later that my email got spammed and he never actually read it anyway, so it was all good!

J'suis bilingue et je trouve vos vidéos trop cute ^^

As a Belgian American who always lived in Belgium, I can tell you we never say "baiser" for a kiss. This meaning is only on really old books. To kiss use the verb "embrasser" or "faire un bisou".

On my year in France as a student, I was getting used to using the subjunctive, unfortunately I was pronouncing ‘il faut que je fasse’ as ‘il faut que je fesse’... It took some a while for someone to point out what I’d been saying...

So I teach English in middle school in France and I made a mistake with 6e. I wanted to ask a kid if she wanted to try and I looked at her and asked: "Tu pus ?" instead of "Tu peux ?" The class of 12 year olds died and the little girl turned bright red. I realized my mistake immediately and apologized, then we all had a good laugh.

J’étais au resto et après le repas le serveur est venu pour débarrasser la table et je lui ai dit “merci pour tous”

I moved from Paris to Montréal when I was 13. So my accent is more French than Canadian. On a trip back to Paris I was visiting a long time friend. We stopped at a chemisier and I explained that I wanted a shirt that I could wear at work and then later, take off my tie for a cinq à sept and the shirt would still look good. My friend (a woman) and the clerk were astonished. In Montréal, a cinq à sept is an apéro or « after work ». In Paris, I learned that it is an encounter with one’s mistress.

I am currently learning french and honestly this woke up my anxiety again. The pronunciation differences are very slight almost unnoticeable. Yet you might get in trouble for changing the sound of a vowel. What a language!

Quand ma femme (Slovène) apprenait le Français, elle confondait souvent les verbes "atteindre" et "attendre" ou "attendre" et "entendre". Ce qui lui a value quelque situations amusantes comme entendre la lumière.

When you have had enough to eat in a French home, don't say "Je suis plan" say "Ca sufient."

Je suis maintenant retraité, mais il y a une dizaine d'années, j'intègre une équipe internationale dans mon entreprise. Mi français, mi allemands dont le responsable (Salut Klauss) qui revenait de quelques années passées en Angleterre. Il me présente à l'équipe et pense, je suppose, à la phrase "I'd like to introduce Gilles" et c'est devenu "J'aime bien introduire Gilles". Les français présents s'en souviennent encore. Un MDR généralisé qui a fait parlé de lui dans toute l'entreprise. "Beau" souvenir de ma vie professionnelle.

I was in the lab in france and wanted to know if there were preservatives to keep my sample fresh, so I asked if I could have a préservatif (just guessing it would be right). The person looked really shocked and wanted to know why I wanted to put a condom in my sample. (Preservative is conservateur in French).

Several years ago, I was taking a Spanish lady who worked for us to Chatillon-en-Bazois in the Nièvre. She began talking about "la mère de Mitterand" and suggested she lived in the town. She had totally mixed up Chatillon and Château Chinon where Mitterand had been "maire". She also gave us long story one day about "la surdité". Nobody could understand what she was talking about. It turned out she meant "la sécurité sociale". One evening, an English friend who was an English assistant in a French lycée, on the lights going out, ran out into the corridor and shouted "c'est peut-être une fusée" instead of "un fusible".

I went to France on a Rotary Scholarship so I was staying with families not in hotels. The first family-the guy was an optometrist. So I decided to say something that showed I understood like “oh a doctor of eyes.” Instead of “les yeux 👀” I said “les oeufs 🍳. “ They laughed for like 10 minutes before explaining to me what I did. I’ll never confuse the two again! 🤪

Merci a vous deux , j’apprend le français dés l’espagnol, mais c’est utile aussi l’apprendre dés l’anglais.

I arrived at One Fighter Wing RCAF in 1960 at the age of 12 with no French. My school friend and I were exploring gardens with rock walls near Longuyon. As we climbed down into a plot an elderly woman all dressed in black approached us. She looked at my friend and said something as she reached for his wrist. He pulled away and she croaked out 'quelle heure est-il' again. I said, she says you're going to 'jail' and we both ran off.

In university, our French prof was meeting some students early in the morning. I was running late, somewhat disheveled, and prof asked me, tu as mal aux cheveux?, to which I replied, Où ça? whilst patting done my hair, thinking that it was sticking up and a mess. Prof got a big laugh from that, because he was asking if I was hungover, and not saying I have bad hair. Learned that expression quick.

Someone asked me where the public restroom was. I wanted to tell her to go up the stairs and turn right, so I said, "Montez l'escalier et roulez á droite."

dessous and dessus is very hard to distinguish in listening ...with the fellow it's easier to hear a difference. many years ago before you were born there was French pop song while I was studying in Avignon "Il Fait Chaud" where the singer says the summer days are all the same....I didn't know c est pareil and heard separer.

a great embarrassing story - knew an American who'd been in France long enough to speak rather well who was helping another American who was rather new to France and the language..... this newbie got a sore throat and wanted a throat lozenge..... The more experienced speaker saw the opportunity to help his young friend learn some French, take care of himself and have some fun with him so he "talked" the new guy through what he should ask for at the Pharmacy..... He said, "what is the word for 'throat'?" - "Gorge....."; "what is something that is a help or support?" - "Soutien" - "So, you can say - J'ai besoin d'un soutien-gorge"..... I can only imagine what the person at the pharmacy must have thought and how embarrassed this young guy was that he had asked for a bra!

