French Word of the Day

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Tuesday, August 3, 2010

blesser

to injure

Henri s’est blessé la jambe en jouant au tennis.
Henri injured his leg while playing tennis.

AVOID THE TEMPTING MISTAKE!
Blesser means to injure, not to bless. When we remember this, Henri gets attention for his injury — not for strangely bestowing blessings on body parts during a match!

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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Vocabulary Section: False Cognates, Verbs, Word of the Day