With another week comes another French word – welcome to our blog! To help expand your vocabulary, we’re going to learn about the word avis.
Listen to the audio clip below for the correct pronunciation:
As for the translation, avis is a masculine noun meaning ‘opinion’ or ‘view’ in most cases. However, there are other options in different contexts, including ‘notice’ or ‘warning’.
When we turn a singular noun into a plural in French, one of the most common ways of doing this is adding an -s. But avis already has an -s at the end of the word – it never changes spelling in the plural. In this case, you’ll need to look out for plural articles preceding the word, like les or des.
For more information, check out our Easy Learning French Grammar section on articles.
We’ll start with examples of the first type of translation, related to having an opinion or point of view:
à mon/ton avis in my/your opinion
à son avis in his/her opinon
exprimer un avis to express an opinion
être de l’avis de quelqu’un to share the same view as someone; to agree with someone
Il nous a avoué qu’il est de votre avis. He admitted to us that he agrees with you.
être d’avis que to be of the opinion that
contre l’avis de quelqu’un against someone’s advice/opinion
changer d’avis to change your mind / opinion
J’attends que qu’elle change d’avis ! I expect her to change her mind!
Il faut demander l’avis d’un expert. You need to ask for an expert opinion.
In contexts where this translation doesn’t quite seem to make sense, you’ll need to consider the other possible meanings of avis:
avis au public public notice
avis de tempête / d’orage storm/flood warning
jusqu’à nouvel avis until further notice
avis de recherche wanted notice; missing person appeal
sauf avis contraire unless you hear anything different/anything to the contrary
sans avis préalable without prior notice
avis favorable a favourable / positive review
J’ai dû poster un avis négatif sur ce restaurant. I had to post a negative review of this restaurant.
With a deeper understanding of the noun avis, could you use this information to work out the meaning of its related verb, aviser?
aviser to advise; to inform; to warn; to notify
aviser quelqu’un de / que to notify somebody of / that
Élodie nous a avisé qu’elle va arriver en retard. Élodie informed us that she is going to arrive late.
Congratulations on learning the ins and outs of our French word of the week. We think it would be very wise for you to come back next week for another word – but that’s just our humble opinion!
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.
