Our blog aims to help boost your French vocabulary by learning about a word once a week. This week, we’ve chosen the word ami.
Have a listen to its correct pronunciation in the audio clip below:
As always, we’ll start by explaining the English translation (or translations) of our word of the week. The French noun ami means ‘friend’. But it does have further variation in meanings, which we’ll cover in our examples. Another complication is that ami can also be an adjective. In this grammatical function, it translates as ‘friendly’. A final point to note is that for both the noun and the adjective, you might also encounter plural forms or feminine forms:
- ami is the masculine singular
- amie is the feminine singular
- amis is the masculine plural
- amies is the feminine plural
If you’re looking to brush up on nouns and adjectives before reading on, you can visit our Easy Learning French Grammar pages. We have detailed information sections on nouns and adjectives.
Let’s take a look at some different contexts in which you might encounter the noun:
Michelle est ma meilleure amie. Michelle is my best friend.
Ryan est mon ami d’enfance. Ryan is a childhood friend of mine.
Tous nos amis nous ont rendu visite la semaine dernière. All of our friends came to visit last week. (note there that when it’s a mixed group of people, the masculine plural is used)
bon ami / bonne amie good friend ; close friend
petit ami boyfriend
petite amie girlfriend
« A-t-il un petit ami ? » « Oui, il s’appelle Zain. » “Does he have a boyfriend?” “Yes, he’s called Zain.”
un(e) ami(e) du théâtre a patron / lover / fan of the theatre
un(e) ami(e) des livres a book lover / a lover of books
un(e) ami(e) de la nature a nature lover
un(e) ami(e) des langues étrangères a foreign language lover
While the noun function of ami(e) is much more common than the adjective, it’s still important to see how the adjective might come up in conversation:
être ami(e) avec quelqu’un to be friendly with somebody
Nous nous connaissons du lycée. Nous étions très amies. We know each other from high school. We used to be very friendly.
J’avais beaucoup peur, mais quand j’ai entendu des voix amies je me suis détendu. I was really scared, but when I heard some friendly voices, I relaxed.
That’s all for this edition of our blog. We hope that the word ami might come in use for you soon. If you’re a true language lover, we’ll see you here again next week – maybe you could also tell your friends!
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
