Advertisement

French word of the day: Franchement

The Local France
The Local France - [email protected]
French word of the day: Franchement

Once you've mastered the basics of French, there are a few little words that you can drop into conversation to really add emphasis and make yourself sound more local.

Advertisement

Why do I need to know franchement?

You can create a sentence perfectly well without it, but if you want to add a bit of oomph to what you are saying, this is a handy word. It's also very widely used in everyday conversation by French people, so you will hear it a lot if you're chatting.

What does it mean?

It means frankly or truly or in some contexts very or really. It's a word that really adds emphasis to what you are saying.

So if you're annoyed about something you could say Je suis colère - I am angry - but if you're really annoyed you could say je suis franchement colère!

Or Le moral est franchement mauvais - Morale is really low.

You can also use it to start a sentence - Franchement, elle est stupide - Quite frankly, she's thick.

 

Or even Franchement, tu m'emmerdes avec tes questions - Frankly, you're pissing me off with your questions.

Are there alternatives?

If you get bored of franchement but still need to be emphatic, some alternatives would be carrément, clairement, vraiment or diréctement.

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also