Hello language learners – welcome back to our weekly blog for French vocabulary! Today, we’ve chosen to study the word droit.
You can listen to its pronunciation in the audio clip below:
As we move on to the translation and grammar of this word, the complexities begin… Among its English translations are ‘right’, ‘law’ and ‘straight’. But droit is both a French adverb and adjective, as well as being a masculine noun. And with a small spelling change adding an -e on the end, it’s also a feminine noun with a slightly different usage. Such is the beauty of the words we choose for our French words of the week! Going into our examples of droit in action, we’ll go through each grammatical use to illustrate and help you understand.
First of all, using droit as an adverb:
aller tout droit to go straight ahead (literally)
aller droit au but to get straight to the point (figuratively)
se tenir droit to stand up straight (literally)
aller droit au cœur to touch someone profoundly (figuratively)
Now we’ll look at how you might come across droit as an adjective. Remember that it would need to follow adjectival agreement in this case:
- droit is the masculine singular
- droite is the feminine singular
- droits is the masculine plural
- droites is the feminine plural
ligne droite (f) straight line
angle droit (m) right angle
Je l’ai trouvé au côté droit. I found it on the right-hand side.
Est-ce que vous écrivez de la main droite ou la main gauche ? Do you write with your right hand or your left hand?
Tes frères sont très honnêtes et droits. Your brothers are very honest and straight-up.
One of its most common forms, the masculine noun, might be used a bit like so:
droit (m) law
droits (mpl) rights
Ma copine est très intelligente. Elle étudie le droit à la fac. My girlfriend is very intelligent. She’s studying law at uni.
être en droit de to have the right to
être dans son droit to be within your rights
Cette organisation défend les droits de l’homme. This organisation stands up for human rights.
Je crois que tout le monde devrait avoir le droit au logement. I believe that everyone should have the right to housing.
And finally, its feminine noun form, spelled like droite, might appear in everyday French in these types of examples:
droite (f) straight line; the right (hand-side)
sur ton/votre droite on your right
à droite on the right (in terms of position); right (in terms of direction)
à droite de to the right of
Il faut traverser la rue à droite. You need to cross the street on the right.
Thank for you coming to read our blog. We hope that learning a new French word every week will keep your skills on the right side of improvement and progression! See you next time.
