Lesson 01 verbs

accepter

to accept

[Don’t accept a golden scepter if you are a president of a democratic country.]

aimer

to like, to love

[Cupid is a good aimer for those who love each other.]

annuler

to cancel, annul

apporter

to bring

[Can you ask a porter to bring up my suitcase?]

attraper

to catch

[A trapper has to be good at catching their prey.]

augmenter

to increase, augment

bavarder

to chat

[I hate it when a blow-hard, who has had too much Bacardi, bombards me with chatter.]

casser

to break, shatter

[I lost my Green Bean casserole when I dropped the dish on the floor and it shattered.]

chercher

to look for

[“Sonny, Sonny, what happened to you?” “Cher, Cher, I’ve been looking for you since the late 70s.]

commander

to order, command

couper

to cut

[What a “coup” when the mechanic cut me a deal on some Cooper tires.]

danser

to dance

[In France to dance is the answer to melancholia.]

déjeuner

to have lunch

[It is so jejune to skip having lunch, the de facto most important meal when you’ve gone hungry through the night and morning.]

demander

to ask, demand

dessiner

to draw, design

[I make a mess in there if I try to draw, when I can barely sign my name.]

donner

to give

[George Donner gave his name to the group, but did not give his body to be eaten by the other survivors.]

emprunter

to borrow

[My typewriter malfunctioned and typed double Ms. I had to borrow a red pen to M prune errors. What a terror.]

enlever

to remove

[When I voted years ago, I had to pull an lever to remove someone from office.]

étudier

to study

[Imagine if someone had an accent that dropped the letter s from words. Study that phenomenon and compose an etude about it.]

exprimer

to express

[I had an old reading book, and ex-primer, that expressed outdated views about English grammar as prescriptive rather than descriptive.]

gagner

to win, to earn

[I have an aunt with the surname Gagnon, probably from a family who earned their living by farm laborers.]

garder

to keep

[I used to keep a garden, but I couldn’t guard my garden any more than I could keep it.]

habiter

to live

[It’s been our habit to live in the midwest, though we did inhabit New England for a decade.]

laver

to wash

[It would be improper to enter a Catholic church and to wash your hands and face in the laver on your way in.]

manger

to eat

[I wonder if the animals tried to eat the baby Jesus laying in the manger.]

mériter

to deserve

[A “meriter” is a deserver of merit. But merit is not a measure of aptitude or intelligence.]

oublier

to forget

[He would forget what he was doing, totally oblivious to the world.]

porter

to carry, to port

prêter

to lend

[The praetor lent a hand to manage a provincial territory, while the prester served without circumspect as a priest.

refuser

to refuse

regarder

to watch (give regard to)

[A soldier on watch has to guard and re-guard the perimeter.]

saluer

to greet

[A private salutes a drill sergeant as a greeting, but privately toasts — not with a tea — a “Salute!” to his ill health.]

sauter

to jump

[The vegetables jumped as the chef flipped the sauté pan.]

tomber

to fall

[The archaeologist tumbled into the tomb and fell on his face.]

travailler

to work

[I used to have to travel to work where I would travail. Good thing I only had to cross the street, though I was still often late for work.]

visiter

to visit (a place)

[I’m a frequent visiter to the bathroom. I visit it before I leave the apartment.]