We’re glad to welcome you back for another French word of the week! Today’s word is the noun partie.
Have a listen to its pronunciation in our audio clip below:
As we move on to the translation, it’s important to remember this can be a false friend, or ‘faux ami’. We know it feels very tempting to see and hear this word and assume it means ‘party’, but the noun partie has a diverse range of meanings in French.
In different contexts, partie can mean game, match, part, section, or indeed a party – but only in the context of a legal dispute or something to do with a negotiation, usually involving the law. This isn’t the right word for talking about a political party, and certainly not a celebration!
The only grammar point that you should know for now is that partie is a feminine noun. This means you might see it preceded by the indefinite article une, or the definite article la. If you need some extra help, you can review our Easy Learning French Grammar pages on working out the gender of French nouns.
To better understand how we might see this word used in everyday French, let’s look at some examples of partie in action:
Nous avons gagné la partie ! We won the match!
Voulez-vous faire une partie de tennis ? Would you like to play a game of tennis?
une partie d’échecs / de cartes / de bridge a game of chess / cards / bridge
J’ai appris les mots espagnols pour les parties du corps. I learned the Spanish words for parts of the body.
C’est une nouvelle série en trois parties sur la vie de Baudelaire. It’s a new three-part series on the life of Baudelaire.
Une grande partie de la population a du mal à payer le louer. A large part of the population is struggling to pay rent.
en partie in part
Mes frères sont en grande partie très amicales. For the most part, my brothers are very friendly.
faire partie de to be part of; to belong to
Ce livre rare fera partie de l’exposition à la bibliothèque. This rare book will be part of the exhibition at the library.
Les trois parties sont en procès avec leur employeur. The three parties are involved in a lawsuit with their employer.
In some of our examples, you might have also spotted the word spelled with an ‘s’ on the ending to make parties. You just need to add an ‘s’ to make this singular noun into a plural.
Now, it feels like that should be enough to get you feeling more confident with this new word. But this is just one part of the puzzle of French learning! We’ll see you next time for another instalment of our blog.
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.
