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    Forms of Address

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    Ousmane
    This document discusses forms of address in French. When speaking to someone, French uses titles alone such as "monsieur", "madame", and "mademoiselle" without capital letters. French uses titles more often than English in direct address. Titles are also used in French in some cases where they are not used in English, such as with teachers and lawyers. When speaking about someone, the definite article must be used with their title in French, such as "le docteur" or "la princesse".

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    Forms of Address

    Uploaded by

    Ousmane
    21 views3 pages
    This document discusses forms of address in French. When speaking to someone, French uses titles alone such as "monsieur", "madame", and "mademoiselle" without capital letters. French uses titles more often than English in direct address. Titles are also used in French in some cases where they are not used in English, such as with teachers and lawyers. When speaking about someone, the definite article must be used with their title in French, such as "le docteur" or "la princesse".

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    Forms of address

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    This document discusses forms of address in French. When speaking to someone, French uses titles alone such as "monsieur", "madame", and "mademoiselle" without capital letters. French uses titles more often than English in direct address. Titles are also used in French in some cases where they are not used in English, such as with teachers and lawyers. When speaking about someone, the definite article must be used with their title in French, such as "le docteur" or "la princesse".

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    21 views3 pages

    Forms of Address

    Uploaded by

    Ousmane
    This document discusses forms of address in French. When speaking to someone, French uses titles alone such as "monsieur", "madame", and "mademoiselle" without capital letters. French uses titles more often than English in direct address. Titles are also used in French in some cases where they are not used in English, such as with teachers and lawyers. When speaking about someone, the definite article must be used with their title in French, such as "le docteur" or "la princesse".

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    of 3

    Forms of address

    Only those forms of address in frequent use are included here; titles of
    members of the nobility or of church dignitaries are not covered; for the
    use of military ranks as titles Military ranks and titles.

    Speaking to someone

    Where English puts the surname after the title, French normally uses the
    title alone (note that when speaking to someone, French does not use a
    capital letter for monsieur, madame and mademoiselle, unlike English Mr
    etc., nor for titles such as docteur).

    good morning, Mr Johnson


    = bonjour, monsieur

    good evening, Mrs Jones


    = bonsoir, madame

    goodbye, Miss Smith


    = au revoir, mademoiselle

    The French monsieur and madame tend to be used more often than the
    English Mr X or Mrs Y. Also, in English, people often say simply Good
    morning or Excuse me; in the equivalent situation in French, they might
    say Bonjour, monsieur or Pardon, madame. However, the French are slower
    than the British, and much slower than the Americans, to use someone’s
    first name, so hi there, Peter! to a colleague may well be simply bonjour!,
    or bonjour, monsieur; bonjour, cher ami; bonjour, mon vieux etc.,
    depending on the degree of familiarity that exists.

    In both languages, other titles are also used, e.g.:

    hallo, Dr. Brown or hallo, Doctor


    = bonjour, docteur

    In some cases where titles are not used in English, they are used in
    French, e.g. bonjour, Monsieur le directeur or bonjour, Madame la
    directrice to a head teacher, or bonjour, maître to a lawyer of either sex.
    Other titles, such as professeur (in the sense of professor), are used
    much less than their English equivalents in direct address. Where in
    English one might say Good morning, Professor, in French one would
    probably say Bonjour, monsieur or Bonjour, madame.

    Titles of important positions are used in direct forms of address,


    preceded by Monsieur le or Madame le or Madame la, as in:

    yes, Chair
    = oui, Monsieur le président or (to a woman) oui, Madame la présidente

    yes, Minister
    = oui, Monsieur le ministre or (to a woman) oui, Madame le ministre

    Note the use of Madame le when the noun in question, like ministre here,
    or professeur and other titles, has no feminine form, or no acceptable
    feminine. A woman Member of Parliament is addressed as Madame le
    député, a woman Senator Madame le sénateur, a woman judge Madame le
    juge and a woman mayor Madame le maire. Women often prefer the
    masculine word even when a feminine form does exist, as in Madame
    l’ambassadeur to a woman ambassador, Madame l’ambassadrice being
    reserved for the wife of an ambassador.

    Speaking about someone

    Mr Smith is here
    = monsieur Smith est là

    Mrs Jones phoned


    = madame Jones a téléphoné

    Miss Black has arrived


    = mademoiselle Black est arrivée

    Ms Brown has left


    = madame Brown or (as appropriate) mademoiselle Brown est partie
    (French has no equivalent of Ms.)

    When the title accompanies someone’s name, the definite article must be
    used in French:

    Dr Blake has arrived


    = le docteur Blake est arrivé

    Professor Jones spoke


    = le professeur Jones a parlé

    This is true of all titles:

    Prince Charles
    = le prince Charles

    Princess Marie
    = la princesse Marie

    Note that with royal etc. titles, only 1er is spoken as an ordinal number
    (premier) in French; unlike English, all the others are spoken as cardinal
    numbers (deux, trois, and so on).

    King Richard I
    = le roi Richard 1er (say Richard premier)

    Queen Elizabeth II
    = la reine Elizabeth II (say Elizabeth deux)

    Pope John XXIII


    = le pape Jean XXIII (say Jean vingt-trois

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