If you translate place as “place”, you’ll get lost very quickly in France. In English, “place” is simply un endroit, un lieu. But in French, place almost never means that.
It can be a square: Une jolie place au centre du village. It can be a seat number: Votre place est la 27B. It can be your usual spot: C’est ma place habituelle au bureau. And it can mean room/space: Tu veux venir ? Il reste une place dans la voiture.
So when someone tells you Mets ce livre à sa place, they’re not asking you to choose a location , they mean “put it back where it belongs”.
A tiny word, but a very useful one to master when living in France.
Do you want to progress in French ?
I’m a native French teacher with 16 years experience university level at Budapest Corvinus University.
Really? How interesting. To me, at university means at an unnamed unspecific university, at the university means a specific one.
eg What’s Gaston doing now? He’s in France, studying languages at university.
vs What’s Gaston doing now? He’s in Nantes, studying languages at the university.
A fascinating and hitherto unsuspected by me example of what GBS had to say about England and America.
For people in the UK “He’s in college” will have differing and very specific meanings depending on context, due to the fact that few British universities are collegiate, and to the other fact that stand-alone sixth form (not university) is called college, and other places as well (also not university).
I have 16 years of experience teaching French at university level.
I also worked for more than 10 years as a journalist for French and British media, which allows me to offer truly engaging classes on French history, culture, and politics.
On top of that, I’m very patient, easy‑going, and also serious and professional.
And if you know any complete beginners: my spoken English is very good, as I lived in the US when I was a child.
I disagree. The Oxford English Dictionary lists 39 discrete meanings for the word ‘place’. In this instance, it seems that the English language is just as nuanced as French.
I didn’t mean to suggest that English is less nuanced than French.
I just wanted to correct a very common mistake.
Many students, translating directly from English, would say:
“Paris est une place sympa,”
which would be “Paris is a nice place” in English, but in French the word place has a slightly different meaning, and we should say endroit or lieu instead.
That’s all I wanted to say , it wasn’t meant to look down on the English language or anything like that.
Good grief, all I want to do is order a bag of apples in French. I like my quirky mistakes and Dell Boy accent. I find it gets me a sympathetic hearing.
The short lessons from @Guillaume are very interesting and welcome even though they are promoting his service.
Don’t worry Guilliam about being corrected by @vero. If you have never had your posts corrected by Vero, you have never posted anything worth saying. She does sterling work keeping us on the straight and narrow.
I like my quirky mistakes and Dell Boy accent. I find it gets me a sympathetic hearing.