Another week, another French word – welcome back to our blog! Today’s word is nul. Listen to the audio clip below to hear how to pronounce it:
The most important thing you need to know is that today’s word is rubbish! Seriously, nul does indeed mean ‘rubbish’ (in the sense of something that is not very good). Nul can also mean bad, stupid, useless or nil, among other things.
As nul is most commonly used as an adjective, its spelling changes depending on the gender and quantity of the noun it describes. In French grammar, we call this adjectival agreement:
- Nul – masculine singular
- Nulle – feminine singular
- Nuls – masculine plural
- Nulles – feminine plural
For more information on everything to do with adjectives, see our Easy Learning French Grammar section on adjectives.
Let’s take a look at some examples of nul in action as an adjective. You might notice here how the same French word can translate as many different (largely negative) English words. Depending on your delivery and tone, it can also come across even more harsh than the words in our examples…so be aware of this when using this word in conversation:
J’ai lu son nouveau roman, c’est nul. I read her new novel – it’s rubbish.
une peinture nulle a rubbish painting
un bulletin nul a spoilt ballot
un film nul a bad film
un procès nul a null trial (in a legal setting, meaning invalid)
faire match nul to have a draw/tie
nulle part nowhere/anywhere
Ses idées me sont complètement nulles. His ideas are completely useless to me.
être nul en quelque chose to be no good at something
Marianne nous a dit qu’elle est nulle en géographie. Marianne told us that she’s no good at geography.
Tu serais nul en espagnol si tu n’avais pas passé l’été à Séville. You would be rubbish at Spanish if you hadn’t spent summer in Seville.
As well as being a common adjective, you might use nul as a noun, pronoun or determiner in certain contexts. For example:
un nul (nm) a tie; a draw (such as in sports, where both teams have the same score)
nul/nulle no-one; nobody
nul/nulle autre no-one else; no other
À l’impossible nul n’est tenu. You can’t expect anybody to achieve the impossible. / Nobody’s expected to achieve the impossible.
Nul ne sait pourquoi elles sont parties. Nobody knows why they left.
Nulle autre qu’elle n’en est capable. No-one except her is capable of it. / She’s the only one who can do it.
With another word under your belt, you’re certainly not useless at French! Thanks for reading and we hope you’ll come back next week to expand your vocabulary.
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.
