It’s that time again! Time to improve your French vocabulary and comprehension by learning a new word. This week, we’re looking at mauvais.
Listen to the audio clip below for its correct pronunciation:
To translate mauvais, its English equivalents are words along the lines of bad, poor or wrong. Mauvais can be both an adjective or an adverb, but most commonly an adjective. Because of this, you’ll also need to be aware of its feminine form mauvaise. For more information, visit our Easy Learning French Grammar page on adjectival agreement.
Now, the most dedicated fans of our blog might remember a piece about an adjective/adverb meaning exactly the same thing – mal. So if you haven’t already, you might also want to read our Word of the Week blog on mal.
To be very general, the main difference between the words is that while they can be both adjectives and adverbs:
- Mauvais(e) is more common as an adjective, in other words to describe a noun
- Mal is more common as an adverb, in other words to describe a verb action
Of course, there are plenty of exceptions to this, but that’s the very nature of learning a language!
We’ll start by looking at mauvais as an adjective:
avoir mauvais goût to have bad taste
montrer le mauvais exemple to set a bad example
se lever du mauvais pied to get up on the wrong side of the bed (figuratively)
Croyez-vous que ce soit une mauvaise idée ? Do you think that it’s a bad idea?
Ils sont partis dans le mauvais sens. They left in the wrong direction.
Je n’entends pas avec mon frère, il a mauvais esprit. I don’t get along with my brother, he sees the bad in everything/he has a negative outlook.
Tu as choisi le mauvais moment pour nous parler. You’ve chosen the wrong moment to talk to us.
Ce roman était vraiment mauvais. This novel was really bad.
Carter a eu une mauvaise note. Carter got a bad grade/mark.
« Comment ça va avec ta mère ? » « Pas très bien. Elle est en mauvaise santé. » “How are things going with your mum?” “Not very well. She’s in bad/poor health.”
As for the adverb, the most significant use of mauvais is in the context of weather and in terms of something smelling badly. The two verbs in particular where it’s used more often as an adverb are:
faire to do; to make (also to describe weather)
sentir to smell; to feel
You might often encounter these verbs alongside mauvais like so:
Il fait mauvais en ce moment. It’s bad weather at the moment.
Arrêtez de vous plaindre ! Il ne fera pas mauvais demain. Stop complaining! It won’t be bad weather tomorrow.
sentir mauvais to smell (bad) / to stink
Ça sent vraiment mauvais chez lui ! It really stinks at his house!
Thanks for reading this week’s blog. It’s certainly not a bad idea to keep coming back every week to learn about a new word – 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.
