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Need help French speakers?
Hello. I am sutdying French, and I think I might get confused on the verb faire. The reason being is because it can mean to make or to do, and those are two verbs in English that I have always differentiated (I'm a native English speaker). It kind of seems like they mean two completely different actions. Can somebody please explain how I can do this in a more simplified way (like how babies learn language; intuitively) AND could you also use the verb in sentences and do an English translation as well? French is my second language and I have studied a lot of Spanish too, but I never really liked it because it doesn't have the unique pronunciation that French does and I love how French is more like English in a lot of ways. Merci!
2 Answers
- Anonymous8 years agoFavorite Answer
Hi!
"Faire" generally means "to accomplish", it is commonly used when an English speaker would use "to make":
Les enfants ont fait un château de sable = the children have made a sand castle.
Tu fais des fautes d'orthographe = you make spelling mistakes.
But it is also often used to mean "to do"
Elle fait ses devoirs = she does her homework.
Actually those two English verbs are, at least in the beginning, hard to use correctly for a French speaker since in French we have "faire" which is more multi-purpose.
As to a learning method, it is true you have to use your intuition like a baby, but also, as an adult, you must use your common sense and take the whole context into account, not just separate snippets. In any given language, sentences are more than words stringed together: they express ideas.
Source(s): Native French speaker :) - DoethinebLv 78 years ago
You are getting confused only because you are making literal translations of French expressions rather than using them in their natural context. If you look at the examples on this link, you will see that make and do are in effect the same thing in French. Practise them and get used to them and you will find that there won't be any confusion. http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/faire.htm
