It’s time for another French word of the week! If it’s your first time with us, this blog aims to improve your vocabulary by looking at the finer details of a word of our choice. This week, we’ve chosen the word travers.
Take a listen to its pronunciation in the audio clip below:
It’s very common for French language learners to try to translate words by thinking about the closest English word – but this doesn’t work very often! We call these similar words ‘false friends’. In this case, you might think the English word ‘traverse’ could be related to travers. And to an extent, you’d be right! In certain set phrases, it can translate as ‘through’ or ‘across’, which is close to the idea of ‘traversing’ something. However, in other contexts it can translate in very different ways.
Travers is a masculine noun, but it’s rarely used alone like this. It often changes meaning depending on the prepositions you find it with – you’ll see plenty of examples of set phrases in our examples.
Here are the main uses of travers alongside prepositions, with examples in action:
à travers through; across; over
À travers les âges, on apprenait comment chasser. Over/Across the ages, we learned how to hunt.
Nous avons passé à travers la foule. We passed through the crowd.
Est-ce que tu peux me voir à travers la vitre ? Can you see me through the window?
au travers de through
Vous prendrez le chemin au travers des fleurs. You will take the route through the flowers.
Le vent passe au travers de ma veste. The wind is going through my jacket.
en travers de across (note that this is ‘across’ as in something blocking horizontally, for example, not across as in ‘over on the opposite side’)
Ils ont mis des cônes de signalisation en travers de la route. They put traffic cones across the road.
Ça me dérange quand mon chien s’allonge en travers du lit. I find it annoying when my dog lies lengthways across my bed.
de travers crooked; wrongly; askew
Mes parents avaient les dents de travers. My parents used to have crooked teeth.
Ce n’est pas ta faute s’ils comprennent de travers. It’s not your fault if they get the wrong idea / if they misunderstand.
J’ai remarqué qu’elle te regardait de travers. I noticed that she was looking at you with suspicion / was giving you the side eye.
We hope you enjoyed this week’s blog about travers. If you’re up for another journey through French vocabulary, please come back next Monday to learn all about a new word!
