demander
to ask
Jean a demandé de l’argent.
Jean asked for some money.
AVOID THE TEMPTING MISTAKE!
Demander means to ask, not to demand. As you can imagine, making that mistake when translating the example sentence above could make the difference between casting Jean as a polite young man or a robber!
THIS WEEK
We have an especially useful topic for you. While French and English have many cognates — words that are derived from the same root word and consequently look and sound a lot alike — these words sometimes have similar meanings but other times do not. When they don’t, they are called false cognates and can provide plenty of pitfalls for language learners.
This week, we’ll share some of our favorite false cognates with you to keep you from falling into the trap of translating incorrectly.
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