Welcome back to another edition of our blog! To expand your vocabulary this week, we’ve chosen to look at the verb envoyer.
To hear how to pronounce this verb infinitive, listen to the audio clip below:
Now, what does it mean? You might notice a word within it that you recognise – the English word ‘envoy’. An envoy is usually someone you send to deliver a message, who represents an organisation or government. From this, we might just be able to work out the meaning… The verb envoyer mainly means ‘to send’.
For the grammar fans among you, this verb might pose some problems. Envoyer is very much an irregular verb. In fact, while it’s part of a small group of verbs ending in -yer which follow a pattern to an extent, for example in the present tense, it has further complications in other tenses. The best thing to do is study and revise the verb table for envoyer – and you might notice some of these irregular conjugations in our examples below.
While we might use envoyer in different ways, it does however have one consistent point. It’s always a transitive verb. This means it needs a direct object to make sense. Ready for the examples?
envoyer quelqu’un chercher quelque chose to send someone to look for/to get something
Je l’enverrai chercher un taxi. I will send him to look for a taxi.
envoyer quelque chose à quelqu’un to send something to someone
envoyerun e-mail à quelqu’un to send someone an email
envoyerune lettre à quelqu’un to send someone a letter
Mon amie m’a envoyé un texto. My friend sent me a text.
Est-ce que tu enverrais une lettre à Monique ? Would you send a letter to Monique?
Le professeur l’envoie chez le principal. The teacher is sending him to the headteacher’s office.
envoyer quelqu’un balader / promener to send someone packing (an informal, metaphorical saying)
envoyer un ballon to throw a ball
envoyer une gifle àquelqu’un to throw a blow at someone; to hit someone
Finally, we’ll take a look at its related noun. While it might look close to ‘envoy’, which we previously noted, the meaning in French isn’t quite the same:
envoi sending; delivery
envoien cours sending in progress (like you might see on an email platform)
recevoir un envoi to receive a delivery
Nous avons reçu votre envoi ce matin. We received your delivery this morning.
That’s all we have for this week’s blog on envoyer. If you enjoyed reading about this verb, maybe you’d fancy sending it to a friend? Either way, we hope to see you here again next week!