Yes, I mixed “cul” and “cou” in the language lab (many,many years ago) and the prof jumped in to correct me :(

A guy in England: "Ou est la booze", i.e. "where's cow dung"

I'm just learning french, but I can speak at an intermediate level in Spanish. When I went to Spain after high school for the summer, I wanted to tell a friend that I was so embarrassed (about another grammar/wording error), so I told him that I was "muy embarazada", guessing at the adjective. I got a big laugh and an explanation that I was probably not pregnant and needed to use "ponerse el rojo" (to put on the red) instead!! I really did put on the red!!

We need you, we need more of this videos and less books. lolololol thank you,. merci.

Funny, in Spanish too if you say "Tu madre está buena?" it has that bad connotation "..está bién?" is the right question.

i laughed so hard when you said "ta mere, elle est bonne" cause in spanish "buena" also means "hot"

In Normandy I found a rock with a bullet hole in it, presumably from the second world war, lazily calqued my thought and proudly announced, "j'ai trouvé un caillou qui a un trou de balle dans lui." Riotous laughter ensued all around. I found out later what I had actually said.

MERCI BEAU CUL. ahahah. moi je veux être un prof d’anglais en france aussi! il faut qu’on parle de ça. Pour que je puisse avoir de l'aide! je viens des états unis (à los angeles).

I get fille and fils mixed up. I had a friend who did not speak a lot of English, so I was practicing my French with her. I could understand most of what she said but I often wonder if she had a son or a daughter!

"bonne" in French, is nowadays short for "Bonne à baiser" (good to puck, if you follow me). Since it's such a basic word, the historical meaning is closer to the English one. By the way, did you know French speaking Belgians also have a hard time discriminating between "ou" and "u". If a bear is running towards you, do you "enfuis" (run for your life, flee) or "enfouis" (burrow, burry yourself )? "beuh" is shortened verlan for "beuh-er" (meaning "herbe", litterally weed). Be aware that "baiser" meaning also evolved. Molière (probably most famous historical French playwright) said something along the lines of "Ma fille, viens me baiser" which meant "my daughter, come kiss me", but nowadays it means "to duck" (if you don't get it by now, too bad for you)

When I went to France to visit my french penpal and her family I would always said “Ah oui j’entends” but I wanted to say “Ah oui je comprends”. The reason I made this mistake is because in Spanish (my first language) the word “to understand” is “entender” so I was translating from Spanish. So when I understood something I would always said “yes i hear” 😂 I literally said this so much but my french family never corrected me! 😂

i realized that my pronunciation of Merci beaucoup was "thanks nice ass."

In Spanish "bonne" is "buena" and if you say something like "tu madre está buena" it means "your mother is hot". If you'd like to know if someone is alright you'd have to use "bien". In Spanish we also have two types of the verb to be so if someone uses the other type instead of "está" and still use "buena" it would mean "is your mother nice?"

I started learning french 30 years ago from books (no internet for pronounciation at the time, i came to france as an au pair to perfect my french, then go on to work and live here pemanantly. In my first year here my bank messed up and took loads of charges off of my account, so i had to go sort it out. As you know, in english we pronounce all of the last letters of words, so i asked in my beginners french why were there so many strawberries on my account? "pourquoi il y a beaucoup de fraises sur mon compte"? fraises / strawberries, thinking that frais in plural would need the es at the end, but frais is already plural, my husband was next to me laughing like a lunatic when the bank clerk went to sort the mess out, to this day he will tell this story to anyone with half an ear !!

In Portuguese excité means the same thing as in French!

J’aimerais que tu prononces tous les noms de tous (ou presque tout) dès stations de métro, surtout les deux bouts de chaque ligne, car on voit ces noms souvent en changeant de ligne pour aller dans la bonne direction. Par exemple : Marie d’Issy, Porte de Clignancourt?, Porte d’Ivry, Marie d’Ivry, Edgar Quinet, Vaugirard, etc..J’en serais très reconnaissant. À+...🙏

Hahaha... The same in spanish... If english speakers want to say they are excited, they souldn't say 'excitado', because that word is used in a sexual context. Excited in spanish is 'emocionado'.

Funnily enough, it's the first syllable of dessous/dessus that I seem to have always been pronouncing incorrectly (/ɛ/ instead of /ə/). :)

I arrived in France at the transition to nouveaux francs. Hey everyone spoke in anciens francs. And somehow every thing cost cinq cent francs. Numbers are hard anyway but I was expecting cinQ cent. So while this was not a mistake per se. It took me a long time to be able know they were saying 500 francs. This must sound like VERY old news. And I don’t think in the 1960s “baiser” had taken on its current meaning.

My favourite mistake by a student was in Rio de Janeiro where my student wanted to say, "The trainee [female] has a master's degree." He thought that like in Brazilian Portuguese he could use the English word "trainee" but he of course pronounced it à la française and told me "La traînée a une maîtresse." My eyes just bugged out of my head.

"Merce! Beau cul!" et le conducteur a repondu, "Merci, je recois pas assez de compliments."

Great tips! Did you also know it is not correct English to say “on accident”?