Are you ready to start off your week by learning the ins and outs of a French word? In this edition of our blog, we’re studying the noun chose.
As usual, it’s best to start by listening to how this word should sound in French:
Before we get into the meaning, we should first acknowledge what chose doesn’t mean. It looks like the English word ‘chose’, as in the past tense of something you’ve decided or selected, from the verb ‘to choose’. However, the French word is something completely different. Chose is a noun meaning ‘thing’, ‘object’ or ‘matter’.
As a feminine noun, you might see the articles une or la before the word. For more on this, you can visit our Easy Learning French Grammar pages on indefinite articles, definite articles and genders of nouns.
It’s not often that our word of the week simply has one direct meaning, but in the case of chose, its most common translation by far is simply ’thing’. That said, you might encounter the word in lots of different contexts as it is extremely common. Something it refers to something concrete, like an object or item. Other times it’s something abstract, like an idea or a matter. Let’s get into some examples:
Ce ne sera pas chose facile. This will be no easy thing.
Elle m’a dit que ce n’est pas une mauvaise chose. She said to me that it’s not a bad thing.
Désolé, je m’occupe d’une chose très importante en ce moment. Sorry, I’m dealing with a very important matter at the moment.
quelque chose something; anything
Tu veux acheter quelque chose ? Do you want to buy something?
quelque chose d’autre something else; anything else
une chose bizarre a strange thing
une chose intéressante an interesting thing
une chose incroyable an incredible thing
une chose triste a sad thing
With the word chose, it’s also very commonly seen in its plural form. To make a singular into a plural, you can usually just add -s to the end of the word. Remember that any adjectival agreement must now be both feminine and plural:
Elle va apporter beaucoup de choses ennuyeuses. She’s going to bring lots of boring things.
Est-ce que vous avez pensé aux choses sérieuses ? Have you thought about any serious things?
regarder les choses en face to face up to things
apprendre les choses de la vie to learn the facts of life
de grandes choses great things
Vos fils sont très intelligents. Je suis sûr qu’ils feront de grandes choses ! Your sons are very intelligent. I’m sure that they’ll go on to do great things!
Thanks for coming to read about our word of the week – learning French is no easy thing, but we hope that every time you read our blog, you feel your confidence growing! See you next time.
Written by Holly Tarbet, freelance copywriter and editor.
All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.
