French word of the week: frais

Every week, French language learners come to our blog to improve their vocabulary and get to grips with some useful, albeit sometimes complicated, new words. This week, we’re looking at frais.

We recommend listening to the audio clip below to hear the masculine form of the adjective:

Now have a listen to the next audio clip to hear its feminine form, fraîche, which sounds quite different:

As mentioned, frais is mainly used as an adjective in French. In English, it means fresh, chilled or cool. The second audio clip might help you remember the meaning, as it sounds a bit like someone saying ‘fresh’ in a French accent!

While this word does also have some uses as a masculine noun (which we’ll cover later), you’ll mostly see it as an adjective, a ‘describing word’, in one of these four forms. This is because French adjectives have various spellings to agree with the noun they describe:

• Masculine singular frais
• Feminine singular fraîche
• Masculine plural frais
• Feminine plural fraîches

When you see everything in context, it’s really quite simple. Here are some examples of frais in everyday use as an adjective:

des légumes frais fresh vegetables

du café frais fresh coffee

des boissons fraîches chilled drinks

se boit très frais (best) served chilled (you’d see this phrase on a fizzy drink can or bottle in France)

Prends ta veste si tu vas sortir, il y a un vent frais ce matin. Take your coat if you’re going out, there’s a chilly wind this morning.

Ces pommes sont trop mûres, j’en besoin des fraîches. These apples are too ripe, I need fresh ones.

Attention à l’eau ! Elle est très fraîche ! Beware of the water! It’s very cool!

We did note earlier that frais is also a masculine noun, but what we haven’t yet mentioned is that the meaning changes depending on whether it’s singular or plural. When frais is plural, it won’t look any different at first glance, as the word already ends in -s. You’ll need to look out for other clues, such as the context, the articles des or les, or the plural forms of any adjectives used to describe it:

• le/un frais (singular) fresh air; a cool/chilled place

Il n’y avait pas assez de place au frigo, donc j’ai dû mettre le vin au frais dans le salon. There wasn’t enough space in the fridge, so I had to put the wine in a chilled place in the living room.

• les/des frais (plural) fees, charges, expenses

On ne peut pas payer les frais élevés, ils sont trop chers. We can’t pay the higher fees, they’re too expensive.

des frais scolaires school fees

à grands frais at (a) great expense

That’s all for this week, but we’ll be taking a fresh look at another word next week! We hope to see you again soon.

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.