In our weekly blog, we study a common, useful and interesting French word to improve your vocabulary and understanding. This week, we’ve chosen the word si.
It’s certainly a small and short word, but it has lots of different uses. Have a listen to its pronunciation below:
Now that you know how it sounds, get ready to hear plenty of it! It’s an everyday word in French that you’ll come across very often in writing and speech. The conjunction si means ‘if’ in English.
Any polyglots or language-learning fans among you, it’s a common mistake to get the French si mixed up with the Spanish ‘sí’, meaning ‘yes’– so do be careful if you’re learning multiple languages at once. (More on this later…)
While you might think that it should be fairly obvious where you might need to use si when speaking and writing French, it’s still worth looking at some examples:
Je ne sais pas si elle nous rejoindra. I don’t know if she will join us.
Si on t’avait vu, on ne serait pas partis. If we had seen you, we wouldn’t have left.
Nous allons voir si c’est toujours possible. We’re going to see if it’s still possible.
si tu veux ; si on veut ; si vous voulez if you like/want
si seulement… if only…
et si… and what if; how about; what about…
Et s’il disait la vérité ? What if he was telling the truth?
Now that you’ve got the conjunction sorted, we’ve got a surprise for you. In French, you can also use si as an adverb to mean so or such (in the sense of really or very). Let’s see how this works:
Je m’ennuie ! Ce jeu est si facile. I am getting bored! This game is so easy.
Ma tante était si malade qu’elle ne pouvait plus manger. My aunt was so ill that she could no longer eat.
C’est un type si calme. He’s such a calm guy.
Now for the final point of interest. Earlier on we warned you to avoid mixing up the French ‘si’ with the Spanish word for ‘yes’, sí. While this is a valid warning, there is in fact a completely separate usage of si in French which is much closer to this translation.
While this doesn’t exist in English, so might feel hard to pull off naturally in French conversation, you can also use the adverb si to mean yes. You can only do this when you’re asked a question in the negative and want to respond in the affirmative to that point. Trust us, it sounds more confusing than it really is…
Here are some examples:
« Tes amis ne sont pas arrivés. » « Si ! » “You friends haven’t arrived.” “Yes, they have!”
« Vous n’aimez pas les chats. » « Mais si. » “You don’t like cats.” “Yes, we do.”
« Je pense que tu ne veux pas me parler… » « Que si ! » “I don’t think that you want to speak to me.” “Oh, but I do!”
Sorry for all of the surprises with si in this week’s blog – we did say that it was a little word that’s got such a lot to it. Hopefully you’ve learnt everything you need to know, but if you need a refresher, you can always revisit the blog to make sure you’ve got it!
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.
