Il nous a fait un déjeûner au poil
Il nous a fait un déjeûner à poil
Il nous a fait un déjeûner au poil
Il nous a fait un déjeûner à poil
There you go Véro, making me loose all hope of ever learning French!!
Deepl is confused as well coming up with “He made us a naked lunch” for both, Google does better with “He made us a delicious lunch” for the first (sorry Deepl fans) but went back to “He made us a naked lunch” for the second whereas I assume the better translation would be “he made us lunch (while) naked”.
Thankfully WordReference has both in its list of phrases.
Perfect!!!
Is the cooking utensil not spelt “poêle”?
Yes but we’re not talking about pots and pans, rather the difference between “au poil” = great, fantastic and “à poil” which means in the buff.
That’s une poêle (à frire)
Un poêle is a wood burner or petrol heater
Au poil means perfect marvellous expertly done
À poil means naked
If you’re dishing out things for a group, or measuring out something eg transferring a large quantity into smaller containers and it’s spot on, you say there is pile-poil the right amount
I just wish I could remember it all… (especially the naked bit😉)
Ah ok gotcha I hadn’t heard “au poil” before! Pile-poil yes but not au poil!
Me neither, I had to look them up.
B irritating trying to remember which was masculine and which feminine.
Several words like that in French
moule (masc = mould, fem = mussel)
tour (masc = tour, fem = tower)
poêle as mentioned
mémoire (masc = dissertation or thesis, fem = memory)
livre (masc = book, fem = 1lb)
There will be loads more, no doubt - those are just he ones I can think of quickly.
À poil devant le poêle à bois!
Sadly, not remembering especially the naked bit seems to be a sign of ‘maturity’.
One which caught me by surprise was “inhabitation” . A contract to rent an apartment stipulated a maximum inhabitation of one month, meaning non-occupancy (it turned out)
Makes sens if you think about it.
words that are the same in french and english, but have slightly different meanings include: “terrible” and “special” as mentioned, but also “important”.
Then as mentioned “fort” or “costaud” as a politer way of saying “fat”.
I’ll see if I can think of others…
Yes indeed, important is a good one as it CAN mean much the same in both languages but most of the time it seems to be a lot closer to something like “significant” or “notable”…
Éventuellement……doesn’t mean eventually, but more “in the event that X happens”
Effectivement…not quite the same as often used v sarcastically!
But the one that took ages to get into my head was “it’s a shame”, as always wanted to say c’est un dommage. And it’s just c’est dommage.
I guess that’s a more straightforward faux-amis rather than something which *might* mean the same as the similar English word, but usually does not.
To go with your example - éventuel does not mean “eventual” but “possible” (from which it is then logical that éventuellement means “possibly”).
Here’s another one to catch you out découvrir, can means discove, but “discovered” is only one possible meaning of découvert.